[edit, yes I changed the title. it got autocompleted to something else earlier]
The chairs were part of a memorial service at Bryant park. Kind of eerie to see in person:
"2,819 empty chairs are set up on the lawn facing the site where the World Trade Center once stood"

Skyline image is from the towers in 1985

Just came across this one with names I know.

Also some nice images from the Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/09/ground_zero_september_11_2001.html

Only 10 more years until it's funny.

I'm travelling around California at the moment and arrived in Monterey oon the day. I was fairly excitedly walking down the waterfront in the evening watching sea otters, pelicans etc when I saw a memorial service program for some lady incongruously on an interpretation board. Then I see the date on it and realise it's ten years old. The next board has another photo of the lady in scuba gear with a chunky mid-30s guy with a 'tache hugging her. And the guy on the bench behind me quietly staring out to sea looks like a haggard older version of the same man.

The waterfalls and pools look really amazing. Would like to go visit that some time.

So I will throw Veterans' Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. -- Kurt Vonnegut

Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued?

Actually, I don’t think it’s me, and it’s not really that odd.

What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. The atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.

A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits — people who should have understood very well what was happening — took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity?

The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.

-- Paul Krugman

I spent the entire day purposely avoiding the television so that I wouldn't have to see any "news" coverage about it. I'm a bit 9/11'd out to be quite honest. I did happen to ride by the Paris 9/11 memorial on my way to a family function though.

I am self-centered and have no conscience, so I spent the day watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Just don't learn about the price of the memorial and the surrounding 9/11-site building and infrastructure projects. The costs are insane.

Granted that the process of removing the debris and rebuilding the area is going to cost a lot, what's going on now is massive developer profiteering.

And this is different from what's already been going on, how?

Yeah I don't really watch tv on it because they tend to show things I'd rather not see. Can't watch the collapse. Havent watched it (in full at least) since it actually happened.

This is the first year I've managed to talk about everything / everyone though. I suppose thats progress.

Honestly, 9/11 really pissed me off this year. Reading the reddit threads about it made me deeply, deeply depressed. Instead of taking 9/11 for what it was, and considering the fact that 9/11 affected everybody differently, it was just one giant cluster**** of trying to "justify" your position and why YOU should/shouldn't care. Then again, this is reddit, I probably should've known better

You don't need to justify why you don't want to remember 9/11, and you don't need to justify why you SHOULD remember 9/11. It was a watershed moment in our nation's history. Is it bad to let people remember 9/11 as an attack on our country that killed thousands of innocent civilians? Of course not. Is it bad to let people remember 9/11 as (what appears to be) a successful attack on our nation's civility? Of course not. Both people are right here, let them remember 9/11 the way they want to.

And McFarlane, although I somewhat agree with Krugman, I was not surprised he used 9/11 as an attack on the right. He is borderline laughable now, in my opinion, and his analysis of the crisis is getting there too. Don't get me wrong, the guy is a Nobel winning economist (for his trade theory stuff, I believe). But, he is very stubborn in his ways as a "fiscal u-rah-rah" guy. When he usually is talking some straight econ, he's a pretty great writer. I think that actually more people should read his blog just to become informed, but I think the average person is put off by him because of just how politicized he gets in his posts. If he kept the "I'm a liberal" talk down, he'd probably have more support.

Yeah, I avoided most of the internet for the weekend. The twitter updates I did see were mostly "LOOK HOW MUCH I DON'T CARE"

**** off. Youd be surprised how many people were effected.

I won a Jenga tournament.

Were you the only contestant?

You know, my first reaction to this was to tell you to **** off. I mean, I suppose I just did but I'm going to have a go at a subject that I think is important.

I'm honestly glad you weren't effected (a/e I dont remember). I'd never ever wish that on anyone.

What bothers me? When people feel the need to make themselves self-important to show how much they don't care about the events. Why does that matter?

Let's talk about comedy then. I'm a firm believer that anyone can make a joke about anything, however that doesn't have to mean I think its funny. Believe it or not, I have been able to laugh when comedians talk about Sept. 11th. The thing is, there are people and comedians that can talk about major events like that and still be tasteful.

