Life is sometimes just like AOL

I was an AOL habitué from Christmas of 1995 up until about two or three years ago. I hope it was three years ago so i can respect myself just a bit more.

What AOL did was suck you into being part of a Community. You found your own level and became part of a family. And the less responsible members of the family behaved in often cruel fashion and never paid any penalties. I cringe now thinking about it. Hey, I didn't do the cruelties, but what I often did was criticize people who would let others hurt them, instead of treating it all as pixelated fun and games.

I hardly ever think about those days. But there is a story in the news now that brings it all back:

There's this woman, Tania Head. As in Head case. I'd never heard of her till today. But within the 9/11 survivor community she became a legend. Hers was a simple story: she was a high powered mergers & acquisition specialist, working for Merrill Lynch. She was in one of the towers when the first plane hit. She was trying to get out when the second plane hit her tower. Her entire Merrill Lynch team was wiped out. She was only saved because of an employee who was credited with saving a number of people that day. She had a sob-wrenching story about coming across a dying man who pressed his engraved wedding ring into her hands, asking that she deliver it to his wife, which she says she was finally able to do. She woke up in a hospital some days later with burns, but recovered.

Further hankies come into play when she related that her own fiancé died in the other tower, but at least they were able to have a week in Hawaii during which they held a commitment ceremony on the beach.

She started out online, telling these stories in chat rooms. If you've ever been in that milieu you know how it goes. Then word got around amongst the organizing survivors and she became a volunteer head honcho in one of the organizations. She never profited, money-wise, from all of this, but she got her picture in the paper a lot and a lot of attention was paid to her. Priceless stuff if you're Tania Head.

Now that she's been outed, she was ousted as President of the World Trade Center Survivors' Network. I went to their web site and there's no mention of her. But I pulled up the cached version of their web site and found this blurb, obviously written by Ms. Head:

"Tania Head, President

Tania Head is a Senior Vice-President for Strategic Alliances for an investment Think Tank. On September 11, she was working for a client whose offices where located on the upper floors of the South Tower. Her fiance worked across the plaza in the North Tower. Tania sustained life threatening injuries and barely escaped with her life. But her fiance was one of the many lost that day. Despite painful injuries, Tania has been a tireless advocate for survivors and family members, and also feels a special mission to help victims of other disasters. She went to Thailand to help after the tsunami and to Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina. She speaks to many groups across the country, and is an active supporter of emergency plans in the workplace. Tania also lends her time to serve as Chairman of the 9/11 Living Memorial Survivors' Committee, the board of a foundation set up in her fiancé's memory, and the board of the WTC Widows Social Group. In 2003 and 2004 Tania taught financial planning workshops for fellow September 11 widows, and last year was recognized by her Alma Mater with an Achievement Award for her contribution to her profession and community. She also collaborates with and leads numerous tours for the WTC Tribute Center. Tania is a co-founder of the World Trade Center Survivors' Network, and currently serves as its President."

How she pulled it off this long is an amazing tribute to the majority of mankind. First, look at her photo:


Me, I'm suspicious right away. America, being the way that it is, Merrill Lynch wouldn't have her on some high powered Mergers & Acquisitions team, unless it was to make coffee or provide massages. Cruel, unkind? Sure, but certainly realistic.

Then there's this: She said she took her BA from Harvard and her MBA from Stanford. Neither school has any record of her. Merrill Lynch has no record of her. Her fiancé's family never heard of her, nor had her fiancé's roommate, who is pretty sure that David, the dead fiancé, didn't spend a week in Hawaii any time in the two years before 9/11. There's no record of a foundation in her fiancé's memory. She doesn't work for a financial think tank.

Did you get all the hyperbole written into her biography? Sure, people have been doing this kind of ego-self inflation thing since people created vocal communication. As soon as we could yearn, we began doing so. The 'if you can dream it, you might as well pretend it happened' crowd. But when you take this kind of attitude out of your shower, it can become a problem.

Can you imagine what she's going through now? She has an attorney, and both of them are saying, "No comment."

This is why I always tell my kids, don't ever tell a lie that can be proven a lie. That's where she went wrong, so horribly wrong.