Where were you on September 11th? I was driving across the South. Read the story here.
I basically avoided most of the September 11th coverage today, largely because I was doped up from having my wisdom teeth yanked and watching that all day when on drugs is not a good idea.
But I probably would have avoided it anyway, since, putting aside it being really fucking depressing, it was all more generalized and sort of lumped the victims of this thing into one big group, which I think is stupid.
It is used by politicians to justify acts that have no justification (cough cough “enemy combatant” cough cough), and it makes each individual seem less worthy and more like one of a mass.
The loss of the individual lives is what really makes things like this hurt. I would pick up the New York Times all year and every time there would be more pictures with little stories of what each person was like. I mentioned a piece in the Washington Post a couple of days ago that is also a good example of what I think this is all about.
The one thing that I did watch was the Naget Brothers’ documentary 9|11, which aired on CBS. I watched this a few weeks back when a guy at work lent it to me, and it is a phenomenal piece of work.
It does what must be done to focus the emotion of something like this: Concentrates on one firehouse and one probie firefighter in particular, who the brothers had been following for months before. You get to know these people, so you can actually care about what happens to them when the attack finally comes.
It is a powerful film, and it really shows the magnitude of the destruction.
Anyway, I’ll let you all get on to my irreverent bitching about getting my wisdom teeth pulled. But today, pure irreverence seems somewhat inappropriate.
Even the Onion agrees with me in its Infographic (see last one).