Pablo Ortiz 1/25/52 - 9/11/01

"They told me the last time they saw him he was going back up to help more people."

http://prosandcons.us/?p=4196 PROJECT 2996 (2006)

9/11 Tribute: Pablo Ortiz
Posted by: John H. @ 12:00 am

As part of the 2,996 Project it is my pleasure and honor to pay tribute to Pablo Ortiz, a true American hero. This man’s life has humbled and inspired me. I hope it does the same for you. Always remember, never forget 9/11.

Mr. Ortiz was a second-generation immigrant from Puerto Rico. He left his hardscrabble childhood in a tough section of New York for the Navy, becoming a Navy Seal and serving in Vietnam. Although suffering flashbacks for the rest of his life, Mr. Ortiz was proud of his service. Those who know him describe a conscientious man who demanded things be done right, especially from himself. These traits made him an outstanding Superintendant of Construction for the Port Authority of New York.

At least 50 people stuck on the 88th and 89th floors of the north tower were able to walk out of the building because Mr. De Martini, Mr. Ortiz and others tore away rubble, broke down doors and answered calls for help. Everyone above the 91st floor died.

In the most essential ways, these men, employees of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, pushed back the boundary line between life and death in favor of the living. Both Mr. De Martini and Mr. Ortiz, who continued to help other trapped people, died in the building.

Edna Ortiz remembers her husband as a very human man. ''I'm very proud of what he did.'' she says. ''But I wish he had come home.''

Mr Ortiz divorced five years ago (1998) after a 16-year marriage to Maureen Foo-Van Natten, a secretary for Community Hospice. Their two children, Justina 19 and 12-year-old JaShingiz (ages as of 2003), live with their mother in Schenectady.

The headstone has an etched cross and reads: "Pablo Ortiz. Father. Hero. Always in our hearts. 1/25/52 - 9/11/01."


Sources, please read them for full details:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/29/nyregion/port-authority-tapes-overview-fresh-glimpse-9-11-files-struggles-for-survival.html

http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=167529&category=FRONTPG&BCCode=SEP11

http://www.legacy.com/gb2/default.aspx?bookID=9285719440219&page=9

Gary Bird 1950-2001

REPOSTED: because I will never forget.

He was a corporate cowboy. Gary Bird worked in risk management, but his great joy was riding horses. He was practically born in the saddle. His mother was riding horses when she was eight months pregnant with him, until her doctor stopped her.

He lived in Tempe, Ariz., where he kept three quarter horses. He rode as often as he could, including multiday trail rides. His wife, Donna Killoughey Bird, and two children, Amanda, 15, and Andrew, 13, rode, too, but Mr. Bird was the avid one.

If he wasn't surrounded by open spaces, he would get edgy. In 1984, he was in New York for four days to attend a conference. By the fourth day, he told his wife, "I'm really claustrophobic here, because I can't see the horizon." As she put it, "It was a case of `don't fence me in.' "

Gary Bird moved to Tempe, AZ in 1973. He had a successful career in Risk Management, 12 yrs with Phelps Dodge Corp. Authored a book “TheWrap-Up Guide”, the authoritative work on the installation and operation of controlled insurance programs published by International Risk Management Institute (IRMI).

Mr. Bird was active in the community. He helped found the first Boys and Girls Club in Tempe in the early 1980’s. Served on the Tempe Planning and Zoning Commission and the Tempe Industrial and Development Board. He was active with the Friends of the Tempe Butte organization, helped plan and direct youth swim meets.

Gary Bird had just been promoted to Vice President at Marsh Inc, was on the 99th floor, Tower 2, WTC attending a meeting on his 2nd day as VP.

He is survived by his wife Donna, daughter Amanda, and son Andrew.

I guess to really honor him, we should go ride a horse.

Sources:
http://memorial.mmc.com/pgBio.asp?ID=24
http://www.irmi.com/About/PressReleases/2002/0505a.aspx
http://ltn-archive.hotresponse.com/november01/tech_circuit_p16.html
http://www.asuwebdevil.com/issues/2001/10/05/campusnews/112296

Please visit the other 2996 Bloggers

The Four Freedoms We Fight For.

Reposted to remind us of what the USA stands for.



None of these Freedoms exist in Muslim Nations.
Islam does not permit Freedom.

ISLAM DEMANDS SUBMISSION.
USA PROVIDES FREEDOM.

In 1944-1945, the USA ruled the world, from Berlin to Tokyo, and all points in between. The USA controlled the globe, only the Soviet Union, our then ally, was outside of our control.

And we gave it all back to the people. By 1953, we had allowed the peoples of the world to create their own governments.
But the Soviet Union had keep all of Eastern Europe occupied and controlled by Soviet troops. It would take until 1989 to free Eastern Europe, but the USA finally freed them.

Toons for (non)Moslems

REPOSTED again - to defy the Organization of Islamic Countries OIC and the United Nations
REPOSTED in Solidarity with the brave Danish Cartoonists.

This is a matter of FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, which is a fundamental human right.
Islam murders those who voice any opposition to Islam.
To quote a sign seen at a London protest "Behead those who insult Islam".
To Moslems - grow up and act like a mature adult.
"Sticks and stones make break my bones, but words will never hurt me."

REPOSTED in spite of the new UN Resolution
The cartoons that have enraged the militant mutant Moslems, the ones who go against the Koran by murdering innocent men, women, children. To the very few, and very silent, very law-abiding and respectful Muslims - sorry, but I must reprint these.

h/t Michelle Malkin

Just because I am Free to do this

Using Blogs again

Some things require more than 140 characters.

