BuzzMachine

Facts
: The Observergives us Sept. 11 facts:

: 795,763 tonnes of building rubble have been removed from Ground Zero…

: Workers have cleared 148,429 tonnes of steel from the World Trade Centre site – including 50 handguns.

: The remains of 749 victims from the New York disaster have been identified…

: …as well as 273 complete bodies and 250 pieces of jewellery. 2,672 death certificates have been issued. A further 158 people are unaccounted for.

: ‘Asymmetrical warfare’, 9/11 and ‘Osama effect’ are set to be included in the Oxford English Dictionary.

: Twelve US soldiers have been killed in combat during the war in Afghanistan, while 14 have died in non-combat accidents.

: Wal-Mart has sold 3,000,000 US flags,10 times its usual number.

: The Dow Jones index is now worth $386bn, or 11 per cent, more than it was on 10 September.

Mornings
: I’m finishing my six-months-after sermon for tomorrow; again, I extend an invitation to anyone in the neighborhood; it’s a harmless Congregational church. And I”m working on a lot of posts for the Monday anniversary.

Airports
: A passenger taking his first flight after 9.11: “It’s far too early to be walking next to camouflaged men wielding M-16s.” [via Kottke]

Defcon 5
: It’s about time: Tom Ridge has finally formulated a more specific alert system so that, rather than issuing the vague watch-your-ass alerts (something’s going to happen and we think we know what but we’re not going to tell you what or where or when and we’re just going to make you nervous; your tax dollars at work) they will now have more specific advisories to local authorities and a grading system just like the Defcon of Cold-War-movie fame. The first rank is business-as-usual; watch out for common criminals. The highest of three to five levels means an attack is imminent.

A town of pain
: Six months after, the NY Times returns to Middletown, NJ, the town that suffered more death in the World Trade Center attack than any other:

A middle-aged widow rarely gets out of bed when the sun is up. Another staves off the pain with mounds of paperwork and nonstop errands. One young mother, inconsolable and financially overwhelmed, has scared friends with dark suggestions that she and her children might join her husband in heaven. For a mother coping with a lost son, spirituality has become a comfort and a crusade.

Weather-beaten American flags still fly from every other minivan antenna, and the signs along Route 35 still proclaim “God Bless Middletown,” but for most residents of this comfortable, self-concerned suburb, life has regained its former hectic rhythms, marked by early morning commutes, early evening intramural sports and monthly mortgage payments.

A great post by Charles Johnson puts this story in just the right perspective, suggesting that Ted Rall — he of the cartoon mocking terror widows — read the story, rub his nose in it, see the pain even if he can’t feel it.

What, me buy?
: I don’t know why this amuses and amazes me, but the Lands’ End catalogue we just got stars Alfred E. Newman on the cover, in a polo shirt.

The Dennys test
: I agree with Professor Instant about the nondebate over steel:

…try this experiment in comparative interest: go out on the street, buttonhole the first five people you see, and demand to know “Where’s the outrage on steel tariffs? Steel tariffs, man! Steel tariffs!” Watch their blank looks turn to caution, then hostility. Then be polite to the nice men when they come for you. There’s more interest in steel tariffs in the Blogosphere than outside it. Trust me.

Nick Denton is trying to shame us — and not without virtuous reason — into talking steel and free trade and protectionism and globalization and foreign policy and fairness and all that in blogdom. But with all due respect to my blog mentor (here’s Luke rebelling against Yoda), that’s big, old mediathink. Newspaper and magazine editors like to tell you what you should know and what you should think about (if not think). But the truth is, the people think and talk about what they want to think and talk about. Just go to a Dennys and listen to The People talking about last night’s Sex and the City or sex or their kids or jobs or dogs or whatever. You’ll not often hear them talking about politics. And that’s their right. I’ve often said that the Web — and blogdom — are like a booth at Dennys. We talk about what we want to talk about.

: Matthew Yglesias sides with Denton.

: Ted Barlow sides with Layne.

Note that we’re not actually arguing about steel. We’re arguing about not arguing about steel.

IM bomb
: But Denton is the master of the last word. Last night, when I chose to side with Layne in the nondebate over steel, saying that I prefered to post on Howard Stern, man of the masses that I am, Denton waited until the dead of night, when he knew I would be snoring, old man that I am, and he opened up an IM session on me so his comment would stay on my screen all night, unchallenged, his deft cut just two last words:

“gossip columnist”

What he said
: Nick Denton and Ken Layne are sniping at each other over steel and whether they should be writing about it. Steel as in tarriffs, as in protective trade, as in antiglobalization, as in good neighborliness, and all that. I have to side with Layne on this one, for it was Denton himself — my blog mentor — who taught me that we shouldn’t all be piling on the same subject all the time. Layne says that others, like ex-Economist Denton, will have more intelligent things to say about steel and so those with something to say should say it. I’m going to keep commenting on Howard Stern. I’m a man of the masses.

On
: Nick Denton says the Towers of Light memorial should not be turned off after a month. I agree and I think New York may become attached to the light. By the way, hope for a foggy, wet, polluted day on Monday for then the light will be far more visible.

The latest heroes
: I was struck last night watching the mother and sister of one of the soldiers who just died fighting in Afghanistan and and the parents of another. I was struck by this hard reminder of war’s price. They were stoic and proud; they knew the risks and so did their sons; they took the blow for all of us. But nothing can salve the pain for these families anymore than it could for the 3,000 families of 9.11. And we should not lose sight of that pain as we contemplate the continuing war in Afghanistan and the spreading war we may need to fight against other terrorist havens. I’m not losing my nerve or resolve or trying to go back into the pacifist closet. But I am saying that it is wise and necessary to take our time and to do this when necessary and to do this wisely. The chorus of hawks screeching for Iraqi blood may be right but they should give their man George the room he needs to assure victory. It’s a little too easy for us to sit at connected keyboards and call the bombing strikes because we have not seen much pain this time; there has been, thankfully, less of it than in past wars. In Vietnam, we saw the blood and terror on TV over dinner; we knew the dead and their families, there were so many; we had good reason to doubt whether this was necessary or wise. Here, we don’t see any of that. But war is still war. It’s about killing. It’s about dying. It’s about loss. It’s not a computer game.

I was here
: My friend and colleague Janice Abrahams points me to Earthcam’s WTC camera, which happens to be aimed at just the spot where I stopped and stood after I ran out of the World Trade Center and watched the horror, the spot where I was standing when the second jet hit the second tower. Here you see the Century 21 department store (just reopened) on the left; the hotel is just out of sight on the right; across the street to the right was WTC 5, straight ahead was WTC 1. Now it is a hole.

Nosybodies
: This does not make me feel safe. Now Ashcroft is enlisting neighborhood watch groups to keep an eye out for terrorists. And while they’re at it, they can rat on people who water their lawns during our drought.

Howard update
: Howard spoke with Drudge this morning about his report (below) that Howard’s Mel the K’s favorite to replace Letterman if he dons the Disney ears. Howard said he would take the job. He also says that Letterman is staying. My assumption is that Howard is doing Mel the favor of putting the pincer on Dave, letting him know that they would/could let him go and put Howard in the slot. Advertiser problems? “For $30 million, you’d behave,” said Robin.

Howard Power, cont.
: Ken Goldstein at the Donkey continues my riff about Howard Stern’s power via Justin Slotman.Goldstein confesses to Howard fandom:

The show has a raw honesty completely unheard of in any form of media, and it’s incredibly refreshing. Second, the sense that at least for the hour morning commute, before spending another day doing other people’s bidding, it’s okay to not have to feel so bad and guilty about things, especially about instinctual emotions or reactions. It’s a private thing, I think, at least for most people. You’re in your car, alone, nobody to tsk-tsk you, so go ahead and laugh! It’s all right!

