"I saw a lot of rumors online today... that I canceled some sort of college tour. That's bullshit. I saw those rumors. They're false."

"I will be coming to college campuses, many of them this year. So will we all. I am sure, because we're Americans, and we're not going to be deterred. Charlie's voice is not silent. We're going to pick up that bloodstained microphone where Charlie left it. And to those who would intimidate, who would seek to stop us, who would seek to end free discussion, who believe that they have ownership over public spaces and can violently threaten and kill people who speak freely: We are not going to stop. And I have two words: Fuck you. We will not stop telling the truth. We will never stop telling the truth. We will never stop debating and discussing. We'll never stop standing up for what America is and for what she should be. And we will never let Charlie Kirk's voice die."

Said Ben Shapiro on today's episode of his podcast, "Unthinkable, Charlie Kirk, 31, Assassinated."

Today is 9/11, and Ben's statement makes me think of the idea that if we don't continue to live as freely and fully as we had before then we will be letting the terrorists win. 

"It's long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree day after day, year after year..."

"... in the most hateful and despicable way possible. For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world's worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.... Radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives. Tonight, I ask all Americans to commit themselves to the American values for which Charlie Kirk lived and died — the values of free speech, citizenship, the rule of law, and the patriotic devotion and love of God.... Today, because of this heinous act, Charlie's voice has become bigger and grander than ever before, and it's not even close...."

Said Trump in an address from the Oval Office last night.

My attention was called to that by this Maggie Haberman piece in the NYT: "At the White House, Trump’s Grief and Shock Turn to Rage Over Charlie Kirk/President Trump asked for updates and met with advisers in the Oval Office before recording a four-minute video in which he blamed rhetoric from the 'radical left' for the killing."

The headline prompts us to question Trump's basis for purporting to know what motivated the killer. Maybe we ought to wait until we learn more, and maybe the hateful rhetoric is coming from both sides, and maybe there are leftwing targets of violence. I'm imagining those on the left scurrying to prevent Trump and his allies from controlling the narrative.

I wrote that last paragraph based on the headline and drawing on my own expectations. Then I read the article and did not find what I'd thought I'd find. It is more of a straightforward description of the scene at the White House yesterday. We're told "the corridors... were quiet, as staff there absorbed news," and "Televisions affixed to walls in different rooms blared minute-to-minute coverage.... Some staff members appeared to have been crying."

The last sentence of the article makes me jerk my head to check the calendar icon in the sidebar of my computer: "The president was still on track for a visit to New York on the anniversary of the last significant event to unite nearly all Americans across parties: the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks."

It's a very somber day, not a day to strain to find a way to advantage your side. And yet, there is Trump in that video, forthrightly blaming the radical left. He didn't take a day or 2 off for reflection and what either is or looks like prayer. And that's a temptation to all on the left and all those pumping for Democrats to assert that the right is also responsible for the violence. Yield to that temptation and you might be the next Matthew Dowd.

See "Matthew Dowd Fired From MSNBC for Charlie Kirk Comments" (Variety). What Dowd said, probably feeling this was measured, accurate, and smart: "[Charlie Kirk] is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups. And I always go back to, hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions. And I think that is the environment we are in. You can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and not expect awful actions to take place. And that’s the unfortunate environment we are in."

"A divided federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., on Friday tossed out an agreement that would have allowed 9/11 terror mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to plead guilty...."

"The 2-1 D.C. Circuit appeals court decision upheld then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s decision to undo the plea deal approved by military lawyers and senior Pentagon staff. The deal would have carried life without parole sentences for Mohammed and two co-defendants, potentially taking capital punishment off the table.... [L]egal concerns stemmed from whether the original plea deal was legally binding and whether Austin waited too long to get it dismissed. The court found Austin indisputably had legal authority to withdraw from the agreements because the promises made in the deal had not yet been fulfilled, and the government had no adequate alternative remedies...."

The NY Post reports.

"Suddenly, while they were drinking their coffee...."