Project 2996

Project Valour-IT

Offensive Attack on Free Speech

I haven't blogged in a while, because Twitter is easier and faster.
but this is much too long for a Tweet:

An email I received:

From: Levana - Health Care for America Now <hcan@healthcareforamericanow.org>
Date: Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 4:53 PM
Subject: Join us - special briefing from Rep. Doggett, actress Edie Falco, and more
To:[redacted]

Dear [redacted]:

By now, I'm sure you've heard about the lobbyist-funded right-wing extremists making trouble at town halls all across America.

These disruptions are funded by special interests like the insurance companies, who want to kill health care reform as quickly as possible.¹ They're trying to make sure nobody can have a productive, rational conversation about what health care reform will do for you and me. We can't let them stifle debate or we will not win health care reform this year.

So, we've organized a special briefing with Texas Representative Lloyd Doggett, actress Edie Falco, Richard Kirsch, Health Care for America Now's National Campaign Director, and Dan Heck, a regional director for Working America and Health Care for America Now to get the facts out about health care reform, find out what's at stake, and learn what you and I can do to help pass reform.

Can you join us for a special briefing on Tuesday, August 11th at 9 pm EST (6 pm PST) to learn about health care reform and how to right back against the lobbyist-funded right-wing? Click here to RSVP.

We've lined up some speakers on the call who really know what they're talking about.

Texas Representative Lloyd Doggett talk about his experiences with these disruption tactics and what you can expect. Actress and advocate Edie Falco will tell you what's at stake. Richard Kirsch, our National Campaign Director, will talk about our historic progress on passing health reform and what we need to do to get it over the finish line. And Dan Heck, a regional director for Working America and Health Care for America Now who's out there every day talking to real people about this issue will give you tips on how to combat some of the biggest myths out there on health reform and how to get involved in your community.

Can you join us for this special briefing with Representative Doggett, Edie Falco, Richard Kirsch, Dan Heck, and thousands of activists and organizers like you and me? Click here to RSVP for the call on Tuesday, August 11th at 9 pm EST (6pm PST).

We'll also take questions for the speakers. You can submit a question you'd like to ask when you sign up to RSVP for the training call.

It's crucial that we're out there busting myths and promoting health reform every day in August while Congress is back at home, listening to their voters.

Please join us!

To your health,

Levana Layendecker
Health Care for America Now

P.S. We've been busy loading hundreds of local town hall events into our system. It's crucial supporters of health care reform get out and make our voices heard this month while Congress is home listening to you. Click here to go to our homepage and search for events in your area.

1. Inside The Tea-Partiers Anti-Health Care Organizing Campaign - Talking Points Memo

Moving day

After 2 and half years of using Blogger, I have decided to move over to Mee.Nu.

Please update your bookmarks to wordmarvin.mee.nu

I am keeping the archives here.

but new posts are here.


.

1000 Words

Reposted from last year, but the need for Project Valour IT still exists




From Day by Day by Chris Muir, and Michael Yon.

Two of the finest.

They both have contributed to Project Valour-IT, have you supported our injured troops by donating -- so more voice activated laptops can be supplied.

The link is on the starboard sidebar (Right side for you landlubbers.)

WHO DO YOU WANT SELECTING NEW JUSTICES FOR THE SUPREME COURT?

By a 5-4 decision the US Supreme Court ruled:

Against the death penalty for child rapists.

By a 5-4 decision the US Supreme Court ruled:

That US Citizens have the Right to Own Firearms for Self-Defense.



WHO DO YOU WANT SELECTING NEW JUSTICES FOR THE SUPREME COURT?

Barack Obama (with help from a Socialist or an Islamist)

John McCain (with help from Fred Thompson)


UPDATE: via Hot Air

A rumor sez:
Obama will appoint Hillary Clinton to the Supreme Court.

This could be a good thing.

To keep his word (just pretend Obama keeps his word),
Obama dutifully submits her name,
but doesn't try too hard to get her confirmed,
and the Democrats who really don't like Hillary ...
allow the Republicans to kill her nomination.

She would then be twice defeated.

This could be a good thing.

Democrats Want High Gas Prices

House Democrats fail to resurrect a bill to punish gas price gouging, but move to block GOP attempts to expand offshore oil drilling, an idea gaining in popularity amid $4-a-gallon gas prices.

Democrats want to keep gas prices high.
Democrats block all efforts to increase supply.
Democrats are trying to destroy the US Economy, this is the only logical reason for working so hard to keep gas prices high by blocking new refineries, preventing exploration for more oil in the US, and for not allowing oil companies to drill new wells in the US.

Democrats are Dumb.

VOTE FRAUD PAID FOR BY

DEMOCRATS

Obama has paid ACORN $800,000.

The Democrat Sec. of State in Ohio, Ms Brunner,
has criminally refused to tell the county Boards of Election
about the 200,000 mismatched voter registrations.

Obama can only win thru vote fraud.

Honest people will not vote for him.

See ACE for more details.

Democrats vs Republicans: On Gas Prices

hat tip: Powerline Blog

This chart was put together by Republican whip Roy Blunt illustrating the vast differences between Republicans’ and Democrats’ ideas to lower gas prices.




The Democrats think that the way to lower prices is to raise taxes - How Stupid Is That!
Dear Democrats:

If you raise taxes, the oil companies will simply pass the additional tax cost along to the consumer by raising prices.

If we increase the supply of oil by drilling in the United States and off-shore of the United States, this will lower the price of gasoline.
If we allow new refineries in the United States - this would also lower the price of gasoline.

Republicans are intelligent enough to understand this.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr

(Speech Delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963.)

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity. But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free.
One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.
So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition. In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.
This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.
So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights.
The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges. But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. we must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.
We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” we can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor’s lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.” And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”