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Remember
By adamg on Thu, 09/08/2011 - 9:14am
Events to remember 9/11 in the Boston area:
Saturday
- 11 a.m. - 1 p.m., Boston City Hall Plaza:
In collaboration with Boston Cares, ArtStreet, Massachusetts Military Heroes Fund, and 9/11day.org, 9/11 families and friends are creating a 20'x30' MA 9/11 Fund mural on canvas with "Sidewalk Sam."
Sunday:
- 7 a.m. - 5 p.m., Fenway Park, Gate D
American Red Cross 9/11 Remembrance Blood Drive. - 7:30 a.m., 9/11 Memorial, Boston Public Garden:
Wreath-laying ceremony. Police officers from across the state will participate in a silent watch at the memorial throughout the day. - 8:30 a.m., State House, front steps:
Flag lowering, moment of silence and reading of names. At 8:46, there will be a moment of silence. - 9:30 a.m., State House, House of Representatives chamber.
Presentation of Sweeney Award for Civilian Bravery. Speakers include family members, Senator John Kerry, Senator Scott Brown and Victoria Reggie Kennedy. - 10:30 a.m., Hope Central Church, 85 Seaverns Ave., Jamaica Plain:
From Terror to Hope: Services of Remembrance. Come remember, honor, lament, forgive, and hope in community. - Copley Square, 11 a.m.
From Remembrance to Hope: Community Service in Copley Square. 200 members of ensembles from eight different religious groups, and ministers, preachers and laypersons from multiple organizations. - 11 a.m., Swampscott:
9/11 Heroes Run. - 11 a.m. - 2 p.m., Rose Kennedy Greenway (near the Aquarium):
3d Annual Care Package Drive for troops overseas (MA Military Heroes' Fund). - >Noon - 5 p.m., Gallery 360, Northeastern University
Visual artist Robin Masi and musician Ken Field present their "Witness Project" - a record of the spiritual aftermath of the terror attacks on the World Trade Center, Pentagon and Flight 93. - 1 p.m., across the city:
Churches that will ring bells. (Faneuil Hall will as well). List of participating churches. - 3 - 5 p.m., Hatch Shell
Massachusetts Remembers 9/11 Memorial Concert and Ceremony: The tribute will include: readings, poems, interfaith prayers and a time for reflection and remembrance. There will be a special musical program to be performed by the Boston Pops Brass Ensemble. Boston Children's Chorus will also perform. - 5 p.m., Harvard University:
9110 Meals on 9/11. - 5:30 p.m., Hope Central Church, 85 Seaverns Ave., Jamaica Plain:
From Terror to Hope: Services of Remembrance. Come remember, honor, lament, forgive, and hope in community. - 9:30 p.m., Berklee Performance Center:
9/11 Berklee Memorial Concert.
More than 100 members of the Berklee College of Music community will share original songs, compositions, poetry, dance, and stories in a multimedia event designed to offer unity, hope, and inspiration on the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
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Comments
Your thoughts?
Mostly, I remember the numbness that was relieved only by learning everybody in my family was OK (father and brother worked 2 blocks away from the WTC; father, brother and aunt lived barely a mile away; father spent much of the day convinced I was on one of the planes). Since I write, I looked up what I wrote the day after (that day, at work, I alternated between watching the towers fall on the giant screen we had in the conference room and putting together news for our high-tech audience - executives killed, key parts of network infrastructure destroyed):
Brother-In-Law
My brother-in-law worked in a financial publishing house located about a block away from Ground Zero. He was in the area prior to the attacks. We knew this, and were concerned for his safety. We were unable to contact him until very late that evening. Fortunately, he was unhurt.
To this day, he does not talk at any length about the experience. If asked if he was there, he will say, "Yes", but that's usually as far as he'll go in talking about it.
He's an erudite man, a former freelancer for The Phoenix when he resided here, so it's not a matter of his being unable to express himself. We respect his wishes, and don't push him for stories about his day. We figure he'll open up about it when he feels comfortable.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
my thoughts are that I'm sick of hearing about 911
It was about 3,000 people. It happened ten years ago.
In the first year of the Afghanistan war, we killed up to 20,000 innocent civilians in military bombings using cluster munitions prohibited by international humanitarian law. We've continued killing them at a rate of 500-2,500 a year, depending on the year and who you ask.
We've wasted trillions of dollars in multiple wars. Created endless paranoia and inconvenience in daily life and transport. Massively violated the privacy and constitutionally protected rights of thousands, if not millions, of US citizens and foreigners. Baited complete idiots who couldn't rub two sticks together into setting off fake bombs we gave them (so we could arrest them for terrorism) and diverted law enforcement away from fraud and violent crime investigations. We currently have a murder rate bested only by Russia, Venezuela, El Salvador, and the Honduras. We have 2.2 million people behind bars - more than China (#2), at 1.5M. China. A nation where if you say something unpopular about the government loud enough, you end up in prison.
20,000 people a year are murdered...by fellow US citizens.
30,000 people die from firearms injuries (all causes.)
34,000 people a year kill themselves.
40,000 people a year are killed in traffic collisions.
600,000 people a year die from heart disease.
In total, 2,400,000 people a year die from various causes (2007 statistics.)
That means that the WTC and Pentagon attacks contributed to .166% of the total deaths in one year.
So, please, people: MOVE. ON. People die. They die in horrible ways. They die peacefully. They die tragically. They die leaving orphans, spouses, parents and friends behind.
Let's MOVE ON.
This argument is
This argument is foolish.
9/11 was an event that affected everyone in the US to some degree. The psychological toll is not quantifiable.
3,000 people were killed in a mass murder. Many victims' remains were never recovered, their families had no chance to truly say goodbye. Don't tell people to move on and not remember their losses because "more people were killed by..."
Remembering a day in which our world changed, and those who died terrible, horrifying deaths is not something to shame people for doing. Every death means somebody lost a friend, parent, child, spouse, or sibling.
Don't trivialize the pain people feel over that day, just because you may be more numb and/or unaffected by it.
Self-centered, much?
"9/11 was an event that affected everyone in the US to some degree."
Really? Because while I felt sad that week...since then, I've somehow managed to get on with my life and find about a million more important things to think about. The September 11th coverage is nothing more than an irritation.
18,000 people die in a year from murder. That's about one 9/11 every two months. Which is more heinous: a few insane psychopaths in one act of violence, or the highest murder rate in the developed world?
Funny how in Europe, after attacks, people have mourned, and then (proudly) moved on with their lives. Here, you're proud to be melodramatic, self-centered scaredy-cat. Woe is me, I lost a loved one ten years ago, nobody understands my pain, certainly not any of the people who knew one of the 1% of our population that dies...every single year.
You know what's also funny? How people's patriotism doesn't seem to extend to "stand proud, don't give up your civil liberties for false protection, and move on with your life." No, it means: "flinch every time the rainbow alert level changes, let a TSA agent sexually molest your children if you want to fly for your vacation, and have every aspect of your life inspected for suspicious behavior."
Our forefathers are flipping in their graves at both the widespread cowardice and massive intrusions of our government in the name of protecting our "way of life".
a) Whoa, you are preaching to
a) Whoa, you are preaching to the choir when you talk about patriotism meaning fear and all that.
b) Don't bullshit me that it hasn't affected you. You're complaining (as do I) about the TSA and incursion upon civil liberties. That's an effect of 9/11.
c) You're whining about people mourning their losses and you're calling ME self centered? How the hell do their actions affect you?
What a shock that you posted
What a shock that you posted this anonymously.
yeah, because anonymous dissent and commentary is un-Amercian
Hi, my name is Publius, and I wish to contest your assertion that anonymous speech is evil. I wrote this little document:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Papers
My name is Alexander Hamilton, and if you want to call me a coward, well, you best be reminded that I died in a duel with the vice president.
By the way, the supreme court has repeatedly affirmed anonymous speech is not only constitutionally protected, but essential:
PS:You do realize that the purpose of the attacks were to rob us of freedoms we enjoy, right? So, when you complain about anonymous speech, you're with the terrorists?