GenX here. Three people I knew died in the towers, human beings just like Taylor Lorenz, who got on the subway and went to work one day and then suddenly while they were drinking their coffee they had to decide whether to jump or burn to death.

Not a fucking punchline. https://t.co/drIyJJxgfn

— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) May 30, 2025

"The Pentagon carried out the secret operation in the early hours of Monday..."

"... days before Guantánamo’s most notorious prisoner, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, was scheduled to plead guilty to plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in exchange for a life sentence rather than face a death-penalty trial. The handoff had been in the works for about three years. An initial plan to conduct the transfer in October 2023 was derailed by opposition from Congress. The 11 who were released included Moath al-Alwi, a former long-term hunger striker who gained attention in the art world for building model boats from objects found at the Guantánamo prison; Abdulsalam al-Hela, whose testimony was sought by defense lawyers in the U.S.S. Cole case; and Hassan Bin Attash, the younger brother of a defendant in the Sept. 11 conspiracy case...."

From "U.S. Sends 11 Guantánamo Prisoners to Oman to Start New Lives/The secret mission left the smallest number of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay since the day the detention center opened in 2002" (NYT).

Awful yelling in Congress today.

Secret Service chief Ronald Rowe Jr. got into a screaming match with a GOP lawmaker over 9/11 during an otherwise cordial hearing. https://t.co/SK6rnmRGdj pic.twitter.com/eKwBOkO1mN

— POLITICO (@politico) December 5, 2024

Biden, Trump, Harris, Vance... side by side at the 9/11 memorial service this morning.

"Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on Friday overruled the overseer of the war court at Guantánamo Bay and revoked a plea agreement reached earlier this week..."

"... with the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and two alleged accomplices.... In taking away the authority, Mr. Austin assumed direct oversight of the case and canceled the agreement, effectively reinstating it as a death-penalty case.... Mr. Austin’s decision brought relief to family members of victims who had expressed anger over the deal, but it also left uncertain the next steps of the prosecution over America’s deadliest terrorist attack.... The case had become mired in more than a decade of pretrial proceedings that focused on whether the detainees’ torture in secret C.I.A. prisons had contaminated the evidence against them.... Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the longtime Republican leader, called the agreement 'a revolting abdication of the government’s responsibility to defend America and provide justice.' Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas called the deal 'disgraceful and an insult to the victims of the attacks,' and introduced legislation intended to nullify it. But Senator Richard J. Durbin, an Illinois Democrat who is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, hailed the plea agreement as a 'small measure of justice and finality to the victims and their loved ones.'"

From "Defense Secretary Revokes Plea Deal for Accused Sept. 11 Plotters/Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III assumed direct oversight of the case and effectively put the death penalty back on the table" (NYT).

"Kennedy's campaign did not comment on the 'sides' he was referring to in his tweet, or what other 'debates' he was referring to, beyond pointing to his post on the '60 Minutes' report."

 From "Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he 'won't take sides' on what happened on 9/11/The independent presidential candidate made the remark in a social media post, later saying that he was referring to 'possible Saudi involvement' in the 2001 terror attacks" (NBC News).

"[T]he voyeuristic new 'Portal' street exhibit in the Flatiron District connecting New York City and Dublin with a 24/7 live video feed has already caused chaos..."

"... with mischief-makers on Ireland’s side flashing everything from their bare bums to swastikas and a photo of the Twin Towers in flames on 9/11.... [The] earnest utopian vision proved no match for the pub-lined Dublin thoroughfare, whose Guinness-glugging patrons were quickly drawn to the futuristic-looking exhibit like moths to a flame in videos circulating online. Within hours of the Dublin portal going live, a 'very drunk' woman in her 40s was led away by cops and arrested after 'grinding' her backside against the screen... Adam Nunan, a cruise ship audio engineer originally from Dublin and in New York while the ship is docked here, said, 'That doesn’t represent Ireland very well when you do that. That was everyone’s thoughts back home, there was a lot of people who didn’t want the portal to be built for that reason, that Americans might look at Irish people in the portal doing weird stuff....'"

