ADDED: High-quality enlargements of these three pictures: here, here, and here. And here's a fourth one where you can see the whole Onion front page, including the classic headline: "Hijackers Surprised to Find Selves in Hell."
११ सप्टेंबर, २००५
September 11th.
A personal ritual for me on September 11th is to take out my collection of newspapers and magazines, saved from the first week or so after the attacks. The multiples are not there because of an attempt to amass collector's items, but because there were three family members saving things (one of whom was in San Francisco).
ADDED: High-quality enlargements of these three pictures: here, here, and here. And here's a fourth one where you can see the whole Onion front page, including the classic headline: "Hijackers Surprised to Find Selves in Hell."
ADDED: High-quality enlargements of these three pictures: here, here, and here. And here's a fourth one where you can see the whole Onion front page, including the classic headline: "Hijackers Surprised to Find Selves in Hell."
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Linked as part of my selection of 9/11 posts and reflections.
How naive we all were! Believing that this was, in the words of the Economist, "the day that changed everything". Hardly. Some of us changed forever (I myself suffered a conversion that day and in the coming weeks), but how sad is it that after four years and numerous other attacks, most Westerners have no more sense of urgency about Islamic terrorism than they do about global warming.
But then perhaps there is a similarity there. This is the age of post-nationalism, post-Christianity, post-everything people once concidered important, which is fine if you plan on replacing it with something. But because the West doesn't stand for anything, Westerners demand for nothing more than the merest symbology. Signing to Kyoto Treaty is symbolic, and so do-able. But there is no symbolic way to defeat terrorism. And if we don't believe enough in our own values, why attempt defending ourselves against someone elses? Sure, pity the poor blokes who perished, but what we need think about is how to talk them out of doing it again.
Sorry for the rant, but it's been cathartic.
Those newspapers bring back some powerful memories. On that day our high school more or less shutdown as we shuffled from class to class like zombies, watching CNN in complete shock and horror. The overwhelming sentiment was that our lives were changed forever and we would never forget that day. Today's CNN.com's top headline is "Mayor faults FEMA response." We've all forgotten much too soon.
The Economist said, "The day the world changed", sorry. But same idea...
Flipping channels this morning and heres what I saw, CBS commercials then Sunday morning fluff, NBC cut to Pentagon memorial but had speaking over singing of national anthem at memorial and cut away to commercial to come back for Rumsfeld's speech, ABC nothing on memorial and running a piece on where is Bin Laden, why haven't we caught him?, CNN mention of memorial then back to Katrina coverage (accountability!), FOX the entire national anthem then the entire Rumsfeld speech with no yammering from their studio people.
The online editions of the papers I perused today, NYT a handful of 9/11 articles and the op-eds have the compare Katrina to 9/11 angle, LATimes same deal.
Roger Simon has a phrase "The politics of the last five minutes" and if you told me that awful morning 4 years ago that the last 5 minutes would trump those awful hours a scant four years later, I would have been incredulous to say the least.
The amount of coverage devoted to 9/11 remembrance would seem to correlate with the perceived political leaning of the outlet, but I didn't see everything and my sample may not have been representative of all the facts, but my instinct tells me that there is something consciously political about the editorial decisions being made, and though not surprising, it still is saddening.
And as a topper for this post this just in from Al Qaeda by way of an ABC News exclusive:
"Yesterday, London and Madrid. Tomorrow, Los Angeles and Melbourne, Allah willing. And this time, don't count on us demonstrating restraint or compassion"
and there was also this nugget from the same piece posted online today:
"Don't believe the lies of the liars at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and 10 Downing Street," Gadahn insists. "They have dispatched your sons and daughters to die lonely deaths in the burning deserts of Iraq and the unforgiving mountains of Afghanistan."
(and just to add a little fuel to the fire, would anyone be surprised if Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore, Al Franken or even Howard Dean or Nancy Pelosi had said that last quote instead of a spokesgoon for Al Qaeda?)
Put this on Dr. Sanity, but it seems germane here:
I was sitting down to the local paper this morning when the message came through. I'm on page for one of perhaps a dozen emergency service outfits in our county. The dispatchers are remarkable people, able to juggle personnel and units with varying capabilities; hold a mental map of roads and trails and intersections; summon specialized expertise (rescue dogs and chlorine experts and air tankers dumping retardant, for instance); and do it all with a sort of calm professionalism and (critically important) clear diction that never flags even when bombarded with calls from the public and separate calls on the law enforcement spectrum and radio calls from all of us at once.
This morning one of the young female dispatchers put out a message to the full complement of county firefighters and rescue personnel, saying "It has been 4 years since 9/11. Let us take a minute of silence to commemorate the sacrifices of the uniformed services." The sort of not-quite well written piece of sentiment provided by a low-level bureaucrat for 'occasions.' But her voice broke and she was just barely controlling her tears when she spoke it.
One dispatcher futilely loving unknown firemen and policemen half a country away, dead 4 years ago. Haven't been able to read an editorial all day - the thought disgusted me.
Michael, I spent 9/10 at a clinic, helping others learn how to punch holes in paper at 600 yards. Never thought of it as a 9/11 commemorative. But rights not exercised atrophy.
That "Onion" page is pretty good. But not many people know that the famously no-limits "Onion" decided not to go with the line "America Stronger Than Ever, Say Quadragon Officials." I say that's even funnier than the line about the terrorists in hell, but it was probably too much, too soon for that issue.
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