Talk is cheap, pal
Or maybe you're new to the Internet, where some people make it a hobby to try to derail discussions. I'm not saying you and your fellow anonymi here are, but it does help to understand the community you're parachuting into.
As somebody who wrote under that very same "Publius" byline in college, yeah, I get it. You've obviously discovered I do allow anonymous posts here. But please don't pull that old First Amendment crap - somebody who can look up Hamilton probably knows the First Amendment applies to government actions, not forums like this. Accusations of siding with terrorism? Really? You're starting to sound like one of them there trolls.
Anon is onto me! He's figured
Anon is onto me! He's figured out I'm with the terrorists! Oh noes!
Well, to be fair, I was kinda with those cluster-bomb people he mentioned.
joke at 10,000 feet and climbing
"Anon is onto me! He's figured out I'm with the terrorists! "
*WHOOOOOSH* <-sound of joke flying over your head
You do realize
that there are people here who actually know one or more of those 3,000 people? Or do you tell this to everyone who's lost a loved one and still remembers 10 years later?
you want to remember? Fine.
You notice how most poeple who remember loved ones...do so privately, quietly, and intimately?
The rest of us are completely sick of the obsession. It started a week ago, and it'll probably go on for a week after. We're tired of being forced to "remember" something that, aside from massive privacy invasions, civil rights violations, trillions of tax dollars spent slaughtering innocent civilians we never wished the slightest ill will on, more trillions of dollars wasted so our nation's emergency responders can play Terrorists and Cowboys, and being despised the world over as vengeful and boorish...didn't really affect us much at all.
Given it's been ten years, can we stop spending all that money on "anti-terrorism", and start spending it on books for our kids, food for people who go hungry, and violence prevention for our cities where people are being slaughtered by drug dealers and gangs? Please?
It's very easy to ignore
I have not read or watched any of the coverage except for this thread, and I wish I hadn't. Very easy to ignore.
I agree
All respect to those who lost a loved one that day, but I feel the same way. I was overseas on 9-11, having just flown out of Boston on Sept. 8. I got to the office and got a call while in the street about a plane hitting the WTC. Didn't know what to think and once I go into the office (a U.S. govt building) saw that no one was there because they were all at home glued to their tv sets. I got home just in time to see the second tower fall. Watching international CNN means they didn't cut away from images of people jumping out of the towers. It was really traumatizing to watch the whole thing unfold.
A week or two later there was an Irani trade fair going on (hawking commercial office furniture, rugs, plastics and misc products). The salesmen pegged me as an American and came up and said they were very sorry about what happened and that it shouldn't have happened. It was kind of nice, but weird. There was a general feeling (overseas at least) of people holding their breath. Like somebody just slapped the big kid in the school yard and they were waiting to see if he was going to laugh it off, run away or start kicking ass.
I'm just tired of having everything defined and/or justified by that event. And the fact that we seem to be completely incapable of applying the same logic to any other world event. Unrelated to the actual events of 9-11, the U.S. government is directly responsible for a number of horrible acts that result/have resulted in far more than 3,000 innocent deaths. There are precious few days of commemoration for those families. This should be a day that we allow those that lost loved ones to grieve and a day for us to thank our first responders for the jobs they do (as opposed to hootin' n hollerin' when they smash out windows on cars parked in front of hydrants). Pig ignorant nationalism disrespects the dead.
I think what you say, and
I think what you say, and what anon said are valid to a certain extent, but I think the framework or lens is wrong. Yes, there are terrible things that happen every day, with myriad personal tragedies attached to them. The same argument can be made when thinking about soldiers killed in Vietnam or Korea, or even World War I. None of that is the point of the remembrance in my opinion.
9/11 was a shock to the system, for almost everyone. On personal and social levels, it was a shock. We are in fact fortunate that it was only 3,000 people, but the real importance of the event is the extent to which it changed how we see the world, ourselves, and even our neighbors. Collective trauma, even in response to a limited loss of blood, is very powerful. It is something noteworthy, and ten years later, we are still hugely impacted by what happened. It is worthy of our thoughts or prayers or whatever other mechanism a person prefers to use.
