Teaching about 9/11

[embiggen]

I do think it is crass though to take pictures to profit. I still think it is tacky and crass that there are several vendors right outside selling 9/11 goods for profit.

 

 

this is one reason why I avoided the area today. it makes me what to vomit.

[EL the Famous]

Also, the two big benefit shows in the weeks following got very heavy play from me for a long time.

 

i posted the U2 clip from the tribute to heroes deal on my blog today. hadn't watched it in a long time, but it brought back a lot of feelings like it was yesterday.

 

Matt Z, again, great post and good karma to you, man.

[uncool2pillow]

Is taking pictures then any different then taking pictures now? People still take pictures of sites of great destruction...Pearl Harbor, Gettysburg etc...I took a few pictures about a month or so after I am not going to lie. My reasons were so I can share them with my kids whenever I have them. Then again I was not a tourist as I have lived in the area for 20 years at that point. In addition I have also saved some major newspaper headlines etc...I am a history junkie and save things from major events. I do think it is crass though to take pictures to profit. I still think it is tacky and crass that there are several vendors right outside selling 9/11 goods for profit.

Gettysburg, and to an extent Pearl Harbor, are different because you won't see loved ones mourning there. I've been to the Vietnam Memorial in DC many times. I don't take pictures there for the same reason. I can understand the motive to take your own pictures, but I really sympathize with MattZ's point of view.

[bobbob1313]

i posted the U2 clip from the tribute to heroes deal on my blog today. hadn't watched it in a long time, but it brought back a lot of feelings like it was yesterday.

 

Matt Z, again, great post and good karma to you, man.

 

I was always loved that one plus Neil young's 'imagine', pearl jam's 'long road', and wyclef's 'redemption song.' those always kicked my ass.

[quarter23cd]

When I still lived in the area, the big hole in the ground was a routine tour stop for visiting family/friends. As much as I hated going there, I don't begrudge them their curiosity. Let them look at the big hole. Go ahead and take a picture if you want. And try to imagine what was there before it, and the way that hole got there. Its pretty powerful stuff to sit and think about. The only thing that ever really irked me were the gift shops.

[MattZ]

I took a few pictures about a month or so after I am not going to lie. My reasons were so I can share them with my kids whenever I have them.

 

Sorry remphish -- I am working through my own issues. I can't apply logic to the way that I feel no matter how hard I try. I know I shouldn't care one way or the other what other people do. Or what they take pictures of. I am sure that lots of people down there are doing what they are doing for good reasons. Or bad reasons. And either way, what they do has nothing to do with me, so why do I care? I hope I wasn't too abrasive.

 

The Pearl Harbor/Gettysberg analogies are fair ones. I'd be lying if I stood on a soapbox and claimed that there's no way I'd take pictures if I went to either of those places. Again, logic just doesn't work for me with these issues.

[remphish1]

Sorry remphish -- I am working through my own issues. I can't apply logic to the way that I feel no matter how hard I try. I know I shouldn't care one way or the other what other people do. Or what they take pictures of. I am sure that lots of people down there are doing what they are doing for good reasons. Or bad reasons. And either way, what they do has nothing to do with me, so why do I care? I hope I wasn't too abrasive.

 

The Pearl Harbor/Gettysberg analogies are fair ones. I'd be lying if I stood on a soapbox and claimed that there's no way I'd take pictures if I went to either of those places. Again, logic just doesn't work for me with these issues.

 

I completley understand what you were saying and you didn't come off as abrasive. I am sure you had a reason for your statement.

[jmacomber68w]

Yep, I was in 8th grade American history class when the first two planes hit.

same here, i remember being in the 8th grade (our final year of middle school) and the school decided not tell us what was going on until about 1hr before classes ended (probably because there were 6th and 7th graders around). Its nuts to think that 8th graders now were so young on 9/11. I remember a girl in my italian class saying her dad had work that day in one of the towers, and for whatever reason he decided to take a sick day and play golf. Thoughts and prayers for anyone who lost someone on that day, or for anyone who has ties to the military

[sweetheart-mine]

bobbob, neil young's "imagine" is incredible.

 

that morning, unlike most mornings, i turned on the tv news for some reason. within two minutes they were showing the first plane hit, and then i saw the second one hit. then the collapses. i was glued to the tv for that day and probably several days after, crying and trying to absorb it. within a week, it seemed like something that could never be fully absorbed. as time went on, i felt grief not only for the people that day but also for the changes that we as a country would go through, even though i had no idea what those changes would be. i just knew an innocence was lost forever, an innocence i didn't even know i and other americans had had.

