Susan A. MacKay Taught Others How To Be A Friend

Susan A. MacKay, Wife, Mother, Friend

This is Susan A. MacKay.  On September 11, 2001, she was on American Airlines Flight 11, the plane which was flown into the North Tower of the World Trade Center by Islamic terrorists.

This was the only photo of Susan that I could find online, and it doesn’t seem nearly large enough to do justice to the memory of a woman who remains, based on the tributes available, dearly missed and much beloved.

Susan was a wife and a mother of two.  She was 44 years old.  She lived in Westford, Massachusetts with her husband Douglas and two children, Matthew and Lauren.

Susan had worked in the retail industry all her professional life and risen to the position of Assistant Vice President of Merchandise Planning and Allocation for TJX Co.  According to a friend, even more than her professional accomplishments, Susan was devoted to her children and loved being a mother.

Her husband Douglas said that Susan had been looking forward to her trip to Los Angeles on September 11 “all Summer.”  In the wake of her murder, grieving co-workers placed roses and chrysanthemums in Susan’s parking space at TJX.

There isn’t a whole lot of other information available about Susan on the Internet.  She wasn’t famous and appears to have led a life without particular notoriety.  However, as Dennis Prager has aptly pointed out, the famous are rarely significant, and the significant are rarely famous.  By all accounts, Susan MacKay, whilst not famous, appears to have led a life of noteworthy significance.

Based on the recollections of her offered up by her husband, numerous cousins, friends, co-workers and other relations, Susan was much loved and admired.  In their various tributes, those who knew her invariably mention her lively spirit.  Susan was a lot of fun, they say.  I’ve also gleaned that she had a flair for fashion and style and took to sharing this with those around her, offering advice and helping people look their best.  A prolific seamstress, according to Douglas, Susan had transformed her own wedding dress into a christening gown for her children, sewn pillows, comforters, and even her younger sister’s wedding dress the year before her murder.

By every account, Susan was one of those people who made the world a better place.  The pain of her loss is still deeply felt, and memorial masses have continued for years.  In 2007, a memorial mass was celebrated on what would have been her fiftieth birthday.

One of Susan’s cousins said that Susan taught her, amongst other things, how to be a friend.  The world needs more people like Susan A. MacKay.

May she Rest In Peace.

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You can read more about Susan here, here, and here.  These were the sites which provided the information I’ve related.  If you’d like to read about some of the other victims of the September 11^th murders, please visit Project 2,996.

Spreading the Word on CNN Bad Faith Shenanigans

I don’t have anything to add to this discussion.  Ace had probably the best takedown, although Allahpundit’s wasn’t too shabby, either.

Patterico points out that CNN is using bogus copyright infringement claims to prevent you from seeing this and encourages all bloggers to post it.  I’m happy to oblige.

Founding Fathers, the source of this clip, has more on the controversy.  Patterico suggests that people consider uploading their own copy to Youtube as well.  Flood the zone and make it harder for them to suppress them all!  I used Savetube to capture my own copy and uploaded it here.

Meanwhile Over at the TV Blog!

In case anyone’s interested, feel free to pop on over to the TV Blog! for a politically neutral discussion of this week’s How I Met Your Mother, The Office, and The Shield.

For some reason that’s probably pervy, I seem to get a lot of hits for the HIMYM posts.  I don’t really get it, but that’s what’s happening.

Elton John Has Perspective

Has Sense

As thuggish proponents of same-sex marriage continue responding to genuine democracy by assaulting old ladies,  holding sensless and cowardly protests at Mormon churches and producing TV ads of staggering anti-religious bigotry, Sir Elton John comes out as a voice of reason and rational perspective in the face of all the hysteria

Is There Life on Mars?

I have not been able to get this song out of my head for the last several days.  I bought two versions of it for my iPod and can’t resist listening over and over every day.  I sing it aloud to myself, too.  I do it in my kitchen.  I do it in my car.  I even do it in my office building when the elevator is empty?

What’s wrong with me?

More importantly, what’s wrong with him?  He looks like a lesbian.  Which raises a more eternal question: what the Hell went wrong in the 1970s?  How completely screwed in the head were we that guys who made themselves up to look like some sort of bizarro hybrid of Ellen DeGeneres, Melissa Etheridge and Glenn Close with too much eye make-up were the sex symbols?

Well, to be fair, there were hairier and more conventional masculine sex symbols like Burt Reynolds, but seriously, WTF?

This Week’s Episode of The Shield

In case anyone is interested, I’ve got a new post up over at my other blog discussing tonight’s next to next to last episode of The Shield.  If you haven’t been watching, you’ve missed out on an amazing series.  Fortunately, the twenty-first century being as clever as it’s been, there are lots of ways to see it, from DVDs to Amazon-on-Demand to Netflix, so get to it, bozo!  There are no excuses, unless, perhaps you’ve lost your job in anticipation of the upcoming HopeyChangey goodness and have no money.  If that’s the case, then you’re really going to need to distraction, and The Shield will definitely absorb your attention.

A Quick, Half-Assed Rationalization for Writing About TV

I’ve made a half-hearted attempt to maintain a sister blog of television reviews and commentary, but, as “half-hearted” would imply, my efforts have been…wait for it…half-hearted.

Partially this is because I’m remarkably lazy.  Partially it’s because I find it deeply shameful that my life can be so empty at times that I’ve nothing to write about other than that I’m watching on television.  Perhaps more significantly, It’s also partially because I think television criticism is the work of parasites feeding upon the hard work of genuine artists, and then also partially because I don’t think I’m very good at it.

A Private Message To My Cyberstalker

Unless you are my stalker, this message isn’t for you.  It’s only for my cyberstalker.

The Things You Learn — Second Sheets

Always Sleep on Clean Bedding!

I love learning things, even though it can be a little embarrassing sometimes to learn things much later than one probably should.  You know, things like how babies are made, and such.  The stork angle just made so much sense, even though I now know (thanks to pornography) that it really involves a woman’s stomach.

Anyway, this weekend I learned the purpose of second sheets.  The real purpose, according to this wiki on how to make up a bed neatly, is to provide a barrier between your (or, in this case, my) filthy body and my heavy comforters and blankets simply because it is easier to launder a second sheet than it is to launder heavier bedding.

I was flabbergasted by this.  Truly, I had no idea!  I always just used them in the Spring and maybe early Fall, but as soon as it came time to break out the heavy artillery, I tossed away the second sheet as redundant. Anyway, I know better now, and so do you.

I’ve always known I was fundamentally ignorant in a lot of ways, but I had no idea how ignorant.  So thank God for the Internet.  It’s good for more than just attracting cyberstalkers!  There’s some actual knowledge out here for those of us who don’t go in much for fancy book learnin’.  Whoo hoo!

Steve Forbes on Michael Medved This Afternoon

I am utterly, utterly unqualified to comment on this bailout situation.  I don’t know if we should do it, not do it, hold out for less earmarks, wait a few more days.  I just don’t know.  I’m an economic moron beyond a basic preference for capitalism.

But I can’t help but feel a little shudder when I hear Steve Forbes say to Michael Medved:

“I’ve never been an alarmist…I’ve never seen a situation as dark as it is today…people genuinely don’t understand the magnitude of what is before us.”

I don’t have a link to the audio, because Medved charges for most of his podcasts.  Sometimes, however, he posts interviews and/or snippets, and if the Forbes interview becomes available, I’ll post a link to it.  The quote was hastily transcribed by me as I listened to their conversation during the 5:00 hours (Eastern time) this afternoon.

If you’re here, it’s probably because of Ace.  I say, get on back there, because he’s got links and better information than I do.  Thanks for stopping by, though.