From "NYC-Dublin live video art installation already bringing out the worst in people with lewd displays" (NY Post).

Earnest utopian vision? Why was this invitation to exhibitionism able to be promoted as utopian? And on what basis does the NY Post present the "utopian vision" as earnest? And why does the headline say "bringing out the worst in people" when the article is all about what's happening on the Irish end of the portal? 

Biden mutters to himself, frets aloud about "getting in trouble," looks around worried/confused, and mutters to himself again.

Oh my Lord. This man is not well. pic.twitter.com/5UoEW90FD6

— Peter Daou (@peterdaou) March 6, 2024

I don't know if he's "not well" or if he's got something else bothering him, but would somebody please help him? Help us.

ADDED: The look on his face reminded of George W. Bush's "My Pet Goat" interlude. Maybe Biden doesn't want to upset the children. 

"President Biden has rejected a list of proposed conditions sought by the five men who are accused of conspiring in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks..."

"... in exchange for pleading guilty and receiving a maximum punishment of life in prison, according to two administration officials....  The case has been bogged down in pretrial proceedings in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for more than a decade.... In talks with prosecutors, defense lawyers said Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind, and four other defendants wanted certain accommodations, including assurances they would not serve their sentences in solitary confinement and could instead continue to eat and pray communally — as they do now as detainees at Guantánamo Bay. The prisoners also sought a civilian-run program to treat sleep disorders, brain injuries, gastrointestinal damage or other health problems they attribute to the agency’s brutal interrogation methods during their three to four years in C.I.A. custody before their transfer to Guantánamo Bay in 2006...."

From "Biden Rejects Proposed Conditions for Plea Deals in Sept. 11 Case/Five Guantánamo detainees accused of aiding the attacks wanted a promise of care for torture-related trauma and to avoid solitary confinement" (NYT).

"... Mr. Biden took no position on the general notion that a plea deal could eliminate the possibility of death sentences...."

Did the NYT decline to treat 9/11 as the annual commemorative occasion that it's been for the past 20 years?

I'm seeing this:

To the "Paper of Record," home to the terror attack that killed 3,000 Americans, apparently September 11 is just another day. pic.twitter.com/IBd6d3ZWxH

— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) September 11, 2022

I might defend the NYT and other news outlets if they chose to end the practice. I don't like terrorists squatting on the calendar, forcing us into darkness every 365 days. We must honor the dead? But if we truly ordered our life around honoring the dead, every day of the year would be a somber day of commemoration. Instead, we have a scattering of death days on the American calendar. Why those and not others? What interests are served by keeping those horrendous events fresh in our mind and not others?

So what if the NYT has maxed out on articles written in advance and highlighted on the front page of the September 11th edition of the paper? What 9/11 means 21 years later, What young people who don't remember 9/11 think about 9/11, What place does 9/11 have in the psyche of young adults who saw it on television live but couldn't understand it at the time.... There are endless pieces that could be prepared for the commemorative edition and placed prominently to establish that the newspaper has, indeed, once again, presented 9/11 with the proper depth and respect.

What the NYT actually did wasn't nothing. It was to report on what happened on September 11, 2022. That is, the news. Not the more distant past.

I'm seeing one 9/11 piece published in the NYT on 9/11/22: "Marking 9/11, Biden Remembers the ‘Precious Lives Stolen From Us’/Members of the Biden administration honored the victims of the attacks, which, 21 years later, remain deeply painful for the family members who lost loved ones."  (There's also a page on line, "Biden Honors 9/11 Victims at the Pentagon," consisting of video of Biden speaking.)

Remembering 9/11 — a walk through the Flight 93 memorial.

The video is from Meade's visit to the federal Flight 93 memorial on December 15, 2021.

Below are some of Meade's still photographs. Before you arrive at the federal monument, you encounter the Flight 93 Memorial Chapel:

Outside there are these monuments:

Finally, this is Meade's photo of the "Tower of Voices" at the federal memorial:

Mystic, part 2.