It's not that a 9/11 victim is more important than a murder victim. Far from it.
"everyone"
When you say it was a shock for "everyone" I assume you mean "every U.S. citizen." I mean it was a horrifying spectacle for everyone, which is sort of the point of terrorism, and indeed it was a massively shared experience thanks to modern media, which again was the point of the terrorists. But as far as changing how we view the world, I don't see much of a change in how the U.S. populace views the world, aside from increased fear and loathing of others. It just seems like more exceptionalism -- like our trauma and tragedy is so more important or unfair than anyone else's. And when I say "our" I'm not talking about people how lost family on 9/11, but the populace as a whole. We definitely had our world view changed, I'll agree. Maybe I'm not getting what you're talking about. I don't mean to be disrespectful to those who feel deeply about that day, because it was traumatic. I just have a problem with the national fixation on it and its use by particular interests (such as satired in the Onion article referenced below).
No, I think you get what I
No, I think you get what I mean, we just attach different levels of importance, which is fine. One of the reasons to remember, has to do with your last sentence:
I share this with you. But I also think not everybody is ready to think about this. It's not easy to brush aside a traumatic event experienced by a few hundred million people, and probably unwise to try. That's really the gist of my thinking.
Pearl Harbor
Just give it a few years. The availability of real-life video of 9/11/01 will leave it with a longer shelf life than 12/7/41, but it should eventually fade, just the same.
Of course, the first huge step in a fade, as with Pearl Harbor, probably has to be a somewhat definitive and victorious end to hostilities. Until that occurs - or is, at least, thought to have occurred - folks with a vested interest will continue to use the anniversary as a rallying point for whatever they espouse.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
I agree with you that it's
I agree with you that it's something by which to define or justify everything in our lives, politically and otherwise. I'm sick of hearing "because of 9/11" as a response to everything. Can't walk on this side of the sidewalk? "Because of 9/11." Can't stand closer than 15 feet to a fence? "Because of 9/11." Can't have eggs for breakfast? "Because of -" (well, okay, because I forgot to go shopping.)
I share your sentiments about ignorant nationalism being disrespectful. Expressing so-called patriotism via hatred and a desire for revenge is appalling, and dishonors those who lost their lives, especially the policemen and firemen who died trying to save people. It taints the memory of those who didn't stop to think about anything but helping others.
sorry you are annoyed by others' loss
I feel nothing but pity for you. I'm sorry that you are annoyed by hearing references to 9/11. I have friends who watched people jump to their deaths from the towers. One of the pilots killed that day lives near where I grew up. I pass his home each time I visit my family. Would you tell the those who lost loved ones on 9/11 that you are sick and tired that they're not over it? Most that I know who were impacted that day are not out for revenge, do not exhibit ignorant nationalism, but only wish for solace and peace. Please have some respect and compassion.
Yeeeah, I think you mean to
Yeeeah, I think you mean to direct this comment at the anon poster.
I am NOT "annoyed" by hearing references to 9/11. What I AM annoyed by is it being used as an excuse for everything under the sun.
If you'd read the whole thread you would know that I feel nothing but respect and compassion for those who were lost and their families and friends, and that we should remember their lives and honor them.
Mostly,
I'm just ashamed at the hate that filled me on that day and the days, weeks, and months after and for wanting any Muslim country- didn't really matter which one- "bombed back to the stone age". I'm mostly disgusted by the navel gazing overly dramatic nonsense about that day and it reminds me of the worst in myself. It can't be over soon enough for me.
I feel like I grew up in a
I feel like I grew up in a span of 15 minutes. I don't think I would be so cynical towards the world now but for 9/11. I was nearly 14 at the time, about a month into my freshman year of high school in North Carolina. First all I heard was that the Pentagon was on fire. Then between classes someone told me the World Trade Center was bombed. I remember exactly who told me, exactly what he said, and my response (which was, for the record, "You're f**king joking. That's not funny, seriously. You're f**king kidding me.").
