"
Such are the exquisite sensitivities that surround every detail in the creation of the National September 11 Memorial Museum, which is being built on land that many revere as hallowed ground. During eight years of planning, every step has been muddied with contention. There have been bitter fights over the museum’s financing, which have delayed its opening until at least next year, as well as continuing arguments over its location, seven stories below ground; which relics should be exhibited; and where unidentified human remains should rest. Even the souvenir key chains to be sold in the gift shop have become a focus of rancor. But nothing has been more fraught than figuring out how to tell the story."
posted by davidjmcgee
on Jun 3, 2012 -
120 comments
"In most cases, when a book that deals with potentially classified military information is due to be published, one of the United States's many government divisions inspect it, redact sensitive parts, and either let publication continue or stop it entirely. But a clash in opinion between the U.S. Army and the Defense Intelligence Agency
may lead to the DIA buying up all 10,000 copies of [a] new memoir's first printing -- and promptly pulping the books." "The publication of
Operation Dark Heart, by
Anthony A. Shaffer, a former Defense Intelligence Agency officer and a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, has divided military security reviewers and highlighted the uncertainty about what information poses a genuine threat to security."
* [more inside]
posted by ericb
on Sep 10, 2010 -
43 comments
"What if America wasn't America?" That was the question posed by a series of ads broadcast in the wake of the September 11th attacks, ads which depicted a dystopian America bereft of liberty:
Library -
Diner -
Church. Together with more positive ads like
Remember Freedom and
I Am an American, they encouraged frightened viewers to cherish their freedoms and defend against division and prejudice in the face of terrorism (
seven years previously). The campaign was the work of the
Ad Council, a non-profit agency that employs the creative muscle of volunteer advertisers to raise awareness for social issues of national importance. Founded during WWII as the War Advertising Council, the organization has been behind
some of the most memorable public service campaigns in American history, including
Rosie the Riveter,
Smokey the Bear,
McGruff the Crime Dog, and
the Crash Test Dummies. And the Council is still at it today, producing striking, funny, and above all
effective PSAs on everything from
student invention to
global warming to
arts education to
community service.
Additional resources:
A-to-Z index of Ad Council campaigns -
Campaigns organized by category -
Award-winning campaigns -
PSA Central: A free download directory of TV, radio, and print PSAs
(registration req'd) -
An exhaustive history of the Ad Council [46-page PDF] -
YouTube channel -
Vimeo channel -
Twitter feed
posted by Rhaomi
on Sep 11, 2009 -
69 comments
9-11 I've never posted a link before and don't mean to create any debate or make any statement. I just thought that before the day was out we do the obvious and remember.
posted by brautigan
on Sep 11, 2005 -
136 comments
Who caught Zacarias Moussaoui? Clancy Prevost smiles at the absurdity of his story. We are just a few miles down the road from the Eagan flight school where, one month before the September 11th attacks, he tried to teach Zacarias Moussaoui how to fly a Boeing 747.
posted by Kwantsar
on May 24, 2005 -
9 comments
The Likudization of the World "....he has cast the United States in the very same role in which Israel casts itself, facing the very same threat. In this narrative, the U.S. is fighting a never ending battle for its very survival against utterly irrational forces that seek nothing less than its total extermination. "
posted by troutfishing
on Sep 12, 2004 -
42 comments
Half of New Yorkers Believe US Leaders Had Foreknowledge of Impending 9-11 Attacks and “Consciously Failed” To Act; 66% Call For New Probe of Unanswered Questions by Congress or New York’s Attorney General, New Zogby International Poll Reveals
On the eve of a Republican National Convention invoking 9/11 symbols, sound bytes and imagery, half (49.3%) of New York City residents and 41% of New York citizens overall say that some of our leaders "knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act," according to the poll conducted by Zogby International. The poll of New York residents was conducted from Tuesday August 24 through Thursday August 26, 2004. Overall results have a margin of sampling error of +/-3.5.