Here I am at 4 in the morning reading the OED entry for "mystic." See previous post for context. 

I have to open a new post to show you something I found that has nothing to do with the "mystical cord" [sic] that was or may have been Queen Elizabeth. 

For years now, I've run into the name Donald Trump not only in the many, many stories about him but in all sorts of articles that have nothing to do with him. Just now, I found this in the OED, under the meaning "Of or relating to mysterious or occult rites or practices":

"The temptation of the West for Putin was, I think, chiefly that he saw it as instrumental to building a great Russia. He was always obsessed with the 25 million Russians trapped outside Mother Russia..."

"... by the breakup of the Soviet Union. Again and again he raised this. That is why, for him, the end of the Soviet empire was the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century."

Said Condoleezza Rice, quoted in "The Making of Vladimir Putin/The 22-year arc of the Russian president’s exercise of power is a study in audacity" by Roger Cohen (NYT). 

This is a very substantial article, and there are some excellent photographs — Putin scaring Angel Merkel with a dog, George W. Bush yukking it up with a smilingly sober Putin. 

I'll just add a bit:

In my day the expression was: "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem."

That coercive line of reasoning has morphed into something even harsher, as explained by Glenn Greenwald in "Civil Liberties Are Being Trampled by Exploiting 'Insurrection' Fears. Congress's 1/6 Committee May Be the Worst Abuse Yet. Following the 9/11 script, objections to government overreach in the name of 1/6 are demonized as sympathy for terrorists. But government abuses pose the greater threat":

When it comes to 1/6 and those who were at the Capitol, there is no middle ground. That playbook is not new. "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists" was the rigidly binary choice which President George W. Bush presented to Americans and the world when addressing Congress shortly after the 9/11 attack. With that framework in place, anything short of unquestioning support for the Bush/Cheney administration and all of its policies was, by definition, tantamount to providing aid and comfort to the terrorists and their allies. There was no middle ground, no third option, no such thing as ambivalence or reluctance: all of that uncertainty or doubt, insisted the new war president, was to be understood as standing with the terrorists.

"At a time when religious bigotry might’ve flowed freely, I saw Americans reject prejudice and embrace people of Muslim faith. That is the nation I know."

"At a time when nativism could have stirred hatred and violence against people perceived as outsiders, I saw America’s reaffirm their welcome to immigrants and refugees. That is the nation I know. At a time when some viewed the rising generation as individualistic and decadent, I saw young people embrace an ethic of service and rise to selfless action. That is the nation I know. This is not mere nostalgia. It is the truest version of ourselves. It is what we have been and what we can be again."

From "George W. Bush Speech Transcript at 9/11 Memorial Ceremony on 20th Anniversary" (Rev).

ADDED: "It is what we have been and what we can be again" ≈ "Make America Great Again."

The cat and the flag.

They caught a cat in an American flag on 9/11 and it’s incredible pic.twitter.com/8aff1SNpy2

— Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) September 12, 2021

Commentary and context: "Whomever [sic] is bringing a cat into this is a horrible human and should be arrested and charged with animal cruelty"/"Sad thing about this, no matter what, there will be some people out there that will say this was just all a setup for a photo-op. It was placed there so this 'miraculous' thing happened today and in what better venue. God Bless America #NeverForget911 #NeverForget"/"There was other footage of the cat hanging from the balcony. People were reaching to try to grab him/her before it fell."

"During this time, I convinced myself that women were too damn difficult...."

20 years ago today I was an extremely obnoxious college freshman, a trait later immortalized in my Comp 101 professor’s memoir pic.twitter.com/yiHnQORDFR

— Katie Herzog (@kittypurrzog) September 11, 2021

I had to wonder who that teacher was, going public with misogyny (even if it was misogyny in the past). 

Looking for an answer, I found this 2018 article by Katie Herzog, "The Lesbian Who Taught Me What My Problem Was/I thought I hated my teacher. Turns out, I hated myself" (The Stranger). Had you forgotten to consider that the author might be a woman? I had. Excerpt: