Couldn’t you, I don’t know, change the channel or something? I haven’t seen anything on 9/11 myself yet…mostly because I haven’t watched the news like a junky looking for a fix and the only surfing I’ve done so far was decidely not news related.
If it annoys you so much it should be easy enough to avoid watching things related to the anniversary. Or you could go on one of your blogs and read about them bitching about 9/11 and feel at home.
As for why folks do this…well, it seems to be human nature (thats HUMAN nature…probably why you don’t quite get it ) to make powerful events by celerbrating/memorializing them on the dates they happened. I suppose we pick incriments of 5 because of our numbering system.
As an example, why was it important to focus on the 1000th soldier killed in Iraq? yet it was in the news as the media (and others) breathlessly awaited the 1000th soldier killed. Why? Gods know. But it was, to some.
Personally I don’t need the media to remind me about 9/11…I haven’t forgotten at all. But its good for the country to have a day where they can remember and reflect on things, to let their grief have expression and to remember the dead. I think that the country tends to have very short term memory about most things, and that these kinds of collective memorials (like some of the others mentioned…Pearl Harbor, Kennedy’s assasination, Independence Day, etc) are good to keep some events in the publics mind. I don’t think one day a year is excessive. The public (and perhaps you if this has caused you to miss some important Bush rants) can get back to the inane bullshit it NORMALLY watches tomorrow.
Did I claim to have sacrificed anything (other than a bit of sleep)? I’m just saying that perhaps there’s a difference between commemorating the event, and beating the event to death for fun and profit.
Perhaps you could explain to me why on earth anyone would need to watch those towers fall again? What purpose is served? Is that honest contemplation? Is that cathartic? Or is that base rubbernecking?
Ah, those crafty terrorists. To plane an attack so that the 5 year anniversary will fall a couple of weeks before the '06 mid-term elections. Just so empty-shirted politicos can milk the event for votes.
Got it.
But this anniversary hits home especially hard since this election may be the chance for the Democrats to regain some footing. And THAT’s the real reason the coverage today is so despised. The mayor of New York is on TV, not really unheard of for an anniversary of such magnitude, but it’s all just a political ploy to you.
I’ve seen Kennedy’s head blow off a hell of a lot more times than I’ve seen the towers fall. I’ve seen the smoking wreckage of our fleet with Japanese planes still flying by a hell of a lot more times too. Whats the purpose? To remember.
Is it honest cometemplation? Is it cathartic? Is it base rubbernecking? Why yes…its all of those things. Its also necessary to people…or it wouldn’t be done. It helps us instill the events into a few key images, and is used as a visual que to condense a lot of information into a few visual images. When I see the smoking wreckage of one of our battleships, then the camera pans around the entire harbor at Pearl (and everyone one of you has seen this same scene countless times, at least if you live in the US) then it brings back the events and makes them fresh in my memory again. Same goes when I see the image of the second plane as it flys in to the building, the smoking ruin of the first strike in the background. Or the image of the towers falling. These were POWERFUL events in our nations history…well, to most of us at least.
Of course it’s political. It’s fortuitous timing for the Pubs and they’re taking advantage of it but so are the Dems. This doesn’t particularly benefit one party more than the other, especially since it reminds people that OBL is still free as a bird five years later.
That’s not the reason I started this thread, though. It’s mostly just that I’m so fucking BORED with the topic.
I live in Holland. Even our newspapers, TVs and radiostations have not been just ‘commemorating’ it today, but have been ‘looking forward’ to the date for more than a week now. I know TV isn’t mandatory, but the radio at my workplace is always on, and I’ve been listening to it all day and I’m quite fed up with it.
To the point where I just don’t give a fuck anymore. Really. There’s plenty of folks dying of aids and hunger today, and the media have been ignoring those plenty since it’s not new or hip anymore. I agree that 9/11 should be commemorated, but I’m plenty capable of doing that on my own, thankyouverymuch.
I’m just waiting for 9/11 to become tragically unhip. I’ll be waiting a long time.
Haven’t seen much on 9/11 on either the Cartoon Network or the Food Channel. There probably is a dearth of 9/11 coverage on the All Bass Network (All Bass Fishing, ALL THE TIME!) as well. Give em a whirl!
9-11 Showed the tri-state area what it was like not to have radio or TV transmissions. He could celebrate by disrupting TV and Radio service so that we could all remember in our own way. In silence.
I’m sorry…let me rephrase. Its necessary to HUMANS. Maybe the ‘people’ thing was throwing you off? Let me expand, briefly ( ). For at least the last 10,000 years, humans have oddly enough felt the need to memorialize powerful events in their lives…with images. We painted drawings on caves depicting legendary hunting events. When our loved one’s died, we didn’t just shove em in a hole or leave them exposed to provide snacks to whatever may wander by, but instead buried them…and built memorials (visual representations) to remember them by. Maybe you’ve heard of a few of these things? Rumors? Hearsay?
