Ten Years After September 11 Attacks, How Life Has Changed

Manhattan's Financial District is now called the Diaper District because of the large number of families with children living there

World doesn't turn safe after the attack, the world economy is getting worst and worst. Remember, nothing, but nothing justify any sort of violence, as well as discrimination, racism etc. My deepest and sincerely condolences for those who lost their lives in the World Trade Center. 




Source: http://www.voanews.com/learningenglish/home/Ten-Years-After-September-11-Attacks-How-Life-Has-Changed-129233683.html

BOB DOUGHTY: Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I’m Bob Doughty.

FAITH LAPIDUS: And I’m Faith Lapidus. Nearly three thousand people were killed in the attacks against the United States on September eleventh, two thousand one. Early that morning, terrorists hijacked four passenger airplanes. Two planes struck the World Trade Center in New York City. Another hit the Pentagon building, just across the river from Washington, D.C. Passengers on the fourth plane are said to have fought the hijackers. Their plane crashed on a field in western Pennsylvania.

The victims were from the United States and many other nations. It was the worst terrorist attack in American history. But for many people, the event does not feel like history. Today, we hear some of the ways the nine eleven attacks changed lives around the world.

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BOB DOUGHTY: The attack on the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers not only destroyed those buildings, it changed the personality of the surrounding neighborhood. In the past ten years, the area has moved away from its business centered past to a family friendly area now called the Diaper District.

FAITH LAPIDUS: Stephanie Hryckowian is the daughter of a Ukrainian immigrant who owned the Beekman Deli. The family business served office workers from the Twin Towers for twenty-five years. Then, the nine eleven attacks changed her life forever. She remembers her reaction to the killing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

STEPHANIE HRYCKOWIAN: “When the president said they got Osama, I sat there crying, because I was so happy.”

FAITH LAPIDUS: The Beekman Deli went from earning twenty-five thousand dollars a week profit to nothing.

STEPHANIE HRYCKOWIAN: “We were sitting pretty before that [9/11]. After that, it all disappeared.”

FAITH LAPIDUS: The delicatessen failed. The place where it once stood is now an automated teller machine for a bank.

BOB DOUGHTY: Nearby is one of the office buildings formerly served by the Beekman Deli. Like many older buildings in Lower Manhattan, its businesses left after the September eleventh attacks. It was then developed into housing. Lower Manhattan is now home to fifty-six thousand people. That is more than two times the number it had ten years ago.

Real estate agent Luis Vazquez is among the newcomers.

LUIS VAZQUEZ: “Today, the Financial District has the highest concentration of households with children in the city.”

BOB DOUGHTY: So many families, in fact, that The New York Times newspaper has called the area the Diaper District. It is not uncommon to see mothers pushing baby strollers down the side streets.

FAITH LAPIDUS: Jocelyn Zoland is a mother. She saw one of the planes strike the World Trade Center.

JOCELYN ZOLAND: “It’s nice to see that in the shadow of that there are all these children and there are all these activities, and it has become a wonderful destination. We’ll see if things change though.”

FAITH LAPIDUS: Ms. Zoland says that change could include millions of visitors to the area with the completion of a nine eleven museum at Ground Zero. In addition, tens of thousands of office workers will occupy Freedom Tower, a skyscraper being built to replace the Twin Towers.

BOB DOUGHTY: But the Beekman Deli is gone. Many other businesses are still closed. Stephanie Hryckowian says what did not disappear was the Deli’s responsibility to pay taxes and make rent payments through two thousand four. That cost her five hundred thousand dollars in savings. She now rents out her home and lives with family members.

STEPHANIE HRYCKOWIAN: “We have no health insurance. We have no 401K. We have no retirement fund. We have nothing after 9/11.”

BOB DOUGHTY: Lower Manhattan has been rebuilding from what happened ten years ago. But Stephanie Hryckowian is unemployed and still struggling to deal with the effects of the attacks.

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FAITH LAPIDUS: The United States answered the September eleventh attacks with a war against terror. First it sent troops to Afghanistan after the country’s Taliban government refused to expel al-Qaida leaders. Then, United States forces went to Iraq. The American-led invasion led to the overthrow of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

One of the unplanned results of his ouster is a generation of Iraqi children who have lived through eight years of unrest.

BOB DOUGHTY: Iraqi friends Mohammed Ahmed and Sadiq Ali have always been together. They grew up on the same street. They walked to school together and dreamed about becoming soccer stars.

The two friends were also together four years ago, playing near Mohammed’s home, when a rocket exploded next to them. Their lives changed forever. Ali lost his right leg, Ahmed, his left. A third friend died.

BOB DOUGHTY: The two friends are part of a generation of Iraqi children scarred by the violence that followed the ouster of Saddam Hussein. Thousands of Iraqis suffered injuries over the years because of fighting between competing groups, criminal activity and a nationalist rebellion.