I'm pretty sure you wont respond, so I probably just wasted 5 minutes writing this. Go ahead and tell all of the jokes you want JM, I won't think any less of you. I'll just think you're not funny.

Yeah, I'm 9/11'd out as well. Then again I'm quite insensitive since I didn't care much when my grandparents died. Curious, mb, did you lose someone on that day?

10 people from my town. 2 of them were brothers and one of those guys was the father of a kid on my baseball team in elementary / middle school. The Firefighter I knew since I was a baby until I was 15. Close family friend, super funny, really nice, made awesome snow ramps for our sleds.

I think the most upsetting thing is we still have people who say it was punishment from God for us tolerating homosexuality and such.

I'm sorry about that, mb.



This is a very common thing about intelligent people, I think. I remember, back after 9/11, when everyone was talking about going to war, all the "intelligent" people at my college (including me, I have to confess) were feeling self-important about saying that going to war was a mistake and was just a knee-jerk reaction.

I wonder if intelligent people have this need to prove how high brow and intelligent they are?



God, yes. I am generally a tolerant person, but one thing that always gets my gander is when other people are so completely callous and intolerant. I mean, I personally think homosexuality is disgusting, but that doesn't mean God should or would summon lightning strikes on them. To each his own.

I can't understand such rampant judgmentalism.

often there is a misconception that higher education always = intelligent <haha speaking of not being intelligent that sentence sounded all kind of HHHUUURRRPPP!

i would say that attitude IS pervasive among many college students though, and even a fair number of faculty members.

I wrote an email to the guy at the company where I did my apprenticeship that year. We were good friends at the time and the mail was only on the side about 9/11 and more about...10 years later, ie what I'm doing, memories, other people there, etc. Still I probably wouldn't have written if it weren't for that date, which I remember vividly like everyone else. I think I made the best out of it, for me.

But it bothered you enough to respond twice to it?

Right, and good point about the higher education not necessarily equalling intelligence.

Yes.

Sorry to hear that, mb.

This year, for the first time in several years, I found my interest in 9-11 suddenly re-awakened. Been watching 9-11 week on National Graphic for a few days, that sort of thing.

For years, I was so frustrated with all the politics and wars that followed the event, that I got fed up with the entire topic. This year, for the first time in years, I could finally take a step back from all that and reflect on the dramatic event itself.

FWIW, I'm sure it must be a hell of a lot different when you're actually living in the US, but 9-11 was a huge thing everywhere in the world. Everybody remembers where he was and what he was doing when it happened, even here.

On the day, I was going to rehearse with my band and standing in line in front of the ATM when I overheard some people behind me talking about airplanes crashing into the WTC and the pentagon, and I was absolutely convinced they were talking about some new spectacular movie or something. There wasn't the remotest notion in my mind that these people could actually be discussing the news. So when we got to the rehearsal space, the TVs were on everywhere and we saw the buildings collapse. It was totally unreal. We all knew the world would never be the same again, in one way or another.

We didn't rehearse that night, and went straight home to follow the news. In the streets the atmosphere was eerie. People were looking at each other with pale faces, and everybody was staring at you as if they were saying 'Have you heard the news?'. Of course the first few hours, we had no clue who could be behind it, and lots of people I talked to were afraid of a third world war, or the US nuking Baghdad...

The sickest thing about 9-11 is the deadly effectiveness with which it was pulled off. It was such a grand and sick plan to more or less simultaneously fly four planes into both towers of the WTC, the Pentagon and (presumably) the Capitol building. I still can't believ they almost pulled off the entire thing. It was grander in scope and more macabre than any disaster movie ever made. The un-be-lie-va-ble footage of the planes flying into the buildings, the people jumping to their deaths (which for me still is the most heart-breaking thing to watch), the towers collapsing, people in the streets running for their lives, Manhattan covered in a huge cloud of smoke and dust... it's like an apocalypse, and it's sick. It's real. It's mass murder, live on TV.

I'm really sorry for your loss, mb, and I realize this post doesn't really contribute anything to the thread.

A very eloquent and sensitive elegy, ORJ_JoS. It does indeed contribute. Thank you for it.

When I first heard, everyone assumed it was a small prop plane that had hit. Looking back on it now it all does seem like it should be from a movie.

Anyway, thanks it does contribute. Means a lot.