WHY this may be the case is best left to an anthropologist. I could speculate on why people watch powerful emotional events and images, how we are able to condense those events, emotions, feelings, thoughts, etc into a few images, and why its necessary to watch those images again periodically to refresh them and re-create the touchstone to our memories…but thats not the point. The point is, humans DO this kind of thing all the time. This 9/11 stuff isn’t new…we memorialize ALL the powerful events both in our private lives and things that effect us collectively in just this way. And we have for quite a while now.
Bitching about it or saying WTF seems (to me) kind of silly. Don’t think the event was important? Sick of hearing about it? Then feel free to switch the channel, go out and play in a non-wired park, surf porn or watch the Bass Channel. Its your right after all.
I don’t have a problem with the media and government taking advantage of an anniversary to remember an important and truly sad day in our country’s history. I just wish they would present the whole story. After the attacks, everything wasn’t only about holding hands and supporting one another. There was also all kinds of racist shit that happened such as people being assaulted and even killed for wearing turbans, a cowardly lion of a president who didn’t know jack shit about who committed the attacks (but somehow “knew” that his airplane was under attack, and ran away like a weasel), idiotic news stories about people who survived after “riding the towers down”, portrayal of the entire Arab world in a state of celebration, the Anthrax/Al Queda connection soon afterwards, etc.
Let’s just re-broadcast the entire day, instead of censoring the embarrassing parts.
Indeed, that was what was throwing me off. Because I believe that DtC, DianaG, and myself are all people as well as humans, and we do not find it necessary at all. Do you think we are so anomalous as to be other than human?
I agree that a lot of the coverage seems hyped and glurgy rather than respectful. My husband was flipping channels last night and came across that “Road to 9-11” show or whatever it was called, and I just refused to watch it. I have no desire to see actors play out those roles yet, it seems too much like the “watch this sad movie and be really sad!” phenomenon others have described. Then he turned to that documentary, the one that the brothers made about the firefighter that happened to turn into a live action capture of the towers falling, and I hesitated. I had seen it before and I knew how tough it is to watch. But the first few minutes grabbed me in again and I watched the whole thing. It really brought it all back. I prefer to watch something like that and just see it again for myself, than hear endless commentary and memorial services and horrible pop songs.
I dread the media glurge too, the buildup every year. I wish they could just show that simple footage once and let people reflect and move on.
Then again, I was free to change the channel and watch The Simpsons and Family Guy if I wished, and I remember when there seriously was no alternative - every channel was showing 9/11 footage all the time. So I chose to watch that this year. But I do agree that the glurginess of most of is makes me want to not participate in it at all sometimes. I do feel bad for families that lost someone and who really can’t turn around without seeing the scene of their loved one’s death. I mean, if my spouse dies in a car accident, I don’t have to watch the live action footage of it over and over and hear the screaming. For people who really are trying to get on with their day it is hard to have to be hit with that all the time.
Maybe you could get the ball rolling a bit. I don’t remember anyone being killed for wearing a turban…or being assaulted for wearing a turban for that matter…on 9/11. Do you have some cites of this happening?
No idea what you are on about here…could you expand? I thought the normal anti-Bush rant was about the goat book.
Why would we want to see mis-information again? Do you know what the term ‘fog of war’ means? Not only are such things to be expected (especially considering a media frantic to one-up the competition, to get stories out first, etc etc), they are quite common. I don’t see why it would be important to dwell on the various mis-information tossed out that day…nor is dwelling on such stuff common.
On Sept 11th?? The first I recall seeing celebrating Arabs (mostly Palestinians IIRC) was a couple of days later.
None of which happened ON September 11th. Either your sense of timing of the various events (among other things) is skewed or you feel that we should be memorializing the September 11th And Months That followed today…which would REALLY piss off the OP.
My advice…back away. Back away SLOWLY. Less DtC’s head explode…
Appearently you seem confused by such things (thus the ‘what the fuck’ statement)…which, given the fact that they have been part of human society since, er, well since before we were living in cities, its curious at the least (also, I don’t think DtC at least was confused…just annoyed, so I don’t think on this he could rightfully be lumped in). I wouldn’t dream of guessing whether you are in fact human or not, though. Also, I won’t hold it against any of you if you turn out to be extra-dimensional space aliens or something. Really, its cool.
) to make powerful events by celerbrating/memorializing them on the dates they happened. I suppose we pick incriments of 5 because of our numbering system.