FAITH LAPIDUS: The United Nations says up to eight hundred thousand Iraqi children have lost at least one parent in the violence. Social services are uncommon in Iraq. Parents, officials and non-profit groups say the government is unable to provide many of these children with shelter, medical care and emotional support. Surgical operations on trauma patients are free, but Iraqis have to pay for nearly all other medical services.

Throughout their pain, Mohammed and Sadiq have never left each other’s side. Wherever their future lies, they will go there together, on donated crutches and a yellow prosthetic leg.

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BOB DOUGHTY: America’s collective sense of security changed after the nine eleven attacks. Many Americans now feel vulnerable, not only to more attacks but also to new measures designed to prevent terrorism.

Travelers have faced increased security at airports over the past ten years. Some measures are still being questioned, but traveler Bob Dubois believes they are necessary.

BOB DUBOIS: “I think it’s something that we need in this day and economy as it is right now with what’s going on. You never know what’s going to happen and the people that are out there, and I think that we need to do this.”

FAITH LAPIDUS: Oscar Del Castillo agrees the new measures are needed, but he says…

OSCAR DEL CASTILLO: “A few procedures, I’m not entirely pleased with, such as the full body scans. However, I understand their importance.”

FAITH LAPIDUS: Ameena Mirza Qazi is a lawyer with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, in Los Angeles. She says that the measures are directed at observant Muslims.

AMEENA MIRZA QAZI: “When I travel, I get pulled over almost every single time I go through security for extra pat-downs because of my head scarf.”

FAITH LAPIDUS: Transportation security officials say they do not target Muslims on purpose. But many Muslims say they suffer discrimination. Last year, a religious center near the city of San Diego faced neighborhood protests over its plans to expand.

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BOB DOUGHTY: Civil rights activists took legal action against the Federal Bureau of Investigation earlier this year for reportedly using informants to monitor Muslims. FBI officials would not comment. But officials say they take action only when they suspect criminal behavior.

Ahilan Arulanantham of the American Civil Liberties Union says the FBI’s methods are too invasive. He says the nation’s founding fathers wanted to guarantee basic rights.

AHILAN ARULANANTHAM: “And the rules that they created were designed to protect us and strike that balance even during that time.”

BOB DOUGHTY: Steven Martinez works for the FBI office in Los Angeles. He says the United States still supports the goal of an open society, but the risk of terrorism is real.

STEVEN MARTINEZ: “If we want to maintain that sense of freedom, we’re always going to have vulnerabilities in places where people gather – theme parks, movie theaters, shopping malls. Those present opportunities for our adversaries and those are very, very difficult to secure.”

FAITH LAPIDUS: Security expert Erroll Southers of the University of Southern California says Americans need to face, and control, the new risks.

ERROLL SOUTHERS: “The same as they’re told about the challenges we have with earthquakes, fires, floods, hurricanes. This is a disaster of a man-enabled paradigm, so we should be educating them on what the real threats are. And then second, we should make sure they understand how then can help.”

FAITH LAPIDUS: Mr. Southers says information from the public is needed to stop terrorists, but effective security measures still must respect the rights of Americans. Finding the right balance is the hard part.

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BOB DOUGHTY: Our program was written and produced by Brianna Blake, with reporting by Peter Fedynsky, Ayman Oghanna and Mike O’Sullivan. I’m Bob Doughty.

FAITH LAPIDUS: And I’m Faith Lapidus. You can find transcripts and MP3s of our programs and learn English at voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.

 

For Fans of Edgar Allan Poe, a Happy 200th Birthday

Source: Voice of America Special English
www.manythings.org/voa/people 


Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Steve Ember. And I'm Shirley Griffith. This year is the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of writer Edgar Allan Poe. The United States Postal Service is honoring him with a stamp. And several museums in cities where he lived are remembering him with plays, readings and other events. This week on our program we explore his life and the continuing influence of his work.

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Edgar Allan Poe wrote stories and poems of mystery and terror, insanity and death. His life was short and seemingly unhappy.

He was born Edgar Poe on January nineteenth, eighteen hundred and nine in Boston, Massachusetts. His parents were actors. He was a baby when his father left the family. And he was two when his mother died. At that time they were in Richmond, Virginia.

Edgar went to live with the family of a wealthy Richmond businessman named John Allan. John Allan never officially adopted him as a son, but the boy became known as Edgar Allan Poe.

He attended schools in England and in Richmond. He also attended the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He was a good student. But he had a problem with alcohol. Even one drink seemed to change his personality and make him drunk. Also, he liked to play card games for money. Edgar was not a good player. He lost money that he did not have.

John Allan refused to pay Edgar's gambling losses. He also refused to continue paying for his education. So the young man went to Boston and began working as a writer and editor for monthly magazines.

