In Remembrance

I'm rushing the season a little, but Keith Olbermann on Countdown picked someone from Fox News as his "Worst Person in the World" for the 9000th time. Today, it was John Gibson, who, on his Fox News Radio Show on August 10th, entertained a discussion of a column published the day before in the Philadelphia Daily News. The column was written by a conservative named Stu Bykofsky, and declared that America needs another 9/11 to straighten it out.

I'll let that sink in for a minute.

There's an informative article about this on mediamatters.org, including the voice audio and a text transcript of that portion of the broadcast. The article also contains a link to the column. I recommend you watch the YouTube clip below before examining the material on mediamatters. It's a moving 9/11 remembrance video that features the relevant portion of the post-9/11 Jon Stewart Daily Show broadcast.

I lived in Manhattan for nearly nine years. When I walked outside my apartment building down on Houston Street in the West Village, the World Trade Center towers dominated the sky to the south. I even worked briefly in one of the towers. Although I was in Washington State on 9/11/2001, I was deeply affected. For some time, I watched the lists of the dead in case someone I'd known had been among the victims. I had left Manhattan over 20 years before, and the names on the lists were unfamiliar. But that's not how I felt. The breathing, bustling heart of Manhattan never leaves you if you've lived there any length of time. Those brokers and administrative assistants and data processors and policemen and firemen were my brothers and sisters. My grief was nothing special or unique, but it was very real.

I'm not going to editorialize very much about all this. As we near yet another sad anniversary of 9/11, we all have our private thoughts and reactions to our memories, and to these latest references to the tragedy. I'll leave you to them.

I don't think you'll find much sentiment in the Fox broadcast or the Daily News column, but the video below is unabashed in its emotion. It's a fitting homage. As you watch, you'll remember what we lost, but you might also reconnect with what we somehow gained.

I don't need another 9/11. I haven't forgotten a thing.