A Visit to the WTC Site

I was recently in New York again, and unlike past trips I could no longer find excuses not to make the trek down to the site of the World Trade Center. It certainly wasn't too cold. There were no time considerations.

Perhaps most likely, I was ready to stop avoiding the experience.

The very first thing that struck me is how amazingly small the location is. Somehow, from watching things on television it seems that it should be so much bigger. Visiting many national landmarks in my travels, I've discovered this is more common than not.

The next thing that struck me was how clean, almost sterile, the fencing and sidewalks around the site is. It is somehow unexpected, and entirely appropriate. Totally expected, and far less appropriate, are the tourists in their t-shirts and flip-flops chattering with each other about the hole in the ground. Also sadly anticipated were the merchants with their tables full of shirts, hats, and other patriotic trinkets struggling to extract a buck from tragedy.

The site itself had almost a cathedral quality for me, though more in the sense of the cathedrals of Europe that are all to often overrun with tourists. Ignoring the sideshow, the importance of the place is impossible to miss.

Damage to surrounding buildings is still all too evident. On the south side, plywood walls have been erected. They are painted black, with the warning to "POST NO BILLS" painted upon them in stark white. Unlike most other flat surfaces throughout the city on which this notice is posted, at the WTC site the signs are for the most part obeyed.

In several locations, visitors have scrawled messages of hope and encouragement on the white paint. It is obvious that the paint on these walls is renewed regularly, and these messages will likely be obliterated fairly soon. Without meaning any disrespect to the authors or the sincerity of their impulse to write, in most cases the erasure of these missives will be no great loss.

One particularly poignant message caught my eye though, and I can hope that through some small miracle it will manage to survive.

Written in blue ballpoint pen from the top left to bottom right of the white letter "N" the message reads simply:

"Daddy I miss you."

"Illegal Workers Face Hardship in Big Easy"

Where is the contact information for this pity party? I would dearly love to RSVP with my regrets.

So people illegally in this country are being underpaid and "made" to work in hazardous and illegal conditions by unscrupulous employers. There are two problems here. The problem of evil, opportunistic employers that the AP article focuses on. And the problem of people illegally in this country seeking employment at all, which the article dismisses as being of incidental importance at best.

Yes, any employer violating wage, labor and workplace safety laws ought to be cited and treated appropriately by enforcement of those existing laws. Hey, perhaps we could even begin enforcing those laws enacted as part of the 1986 amnesty that were supposed to make life so miserable for those employers who chose to employ undocumented labor. I understand that actually enforcing a law is far less popular than having some politician hold up a piece of paper and proclaiming how tough they are being on the problems of the day, but doing so might actually prove effective at alleviating those problems the legislation purports to address.

As for the plight of the poor, downtrodden, endlessly exploited illegal, undocumented alien workforce, I have a suggestion that just might mitigate a portion of their suffering. Get in line. Get a visa. Get legitimate employment that offers appropriate compensation and workplace safety without the threat of deportation that permits the exploitation in the first place. And when your visa expires, go home as is your obligation.

Once you are playing the game by the rules - all the rules, not just those you choose to exploit for your own convenience and personal advancement - I will be every bit as much on your side as I am on that of the kid born and raised in an Iowa cornfield. Until then, you will get no more sympathy from me than does the bank robber who snivels that the conditions of his chosen profession are too onerous to be conveniently endured.

Whatever Happened to Reporting the News?

The link associated with the title for this post is to a story on the website for NBC 4 in Columbus, Ohio. The headline screams "Teen Arrested For Allegedly Selling Self As Sex Slave"! (exclamation point added). Anyone bothering to read the story, or more accurately sucked in to doing so based on the headline, discovers this is nothing more than a run of the mill prostitution tale involving an entrepreneurial 16 year old girl getting a jump on the summer job market.

The story prompted the following email to the station. Not that it will change practices in Columbus, Ohio, or anywhere else, but wouldn't it be nice . . .?

Is there any remote possibility that journalistic ethics will ever again rear its head in this country?

I read your story online entitled "Teen Arrested For Allegedly Selling Self As Sex Slave". What followed was a garden-variety prostitution tale. The fact that a 16 year old was the prostitute is slightly unusual, but in today's world hardly constitutes "news", unfortunately.

It is the extensive use of hyperbole and the agenda driven selective presentation of facts that have made the majority of media outlets in the United States unreliable sources of information at best. It would be refreshing to find a news source, somewhere, someday, that simply reported the facts regarding a story and left it up to the consumer to draw their own conclusions concerning the implications of those facts.

The Five W's - anyone remember them from journalism school? Or were they purged from the curriculum immediately after integrity?