This is probably
bad news for Rudy Giuliani.
posted by jackspace
on Aug 31, 2004 -
112 comments
F.A.A. Official Scrapped Tape of 9/11 Controllers' Statements Shit happens? Or does it? " At least six air traffic controllers who dealt with two of the hijacked airliners on Sept. 11, 2001, made a tape recording that day describing the events, but the tape was destroyed by a supervisor without anyone making a transcript or even listening to it, the Transportation Department said today."
posted by Postroad
on May 6, 2004 -
29 comments
CIA Warned of Attack 6 Years Before 9-11 Six years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the CIA warned in a classified report that Islamic extremists likely would strike on U.S. soil at landmarks in Washington or New York, or through the airline industry, according to intelligence officials.
posted by Postroad
on Apr 16, 2004 -
41 comments
Bush Was Warned of Possible Attack in U.S., Official Says "President Bush was told more than a month before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that supporters of Osama bin Laden planned an attack within the United States with explosives and wanted to hijack airplanes, a government official said Friday.
The warning came in a secret briefing that Mr. Bush received at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., on Aug. 6, 2001. A report by a joint Congressional committee last year alluded to a "closely held intelligence report" that month about the threat of an attack by Al Qaeda, and the official confirmed an account by The Associated Press on Friday saying that the report was in fact part of the president's briefing in Crawford." Then again, he had
more important things to deal with that Summer.
posted by owillis
on Apr 10, 2004 -
62 comments
9/11 Panel: Bush White House Withheld Papers The commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks announced yesterday that it has identified 69 documents from the Clinton era that the Bush White House withheld from investigators and which include references to al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and other issues relevant to the panel's work.
posted by Postroad
on Apr 8, 2004 -
8 comments
Kerry Calls on Rice to Testify "John Kerry said Saturday the White House is committing character assassination with its treatment of former counterterror chief Richard Clarke to avoid responding to questions about national security. Kerry also said Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser, should testify in public before the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
"If Condoleezza Rice can find time to do '60 Minutes' on television before the American people, she ought to find 60 minutes to speak to the commission under oath," Kerry told reporters. "We're talking about the security of our country."...
posted by Postroad
on Mar 28, 2004 -
26 comments
EPA misled public on 9/11 pollution "In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, the White House instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to give the public misleading information, telling New Yorkers it was safe to breathe when reliable information on air quality was not available."
posted by jpoulos
on Aug 23, 2003 -
17 comments
Sept. 11, 2003: Photoblog your life "I've been thinking about September 11th. I've been thinking about the United States response - The Patriot Act. Invading Afganastan & Iraq. Death. Fear. Oppression.
It seems to me that this is NOT the America I want the world to know. So I propose a blogwide Photoblog your Life day on September 11th. Take your camera with you. Take pictures. Show the world your life. Show the world your daily delights. Show the world that we choose life, happiness and freedom."
[via Big Pink Cookie]
posted by kirkaracha
on Jul 8, 2003 -
60 comments
Graham Alleges a 9/11 'Coverup' Long a favorite issue of alternative (and tinfoil-hat-oriented) media, now this is getting picked up by a
prominent Democrat. It would appear that
Graham is the only moderate Democratic
candidate to even approach topics that reflect negatively on the Bush administration. Certainly, when even the
US military speculates that yesterday's
attacks in Saudi Arabia were started by Al Qeada, and people in
Chicago and
Seattle are reminded of the reality of ongoing threats, it is reasonable to ask if the "War on Terror" is indeed being won. Is Graham someone with the power and place in the spotlight to make that a serious issue for voters?
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly
on May 13, 2003 -
11 comments
Judge, citing al-Qaida-Iraq link, awards $104 million to Sept. 11 families A judge ruled yesterday that lack of evidence should be no barrier to suing people who cannot be found.
"The judge wrote that lawyers relied heavily on 'classically hearsay' evidence, including reports that a Sept. 11 hijacker met an Iraqi consul to Prague, Secretary of State Colin Powell's remarks to the United Nations about connections between Iraq and terrorism, and defectors' descriptions of the use of an Iraq camp to train terrorists."