Poe served in the Army for two years, before entering the United States Military Academy at West Point to become an officer. He was dismissed from the academy in eighteen thirty-one after six months. By then he had already published three books of poetry.

He began writing stories while living with his aunt in the city of Baltimore, Maryland. In October of eighteen thirty-three, he won a short story contest organized by a local newspaper. He received fifty dollars in prize money and got a job editing the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. He published many of his own stories.

In eighteen thirty-four, Poe married his cousin Virginia Clemm, the thirteen year old daughter of his father's sister. They moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in eighteen thirty-eight. There, Poe served as editor of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine and continued to write.

He published many of his most frightening stories during this time. These included "The Black Cat," "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Pit and the Pendulum."

Edgar Allan Poe did something unusual for writers of his time: he used a narrator in a story to describe what was happening. A good example is the short story "The Tell-Tale Heart."

The narrator claims that he is not mad, yet reveals that he is a murderer. He has killed an old man for no apparent reason. He cuts up the body and hides the parts under the floorboards of the victim's house.

Police officers arrive after getting reports of noises from the house. The murderer shows them around the house and is proud of the way he has hidden all the evidence. But he begins to hear a sound. The others in the room cannot hear it.

READER:

Yet the sound increased -- and what could I do? It was a low, dull, quick sound -- much a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath -- and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly -- more vehemently; but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men -- but the noise steadily increased. Oh God what could I do? I foamed -- I raved --I swore. But the noise continually increased. It grew louder -- louder -- louder!

Edgar Allan Poe is also remembered for the kind of literature known as detective fiction. These are stories of an investigator who has to solve murders and other crimes.

In fact, Edgar Allan Poe is considered the father of the modern detective novel. His fictional detective C. August Dupin first appeared in his story "The Murders In the Rue Morgue" in eighteen forty-one. Dupin also appeared in two later stories, "The Mystery of Marie Roget" and "The Purloined Letter."

Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, wrote about Poe's influence on other crime writers: "Each may find some little development of his own, but his main art must trace back to those admirable stories of Monsieur Dupin, so wonderful in their masterful force, their reticence, their quick dramatic point."

Jeff Jerome is the curator of the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum in Baltimore. He says Poe's influence can also be seen in the work of H.G. Wells and Alfred Hitchcock, to name a few. Poe's influence extends to plays, movies, operas, music, cartoons, television, paintings -- just about every kind of art.

Poe's creation of the detective novel is recognized by the Mystery Writers of America. The writers group presents the yearly Edgar Awards to honor the best detective and suspense books, movies and TV shows.

An award also goes to an individual, organization or business for working to continue the influence of Edgar Allan Poe. The award is named for Poe's most famous work. This year, the Edgar Allan Poe Society and the Poe House in Baltimore will receive the Raven Award.

Edgar Allan Poe became famous after "The Raven" was published in eighteen forty-five. The poetry is rich in atmosphere. The rhythm suggests music.

The narrator of "The Raven" is a man whose love has died. He sits alone among his books late at night. He hears a noise at the window:

READER:

Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;

But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,

And the only word there spoken was the whispered word "Lenore!"

This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!"

Merely this, and nothing more."

The man finds a large black bird and asks it questions. The raven answers with a single word: "Nevermore." At the end of the poem, the man has quite clearly gone mad from grief:

READER:

And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon that is dreaming,

And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted -- nevermore!

The sadness and horror in Poe's writing might lead readers to suspect a disordered mind. Yet people who knew him reported him to be a nice man. Some even called him a real gentleman.

His wife died in eighteen forty-seven. Virginia Clemm Poe had suffered from tuberculosis for many years. At the same time, Poe's magazine failed, and so did his health. He died on October seventh, eighteen forty-nine, under mysterious conditions.

He was found in a tavern in Baltimore. He did not know where he was or how he got there. He was dressed in rags. He died four days later in a hospital. He was forty years old.

Over the years, historians and medical experts have tried to explain the cause of Poe's death. Some say he killed himself with drink. Others say he developed rabies from an animal bite. Many in Baltimore believe he was beaten by local criminal gangs.

Every year about two thousand people visit Edgar Allan Poe's grave at the Westminster Hall and Burying Ground in Baltimore. And every year on January nineteenth -- Poe's birthday -- people watch for a man dressed in black to appear. His face is covered. He places a bottle of French cognac and three roses on the grave.

No one in Baltimore really wants to know the visitor's identity. They prefer that it remain a mystery, much like Edgar Allan Poe himself.

Our program was written by Nancy Steinbach and produced by Caty Weaver. I'm Steve Ember. And I'm Shirley Griffith. Doug Johnson was our reader. To hear the short story "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe, listen at this time Saturday for the program AMERICAN STORIES. And join us again next week forTHIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English