Mommy, does American fly to Heaven? in OD

Terrorists viewed the World Trade Center as the financial heart of the United States. Two gleaming towers of greed and arrogance. Two phallic odes to unadulterated capitalism. Two 9-5 homes of infidels. Two targets.

It was a masterful attack. They took advantage of our open doors, lax security and corporate love of the bottom line. The INS couldn’t stop them. The FAA couldn’t stop them. The 27-year-old Colombian with no high school education and only the barest grasp of English couldn’t stop them. Their plan was more successful than they dared dream, and it put a serious dent in an already struggling economy.

Americans, though, are survivors. We thrive on drama. We bounce back from tragedy and adversity with nary a scratch to show for our troubles. We eat terrorists for breakfast. And with the families of the World Trade Center victims demanding to profit considerably from the deaths of their loved ones, it’s clear that Osama bin Laden and his ilk haven’t won. Money still makes our world go ’round, and heals all our wounds.

The destruction of the WTC and 2800 of its inhabitants is unique in the history of American disasters. When large-scale disaster hits the United States, it’s the double-wide set who usually feels the effects. Tornadoes rarely sweep through East Hampton, and Oklahoma City isn’t exactly the Midwestern SoHo. But now, the victims are primarily middle-class white people who rarely have had to struggle for anything. Tragedy to them was having to attend two years at SUNY Albany before transferring to Cornell, and they don’t understand why they should have to change how they operate. It’s a strange day in America when Sharifa the Welfare Queen (D-Bronx) and Astrid the Domestic Goddess (R-Hopewell) share the common bond of extending their hands in ancipation of compensation they don’t deserve.

Millions of Americans die each year. Drunk drivers kill them. Rampaging, psychotic former co-workers kill them. Cancer kills them. Cancer kills them in droves, but their relatives can’t get Diane Sawyer on the phone.

Time doesn’t want to do a photo spread of the children born in the months after their daddies died of pancreatic cancer. Mariah Carey isn’t singing that a hero lies in them. They don’t have a $250,000 check waiting for them to soothe their pain and suffering. There is no billion-dollar charitable or government fund to turn to when they fall behind on the mortgage. They still have to pay their taxes. Any counseling they receive is paid for by them. They survive on their own — barely, in some cases — because they have no other choice.

The 32-year-old, lower middle-class woman who lost her husband in a car accident on September 10 struggles no less than the 40-year-old, upper-class woman who lost her husband to terrorism on September 11. Her pain is the same as she tries to identify the mangled, nearly unrecognizable remains of the man who brought home the bacon and gave her that loving slap on the ass as he walked in the door. Her financial status is downgraded because she too has lost half or even all of the family income. Her children, if she has any, also ask why Daddy didn’t come home.

But touching anecdotes — “Mommy, does American fly to Heaven or only into buildings?” — seem to evoke charitable donations only when Daddy had the foresight to be pulverized or incinerated live on national television due to the actions of foreign, non-Christian terrorists. And this prescience gives the family members a free pass to put their greed on display, without fear of harsh public criticism.

Irene Boehm, whose husband died in one of the towers, was worried that the compensation for pain and suffering — $250,000 — wouldn’t be enough. “They should have been at my house when they came to tell me they had identified my husband’s remains and then they would see that the figures for pain and suffering are ludicrous,” she said in an interview with the Associated Press. “No amount of money is ever going to replace him but my children should never have to want for anything.”

Pain and suffering are generally provided to the person who experienced the pain and suffering, and in this case, that would be Mr. Boehm. And Mr. Boehm is dead. Sorry about your loss, Irene, but your emotional pain and suffering are no different than that of anyone who has come home to a blinking answering machine, only to learn that their husband/wife/kid/significant other is lying on a slab at the county morgue due to a drunk driver misjudging his level of impairment. Your husband’s life was not valuable to the country or to anyone outside of his social/familial circle, and to reward you for your loss not only puts a value on human life, it sets a dangerous precedent that encourages people to turn to the government when they experience an emotional loss.

Walter Matuza of Staten Island, was killed in the WTC, leaving his wife to care for three children, ages 10 to 3. His widow, Denise estimated she’ll get $300,000 to $500,000 from the federal fund after her late husband’s 401(k) money and life insurance are deducted. “That’s really nothing, just three to five years’ salary,” said Matuza in an AP interview.

Ms. Matuza, it’s called a “free ride,” and it’s going to end real soon if we don’t start seeing a little prostrating. Call Dateline NBC, get on your knees in front of the camera, and give a hearty thanks to everyone who has gone above and beyond the norm to support people who are clearly ungrateful for receiving benefits that no one has received in the past. You do not deserve three to five years’ salary, and to say that’s “really nothing” shows your true nature. (Then, you do live on Staten Island, and we know the breed of woman that cesspool produces.)

TBC