I am unashamed to say that I am a Howard fan. I’ve said so in print and on TV and here on the Web.

Jersey Power!
: I note that both gentleman above are from New Jersey. So is Andrew Hofer. I think it’s time to start organizing the Jersey Blogfest. Ba da bing.

Link Power
: I’m glad to see Amy Langfield and Reid Stott quoting Rossi; glad to see her fan club growing.

Instapundites, click here
: Looking for David Brenner’s rant on airport security, as recommended by Instapundit, click here. (By the way, I have found traffic heaven: Getting mentioned in Instapundit just before the professor leaves for the day, thus my link is not buried under his usual two tons of links per hour and my traffic stays high. It feels like popularity.)

Pen v. pen
: Jim Treacher gives us a cartoon lampoon of Ted Rall’s obnoxious terror widows cartoon that was pulled from the NY Times for being obnoxious.

: Protein Wisdom gives us another here.

Howard shifts
: Drudge reports that CBS is considering putting Howard Stern into David Letterman’s slot if he jumps to ABC. Not sure I buy it. Not sure there is room for three such shows and Stern knows he’d be the new kid. Yes, he is beloved of CBS Viacom boss Mel Karmazin and he has cooled his feud with CBS TV chief Les Moonves (because they have a prime time series in development together). Yes, Stern said the other day that if they gave him $20 million, he’d do it. But the odds are that Dave will stay at CBS and I don’t see Stern working for Disney. An amusing concept, but far-fetched.

9.11 tape
: Caryn James in the NY Times has a powerful review — and defense — of the 9.11 show on CBS this Sunday.

It feels like you’re being buried alive. You’re on the ground, gray ash falling everywhere, as if it were being shoveled over you, and you can hear debris rattling on a car overhead, dropping like hail. From the perspective of Jules Naudet’s camera, you have run on the street after escaping from the lobby of Tower 1 of the World Trade Center just six or eight minutes before it would collapse. When it does, you are pushed to the ground, and soon everything gets dark. Then a piece of paper flutters in front of the camera lens. A voice yells, “Let’s go before the car blows up.”

Although it has been only six months since the World Trade Center was attacked, already it seems as if we can’t be shocked by those events anymore. But this extraordinary piece of film, to be shown in a two-hour special called “9/11” on CBS (Sunday night at 9), has such immediacy that it brings back how unimaginable the events of that day once seemed. An important, firsthand piece of history, the program is also amazing to watch….

You may still find it impossible to take your eyes away for a second….

James defends the show against idiotic attacks by those who say we’re too fragile to watch this and who argue that CBS shouldn’t show the harsh reality. I cannot abide attacks on shows by people who have not seen those shows; it happens all the time. These preemptive strikes are wrong-headed because they are uninformed and they are insulting to the audience; these attackers assume the authority to protect us from something they have not even seen. The critic’s defense:

There is nothing here that shouldn’t be shown and much that is immensely moving. The minor flap surrounding the film is appalling, and an extreme example came yesterday morning on the Fox News Channel when the anchor, Jon Scott, delivered loaded questions to Senator Jon Corzine of New Jersey, who said some victims’ families were concerned about the “graphic depiction” of deaths on screen.

Well, there are no such depictions. Mr. Scott asked, “Is it irresponsible of CBS to put it on now?” but he didn’t ask if the senator had seen the film. And when Mr. Scott said the program was made by “French filmmakers” he managed to make the word “French” sound like “Al Qaeda.”…

The film is timely because it reveals how quickly even the most horrifying images of Sept. 11 have been absorbed, have come to seem ordinary: a necessary way to grasp a terrible reality but also a dangerously forgetful change….

At the news conference after the screening of “9/11” Jules Naudet said he thought that continuing to film that day was a way of distancing himself from the horrible reality around him, reducing it, as he said, to “that little L.E.D. screen” on his camera. For us, the small screen offers the opposite: a way of moving into those terrible moments that we all lived through in vastly different ways. The film offers a way of reclaiming that experience even as it recedes into history.

