September 11 Blue & $59/square foot

No it's not a feeling of melancholy, it's a color. A color that will never appear on a chip at your local home improvement store, it can only be found during late summer or early autumn in the sky over the New York Metro area.

For those of us who live here in NY and remember the crystal clear sky and that unique shade of blue, it's a color we will never forget. It is also something that belongs to us, something we won't share even if we could. It is a color that is marred by a plume of grey/black noxious smoke wafting into the air.

It is a color that invigorates and also reviles the mind as we go about our business.

I bring this up based on a conversation with a coworker this week who coined the phrase -- while looking south out our 34th floor midtown office window.

Clearly missing from the view was any sign of resurrection---where was the long discussed Freedom Tower now 4 years and counting from its inception? Plans have been unveiled for a total of 4 towers to be built on the former WTC site.

Recently, work has begun on the foundation of the Freedom Tower. Passengers passing through the WTC PATH station are reminded of this by signs announcing "Blasting in Progress" which led PACE University to post this warning.

Additionally, this week NY state and Federal government made a commitment to rent roughly half the space in the Freedom Tower at $56 - $59/ square foot although downtown rents typically run in the $33-$40 range.

As expected, reactions to having to occupy this primary target were primarily negative.

It is perfectly logical for people to have reservations about working on the site of a major disaster; however, what is more questionable than moving employees to the site... After all, somebody is going to have to occupy the 1 million square feet of office space...is the commitment to paying rates $16-$19 above current market rates. If the building is so undesirable that the local and state governments feel compelled to act as seed tenants to justify or expedite the construction, shouldn't they get a discount on rent, not a premium much like government agencies did in the original towers in 1972?

With vacancy rates in the lower Manhattan area hovering around 11%, it would seem that the State and Federal governments could have gotten a better rate. After all, this rent will be paid by our tax dollars. Is paying $5 Million or more a year above market rate a good fiscal move just to get a controversial building completed?

He finally knows what a sovereign nation is

George W. Bush recently explained that we cannot commit troops to capturing Osama Bin Laden because he is hiding in Pakistan and "Pakistan is a sovereign nation"

Now a quick check of UN records should lead to the finding that Afghanistan and Iraq were also sovereign nations when we invaded them. In fact we "restored Iraq's sovereignty" in June of 04

Mr. Bush has previously shown a total lack of understanding of sovereignty in regards to nations and peoples and possibly even the definition of the term:

It is refreshing that the government has finally decided to respect a nations sovereignty, yet one must wonder why protecting Pakistani sovereignty is more important than capturing Osama Bin laden , the man directly responsible for the deaths of over 3,000 Americans in the past 10 years.

Couldn't we get Pakistani permission to operate in the tribal region of North Waziristan where they have used military force to attempt to regain control of an area thought to be supporting and possibly harboring OSBL?.