 

at some point -- weeks later? months later? a year or two later? -- i realized we truly were not alone, in the several senses of that word. at first that was because so much of the rest of the world was mourning with us and felt a kinship with us. then it became this: this kind of tragedy and vulnerability in the place where we live was new and shocking to us. for many other people around the world, though, it is always a possibility and sometimes a reality that they live with every single day. over and over and over. we weren't different, we weren't alone -- it can happen anywhere, and does. so the grief widened to cover people i would never meet but who live with their own 9/11s or very real possibilities of them all the time. that realization was a bigger loss of innocence than i ever could have imagined. in the long run it probably made me a "better" person, a stronger person, but also a sadder person who would never again be able to take for granted a feeling of safety, an assumed kind of existence that i now knew many people the world over never had to begin with and would never have.

[Good Old Neon]

Is taking pictures then any different then taking pictures now? People still take pictures of sites of great destruction...Pearl Harbor, Gettysburg etc...I took a few pictures about a month or so after I am not going to lie. My reasons were so I can share them with my kids whenever I have them. Then again I was not a tourist as I have lived in the area for 20 years at that point. In addition I have also saved some major newspaper headlines etc...I am a history junkie and save things from major events. I do think it is crass though to take pictures to profit. I still think it is tacky and crass that there are several vendors right outside selling 9/11 goods for profit.

 

Agreed.

 

A tourist taking pictures of family members mourning

[Central Scrutinizer]

I will never forgive the tourists that go down there with cameras to take pictures of a hole in the ground. Never.

...

I will never forget the postings of Missing Persons at the armory.

I took my family to New York for Thanksgiving that year to see the Macy's parade -- it was a lifelong dream of my wife's and our company at the time had a condo on 57th Street. Everyone we talked to before we left and after we came back asked if we went to the site. I never even considered it, it just didn't make sense. I went to New York with a couple of college buddies in '82 and we hung out near the waterfront there playing guitars. And I knew that's where our offices had been, but I never had been there before. What is the loss one expects to see? Certainly there must be soul searching from the visit, but I'm glad I never went.

 

However, as we were wandering Central Park and FAO Schwartz on Saturday, I think we head headed towards the library when we came across a wall posted with pictures and signs of people who were still missing. I assumed we wouldn't be close enough. My wife went ashen and my heart turned to lead. We stood there, silent looked from one to another, seeing the images of the people, most of them were at some family gathering or event , standing with or posing for loved ones, a glimpse of when that person was so full of life and sharing with the people they knew and loved.

 

And we went back to the condo. It was just so unexpected and indescribable, the loss we felt. I don't know exactly where it was; I know I couldn't get there if you dropped me off within a block of it. I don't remember how we got back to the condo.

[Oil Can Boyd]

I have found Blue Man Group's tribute Exhibit 13 to be oddly moving.

[EL the Famous]

I was always loved that one plus Neil young's 'imagine', pearl jam's 'long road', and wyclef's 'redemption song.' those always kicked my ass.

 

'city in ruins' took on whole new meaning for me when it opened that thing. i'll tell the one that makes me mist up to this day...faith hill doing 'there will come a day'. when the choir kicks in, i nearly lose it. it's the context some of those songs were performed in...they took on a whole new meaning. chilling, really.

[bobbob1313]

'city in ruins' took on whole new meaning for me when it opened that thing. i'll tell the one that makes me mist up to this day...faith hill doing 'there will come a day'. when the choir kicks in, i nearly lose it. it's the context some of those songs were performed in...they took on a whole new meaning. chilling, really.

how could I forget 'my city of ruins'? That's such an emotional performance.

[Edie]

And U2's Walk On.... I think it is on there too, right?

[EL the Famous]

And U2's Walk On.... I think it is on there too, right?

 

i posted the U2 clip from the tribute to heroes deal on my blog today. hadn't watched it in a long time, but it brought back a lot of feelings like it was yesterday.

 

[bobbob1313]

 

My favorite was the one that was done in October in MSG where the Who just absolutely brought the house down. Remains to this day one of the best performances I've ever seen, in person or otherwise.

[jmacomber68w]

someone mentioned the jon stewart opening to his first show back, this was letterman's http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xut56q77GK0...feature=related figured id throw it out there

[bobbob1313]

someone mentioned the jon stewart opening to his first show back, this was letterman's http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xut56q77GK0...feature=related figured id throw it out there

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jh...tember-11,-2001

 

Here's Jon's. I still think this is the best thing he's ever done.

 

What does it say about me that the easiest way for me to feel better about bad things is to watch other people's way of getting over it.

[Lammycat]

I had never seen either the Letterman or the Jon Stewart clips before and appreciate you guys putting the links up here. Both were moving.

[Dreamin']

In solidarity. XO

[Central Scrutinizer]

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jh...tember-11,-2001

 

Here's Jon's. I still think this is the best thing he's ever done.

 

What does it say about me that the easiest way for me to feel better about bad things is to watch other people's way of getting over it.

Empathy rocks.