Also visit the discussion on Metafilter on the topic. There are some incredibly stupid, insipid, and offensive comments (e.g., “I suppose flaming death and mass graves are not really my idea of entertainment. Truth be told, I’m getting kind of sick of ER, too.” Asswipe.)

But here is a comment supporting James’ review:

i hope that people stop with the angel pins and the flagwaving and actually confront the horror of what happened. at this six month distance, people seem to have abstracted themselves from it, and think of what happened merely as fodder for superbowl halftime. it is my hope that showing the film makes it less of an entertainment proposition rather than more.

I have faith in the intelligence of the audience. We deserve the opportunity to choose to watch this.

I need to watch this show, just as I needed to visit the Here is New York gallery and just as I needed to buy books about Sept. 11, to see others’ images of the day because, even though I was there — no, because I was there — I find it hard to grasp the memories, to convince myself that it was real, that this was not just a nightmare, that this evil took flight and flame — and that there is life after the cloud of death and darkness and destruction cleared.

It is important to remember and it is not too soon to work at it.

Letterman redux
: Mark my words: My idea to repeat David Letterman the night day in the early evening for all us aging boomers who have to get to bed will take hold. Note that ESPN is branching into entertainment to boost ratings; Letterman reruns would be a perfect addition. CBS, too, has plenty of cable networks now; Letterman reruns would be VH1’s first hit. They’re going to spend a lot of money on Dave and they’re going to get more value out of the investment by bringing in more audience. That is the way of TV today.

Nuke nightmares
: Andrew Sullivan is having nuke nightmares. Join the club! Many of us living here on the Axis of Good — the East Coast — are losing sleep. There is nothing these fanatic fascists would not do if they could. Nothing.

Rage
: Thomas Friedman in the NY Times on the roots of Muslim rage:

As a U.S. diplomat in the Middle East said to me, Israel ó not Iraq, not India ó is “a constant reminder to Muslims of their own powerlessness.” How could a tiny Jewish state amass so much military and economic power if the Islamic way of life ó not Christianity or Judaism ó is God’s most ideal religious path?….

I have long believed that it is this poverty of dignity, not a poverty of money, that is behind a lot of Muslim rage today and the reason this rage is sharpest among educated, but frustrated, Muslim youth. It is they who perpetrated 9/11 and who slit the throat of the Wall Street Journal reporter Danny Pearl ó after reportedly forcing him to declare on film, “I am a Jew and my mother is a Jew.”

Relative
: Andrew Hofer has an compelling post on a morality play that starts on a subway and winds its way through crack dens and is really about the moral choices we are making in this war.

Sometimes we trade evils. We take chances that we can trade long term good for short term compromises, or that some short term relief is worth a chance on a more abstract moral hazard…. Sometimes we just punt….

Art
: A new Rossi Rant is up:

Yet here I am, all these months later.

I wake up every morning and look out the window to make sure The Empire State Building is still there.

I feel like crying whenever I see a firefighter.

My heart crawls into my throat at the sight of a plane descending, (they always seem to be flying too low).

When I look at any construction site I always drift back to the smoking wreck that was the WTC.

The list goes on.

So do the good things that have happened to me, hopefully, permanently.

I pet my cats more.

I say “I love you” to my family and to my friends.

I try to make sure that I am always doing something, anything for someone besides myself.

I think about Israel — a lot.

After September 11th, I went back to painting and discovered that without planning on it, or even trying, my work had changed. The colors were softer … child-friendly.

Rossi has found other artists softening. And so she has decided to produce a show to bring together artists and show how their work has changed after September 11th and to benefit artists in the process. I want to go just to meet this Rossi person, whose writing I like.

The show will be held May 3-10 at DNA Studio Gallery, 2174 3rd Ave between 118th and 119th. Details here.