--This would hardly be the first documented example of a court being overtly political, but the judge himself has no problem commenting on how shoddy the case was.
"The judge noted that the experts provided few actual facts that Iraq provided support to the terrorists."
--Apparently, the judge had
just been waiting for Saddam to cease to be a diplomatically immune head of state before ruling against him. Is the low standard of evidence needed for civil rulings allowing the courts to begin establishing something that the military and intelligence can't? [more inside]
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly
on May 8, 2003 -
33 comments
I've written before about the myth of the heartland--roughly speaking, the "red states," which voted for George W. Bush in the 2000 election, as opposed to the "blue states," which voted for Al Gore. The nation's interior is supposedly a place of rugged individualists, unlike the spongers and whiners along the coasts. In reality, of course, rural states are heavily subsidized by urban states. New Jersey pays about $1.50 in federal taxes for every dollar it gets in return; Montana receives about $1.75 in federal spending for every dollar it pays in taxes.
Any sensible program of spending on homeland security would at least partly redress this balance. The most natural targets for terrorism lie in or near great metropolitan areas; surely protecting those areas is the highest priority, right?
Apparently not. Even in the first months after Sept. 11, Republican lawmakers made it clear that they would not support any major effort to rebuild or even secure New York. And now that anti-urban prejudice has taken statistical form: under the formula the Department of Homeland Security has adopted for handing out money, it spends 7 times as much protecting each resident of Wyoming as it does protecting each resident of New York.Paul Krugman, cited by
Eric Alterman in regards to Jonathan Chait's
The 9/10 President, a story we all seemed to have missed. Not long ago, the Washington Post carried
Begging, Borrowing for Security.
Welcome to Trickle Down Homeland Security.
posted by y2karl
on Apr 21, 2003 -
27 comments
The Iraq-September 11th smoking gun? Finally, near proof that Iraq was involved in the September 11th attacks on America: a mural in the Iraqi military headquarters in Nasiriya depicts a plane crashing into a building complex similar to New York's twin towers! (Okay, seriously, are some folks so desperate to make the connection that this might become an actual story?)
posted by johnnydark
on Mar 27, 2003 -
50 comments
If you're already familiar with the work of
Jack Chick, the creator of those amusingly offensive evangelist comic books, you probably know not to take him too seriously -- after all, the threat of being thrown into a giant lake of fire by an angel isn't particularly frightening. Still, when
his new tract starts with an image of the smoldering twin towers, and ends with the words,
"Bob, now I know that Allah doesn't really love me or even care about any Muslim. But Jesus, the Son of God, does," it's difficult not to worry that this time he's bitten off more than he can chew.
posted by tweebiscuit
on Jan 2, 2003 -
33 comments
Bush Doubted on 9/11 Panel Angry lawmakers accused the White House yesterday of secretly trying to derail creation of an independent commission to investigate the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks while professing to support the idea. The White House responded by renewing its pledge of support for the proposal and suggesting an agreement was near.
posted by tranceformer
on Oct 15, 2002 -
38 comments
Meet Edgar Sanchez
He's 'Helmet Man' at Kansas City Chiefs football games.
He runs a store that sells 'George Foreman grills.'
He sells hot dogs in downtown.
He appears on the radio.
And he was in the Witness Protection Program for testifying against Sheik Omar Rahman, the man behind the bombing of the World Trade Centers.
posted by RobbieFal
on Sep 28, 2002 -
4 comments
I guess the media does have some good qualities after all. Yesterday was 9/11. Much of the media spend the day remembering what took place a year ago. A local pop radio station here in Pittsburgh
B94 did something a little different. Yes they did the remembering but they also did something that went along the lines of "going about our business". They organized a little something called Operation Jumpstart Pittsburgh. They collected faxed and emailed resumes and hooked people up with companies that were hiring on the spot. It's nice to see the media doing something constructive for a change. I just wonder if anyone else might have some information about things that media outlets in other cities might have done like this.
posted by whirlwind29
on Sep 12, 2002 -
5 comments
From Richard Wilbur: "Dear Bill,
The only thing I can say right now is this. There is no excuse for the cold inhumanity of 11 September, and there is no excuse for those Americans, whether of the left or the religious right, who say that we had it coming to us.
