All Hail New York

January 15th, 2009 by TRex @ 11:40 pm| Posted in the good guys, yay! |

The image above (click to embiggen) was shot from the deck of a ferry on the Hudson River this afternoon as that ferry raced to the aid of the 150-plus passengers and crew of US Airways Flight 1549.  I got it at Gawker, where dozens of citizen journalists (as it were) have posted their own shots of today’s remarkable splash landing and rescue.

I tell ya, if something awful ever happens to me, some kind of terrible unforeseen event, I kind of hope that I’m in New York City, surrounded by New Yorkers.  But wait, let me explain that a bit.

Recently I went back and watched the Naudet brothers’ excellent documentary 9/11, and I was struck once again by the unbelieveable courage and devotion of the firefighters and police and other first responders in Manhattan on that awful day.  In spite of a rapidly unraveling command structure, a failing communications system, and an MIA mayor, those men and women charged boldly into action.  They ran up those stairs, hauled those hoses, helped the wounded, comforted the dying.  They looked straight into the heart of hell and kept right on going.

Which is why I always found this particularly galling:

From the August 25 edition of Fox News’ Hannity & Colmes:

COLMES: And I want to ask you about something, Ann, that you wrote in your most recent column. You had a very funny line, actually, that it is hard to find a parking spot in New York City. There’s no question about it. You’ve had a pretty good day if you can do that. But then you said, “It’s far preferable to fight them on the streets of Baghdad than in the streets of New York (where the residents would immediately surrender).” Now, some New Yorkers felt that you were calling them cowards by making that statement.

COULTER: No, I think I was calling them supporters of Cindy Sheehan.

COLMES: Is that what that is? You certainly don’t feel that New Yorkers are cowards?

COULTER: I think they would immediately surrender.

Um, actually Annie Twatstick, “we” did fight “them” on the streets of New York City and if I recall correctly, the New Yorkers won that one.  City’s still there, isn’t it?

Then take what happened today.

The rescue work began immediately after the plane hit the water.

Jeff Welz, director of public safety for the City of Weehawken, said emergency medical service workers, firefighters and police boarded NY Waterway ferries that were docked in Weehawken awaiting rush hour and headed to the plane.

At least one ferry that was carrying passengers across the river changed course and went straight to the plane, Welz said.

He said more ferry boats and rescue vessels arrived at the plane less than 10 minutes after the emergency landing.

I was just talking to my friend Christa earlier tonight.  She’s a transplanted Noo Ywahkah living on the west coast and she said, “Oh, honey, listen.  If I’m trapped under 30,000 pounds of concrete, breathing through a straw, hanging on for dear life, I wanna hear some Brooklyn and Jersey accents calling down to me, y’know?  ‘Yoo hang awn down deyah, honey, we gonna gitcha outta deyah, arright?’  All rescue workers everywhere should have talk like they’re from New York.”

I heartily concur.

Sarah Palin, of course, doesn’t think that New York is part of the “real” America.

Five Thirty Eight: Yesterday, at a fundraiser in Greensboro, North Carolina, Sarah Palin said the following:

We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation.

Yup, yup.  Not like New York with its namby-pamby intellectuals, communists, and “coastal elites”, right?  Goddamn big cities with their soap and water and fancy flush toilets and their cooked food and stuff.  Who ever heard of such?

God bless New York City and the passengers and crew of Flight 1549.  Even disasters are better in Obamerica.