Then I got to my next class and it was just as the north tower fell. One of the seniors in the class, who was a rather burly, fearsome looking fellow, was in the corner with tears streaming down his face. That afternoon my French teacher, who was incredibly strict, tried to get us all to concentrate on our quizzes and conjugations. Eventually she gave in and turned on the TV when not a single one of us was responding to anything.
I lived near the airport, and was so used to planes that when I got home the silence scared me more than about anything else.
Ten years on, I now live in the DC area (after a few amazing years in Boston, where I hope to return soon), and am incredibly unnerved whenever I hear a plane overhead (planes from National or Dulles never fly that way). My neighborhood was right on the flight path of the plane that hit the Pentagon, and every day I drive past it and see the reconstructed part of the building. It's kind of hard for what happened to be out of my mind, tucked away for the anniversary coverage every year when I see it.
/novel-length comment
Those circling fighter jets
are one of my strongest memories. My daughter was six months old and still not sleeping through the night. At one point that night, both my wife and I were in her bedroom with her, listening to the unusual silence, punctuated precisely at six minute intervals by the flyby.
The other big memory was that there was an election that day to select a replacement for the deceased Joseph Moakley. It was not cancelled. Walking with my wife, carrying our baby, to the the Bates school to vote was a profoundly affirmative experience about what is good in our society, and why it's important to preserve our values against even the most extreme insult.
Oh, right, elections
We usually voted after I got home from work. I don't remember voting at all; will have to ask Nancy if we did (we were also in Moakley's district). I do remember we decided not to tell Greta (then 3) what was going on - we figured she was just too young to be able to process it.
I HAD to vote!
Damnit! I didn't care if I was the last person there - I was going to do it!
So I bundled my 3 year old into his PJs and stuffed him in the stroller and set off to walk the mile to the polls, which were open until 8.
We had been told that the kids at his daycare were sheltered from it and we shouldn't tell them anything. This doesn't work with a kid who was - and is still - like a fly on the wall.
I hadn't gotten two or three steps down the hill when he said:
"I think Rob the Wrecker flew those planes into those buildings".(Rob the Wrecker, a random and chaotic destroyer of things, was his invented alter-ego for Bob the Builder.)
"And you were scared your friend was on a plane. But he wasn't, because I talked to him"
Later that week, one of the day care staff was telling somebody about how the kids "had all been completely sheltered" from the events of 9/11. Meanwhile, right behind her, several 3 and 4 year olds had built a block tower, and were using dinosaurs to fend off attacks on the tower by toy airplanes.
It was the Democratic primary
It was the Democratic primary that day that Stephen Lynch won. I was outside the polling location on Spring Street when the plane hit, unbeknownst to myself at the time. Driving down Washington St in Roslindale by Beech St after I found out what happened, I couldn't stop looking at the Boston skyline scanning for planes. It was very surreal.
How to disappear completely
I'm surprised how very clearly I remember the 11th and 12th. The shock is simply etched in.
Like many, I wasn't able to sleep much and rose early on the 12th. I biked to the Diesel Cafe, which was already near capacity, even at 7am. Sometime later, the stereo served up Radiohead's "How to disappear completely".
"I'm not here ... this isn't happening ..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vFaoA7t2RE
It fit perfectly with the shock and sleep deprivation many were feeling. By popular demand, it got put on repeat and played six or seven times before some freaked out undergrad psych major type ripped the disk out of the carousel and pronounced us all insane.
Several years later, WBUR used "How to Disappear Completely" as introductory music for a discussion on one of the anniversaries of 9/11. I couldn't help but wonder if the person who picked that piece was getting coffee that morning.
Maybe they're Chuck Klosterman fans
In one of his books, Klosterman pontificated (if that's the word for it) that Radiohead's "Kid A" album can be heard (if one is of a particular frame of mind) as a soundtrack for the events of 9/11.
Sort of summarized and quoted here.
Make sure you have some grains of salt handy if you read the whole thing.
Whoh!
I never heard of that, before. Strange.