Dick"
posted by semmi
on Sep 9, 2002 -
23 comments
NPR's Lost & Found Sound brought together radio producers, artists, historians, archivists, and the public broadcasting community came together to collect and preserve audio traces of the World Trade Center, its neighborhood and the events of 9/11.
What they came up with is
sonicmemorial.org. [more inside]
posted by lampshade
on Sep 8, 2002 -
5 comments
London Muslims to CELEBRATE 911 Is it cool to be angry? Do I care? I'm VERY angry about this. Maybe someone will celebrate 911 by flying an aircraft into Finsbury Park Mosque. There must be a limit to the progressive tolerance of other cultures and religious nuts. I think Londoners might reach it very soon. We seem to have our own Taliban. The time might be right for a radical secularism. What do you think?
posted by terrymiles
on Sep 8, 2002 -
146 comments
Another Big Lie. "The great mass of people will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one." Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), German dictator. Mein Kampf, vol. 1, ch. 10 (1925)" There are
Big Lies all around us. We seem to prefer to turn away from them, to dismiss the believers as harmless deluded fools. But doesn't that just make it worse?
posted by Cerebus
on Sep 5, 2002 -
28 comments
Government plans to use Flight 93 cockpit tapes in Moussaoui trial "Additional recordings would be played from the cockpit of an executive jet that tracked Flight 93 on Sept. 11"
"An official for NetJets, a company that sells shares in private business aircraft, confirmed that the plane tracking Flight 93 belonged to the company.
The official, who asked not to be identified by name, said the company was asked not to comment on the Sept. 11 flight but would not say who made the request."
Finally someone admits that there was a plane up there when Flight 93 crashed. But who was it and why?
posted by bas67
on Aug 10, 2002 -
15 comments
Could 9/11 Have Been Prevented? From the Time Mag. article
"
Long before the tragic events of September 11th, the White House debated taking the fight to al-Qaeda. It didn't happen and soon it was too late. The saga of a lost chance.
posted by bas67
on Aug 4, 2002 -
22 comments
The Emmy nominations are out and the news nominations go to the biggest story, September 11. No surprises there. PBS has 41 nominations and Fox has 0. No surprises there either. Does this say something about the news industry and it's ability to discern serious news from chaff? Is Bill Moyers a national treasure? Do you think perhaps Murdoch should rethink the direction of his media empire?
posted by nofundy
on Jul 31, 2002 -
19 comments
'20th Hijacker' Offers Guilty Plea and Cooperation
He is charged with helping plan the September 11 attack. During his third arraignment on amended charges, Zacarias Moussaoui offered to enter a guilty plea.
"For the guilt phase, I'm guilty," he told the judge. "But for the death penalty, we will see." You'd think in this day and age, it'd be hard to pull off a complete surprise. Moussaoui is representing himself.
posted by rschram
on Jul 18, 2002 -
15 comments
MI6 warned US of Al-Qaeda attacks MI6 warned the American intelligence services about a plot to hijack aircraft and crash them into buildings two years before the September 11 attacks....
I do not subsribe but this is summary of article and may prove very "annoying" to the agencies and people involved. The Sunday Times is too reputable to be readily dismissed as off the wall.
posted by Postroad
on Jun 9, 2002 -
38 comments
The Movement for an Appropriate 9/11 Memorial
What is sacred space? The influence of spiritual leaders, philosophers, ethicists, psychologists, anthropologists and other scholars is notably absent in discussions about what to do with the former WTC site.
Among advocates for a large WTC memorial, there is consensus that the site is "sacred." September's Mission wants victims families to take part in a process of determining what will serve the function of connecting people to sacredness. They want public money to be spent in this direction too. But how can people's feelings, behaviors and attitudes be planned? Can popular beliefs be incorporated into large-scale government decisions?
(
1,
2)
posted by rschram
on May 31, 2002 -
18 comments
