A memorial
Thursday, September 11th, 2008 By Mike Maurer
As I wait in the hotel for a conference to begin, the ordinary useless news, Sept. 11 being one of the stories, seven years later, etc., but it’s just a story and the exciting stuff is the Hurricane and probably some appalling debauchery by a young blonde somewhere, if I had patience to stick with it. We don’t have a TV and this affirms why. Nothing to see, and what you do see prevents you from doing something useful, including, comparatively, staring at the wall.
But there’s an exception, in the most unlikely place. MSNBC is playing in its entirety NBC’s broadcast that day. At 9:36 a.m. a man named Johnson, former state department terrorism expert, was being interviewed for several minutes. He was smart, insightful, had his head, what he said was right. “The next thing you’ll hear will be people calling for anti-aircraft missiles on tops of buildings.”
A remarkable instance of bad timing: He said, quite correctly as we know in hindsight, that “This type of event is extremely rare and isn’t likely to happen again soon.” He said that at 9:36. Also during this time, Jim Miklashevsky, who was reporting from the Pentagon, in a sort of pointless exploration of whether the military would be bombing someone within the hour or whether they’d wait to find out who did the act–no exaggeration (I did add the “within the hour,” but otherwise Matt Lauer (second or third string at the time) and Katy Couric were seriously having that discussion). At 9:39, Miklashevsky said there was a vibration at the Pentagon and he could see construction workers running away, and he’d have to go see what was up.
Brokaw shows up at about 9:45, talking about the psychological threat, “the most conspicuous symbols of American capitalism.”
9:49 Brokaw reports the air system has been shut down, planes grounded. Still haven’t gotten to reporting about a missing plane. A masterpiece of terrorism, no doubt.
It’s 9:52. The south tower is about to collapse.
9:58 a.m. Palestinian spokesman quoted as saying they’re against attacks on civilians “outside of this region”.
9:59 video shows collapse. Brokaw says it looks like a big piece fell off. Says they might have to tear down both towers because of structural damage. 10:03, they still don’t know in the studio that the tower has collapsed.
Tell me again about Abu Ghraib. Show those hooded pictures again. But don’t show those World Trade Center photos again. Otherwise the we might get mad and the world think less of us. What’s the BBC position on our presidential election again?
(10:18-Yassir Arafat is “shocked and appalled.” Brokaw didn’t say anything about what regions Arafat was shocked and appalled in.)
September 13th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
There was another exception to the “forget 9/11″ rule. At 12:00 on the Green in Worthington, OH – as has been done every year since 2002, a ceremony honoring those killed in the attack and those who continue the fight for freedom every day was held. More people came this year than in any previous year and for the first time, there were kids from the local schools. The keynote speaker served at Gitmo and welcomed the opportunity to set the record straight on the service of those members of the military assigned to that facility. The first speaker made the point that 9/11 has already started fading in our collective memories, but hopefully, events like what we have in Worthington will forestall the time when 9/11 is just another day.