The album does serve the "soundtrack" bit quite well - but retrospectively.
Then again, I dreamed of planes of various sorts hitting skyscrapers for months between visiting NYC in May 2001 and the WTC attacks.
I put it all in a mental bin labeled "best not think about it too much".
Enya
In my circles, it was that one Enya song that got played over and over again. In fact, Google "enya 9/11" and see what pops up.
The song
For me it was Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah: http://youtu.be/WIF4_Sm-rgQ and Ryan Adams' New York video: http://youtu.be/hmHgY_J63Ik Both still make me cry.
Hallelujah
I actually prefer the kd lang version, but its an awesome Leonard Cohen song in either case.
I personally associate it with wandering around post-apocolyptic New Orleans, however, where entire neighborhoods that once housed tens of thousands of people still lay in ruins and have never been rebuilt.
My memories start today
When I gave a "Barbie loves Tweety Bird" at her baby shower. She was just a week away from traveling to China with her husband to adopt a baby girl.
She was at work Tuesday morning. I realized a few years ago that I could no longer remember her face or hear her voice.
I was at work Tuesday morning too, in Connecticut at a meeting about plant security. On the phone were two people from the company hired to help devise the plan. They worked in Tower 2. We were in mid conference when the line went dead.
I'm not dealing all that well with this week of commemoration I might just have to curl up under a blanket for the weekend.
Staring at the airport
I was working on the 35th floor of 60 State St at the time, and my office looked out over the inner harbor towards the airport.
I was waiting for CNN to slowly load (as I was not the only person on the planet trying to get to CNN at that moment) to try and figure out What The Hell Is Going On. It finally loaded, and one of the headlines noted that two of the planes left from Boston.
I did a slow pivot to look out my window towards Logan. It all felt very close at that moment.
I managed to tune an AM station in on my radio. Reception was bad in the building; I was the only one with "real-time" news coming in. Soon half the office was crowded around my desk.
The building evacuated shortly thereafter.
My friend and I scrambled as quickly as we could to Brighton and our local watering hole to watch the news and try to reach various loved ones on our over-crowded cell phone networks. We just missed the second tower coming down.
They were out of orange juice.
Funny what you remember, no?
Just sayin'
http://www.theonion.com/articles/responsible-cable...
I watched the "Nova" episode last night about the new 1 World Trade Center and memorial (interesting, since I hadn't followed it much). Other than that, I don't think I'll be watching much coverage.
See you at the blood drive at Fenway Park Sunday?
Ah Yes, The Onion
From their 9/11 special report: http://www.theonion.com/articles/not-knowing-what-...
A classic
My coworkers were worried about how hard I was laughing/crying when I read this one:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/god-angrily-clari...
Epic Onion Edition that Week
I just wanted to come home
I left Logan about 12 hours before the planes out of Boston took off. It was only my second time flying internationally...the first time was only a week before that. I was headed to an international professional conference with some of my grant money reserved for trips. I landed in Montpelier, France and fell asleep in my hotel just outside of town with one of two of the only English-speaking channels left running on the TV, CNN International. I woke up with my brain already trying to process what it was hearing about a plane striking a building in New York even though I was still groggy from the 10+ hours of flight.
It was just as I really began processing what I was hearing, what time it was before the conference began, and everything when the second plane hit on live TV. That was when I began to panic. All alone, thousands of miles from home, airports being shut down, flights that left from Logan, unable to contact my parents to tell them I wasn't involved, nobody at the US Embassy in France picking up the phone...and I was going to be late for check-in at the conference.
A week later, after the end of the conference, I learned that the flight I had originally booked from Orly back to Boston was the first flight they were allowing back from Paris. Nearly every seat was filled because of the backlog of passengers trying to get back to Boston from Paris. When the plane landed, the whole plane applauded...only time that's ever happened in my life. I could write so much more of the experience, but that's the jist of it.
flight applause
Every flight that lands in Tegucigalpa, Honduras gets a round of applause from the passengers (excepting the flights that skid off the end of the runway into the neighborhood below).