Yup, it's a posting about 9/11 rhetoric
So I guess the important question for tomorrow will be which vote ended up having had the higher turn out. The vote that took Pluto off our list of planets or today's primary?
And that's all the coverage of the primary I'm going to bother with, mostly because I didn't get to vote (Maryland runs a closed primary).
Onto the other proposed topic: 9/11 rhetoric.
There are some things I like: songs like those by David Rovics (Reichstag Fire or Santiago) or cartoons like the clearinghouse of cartoons from MSNBC (which, as much as I don't like MSNBC, is pretty cool to look through). The cartoon I keep coming back to week after week is Tom Tomorrow's This Modern World. It's one of those incredibly long running cartoons and he has (throughout the 8 or so years I've been following him) mocked pretty much everyone (very egalitarian). What I really liked about his most recent comic which was done in honor of 9/11 and the Bush administrations handling of its aftermath? His use of the word 'defeatocrats'.
I do have to admit to the fact that I'm not all that moved by most of the 9/11 rhetoric. So much of it is based on the idea that something significantly changed with 9/11. Frankly, I don't think anything really did change. How many of us are doing the same thing we were doing five years ago? How many of us think, feel, and act the same way we did five years ago? Because my undergrad degree has taken five years, I found myself literally doing the same thing at the same time I was five years ago on Monday. Because I've been growing up (I was a teenager when 9/11 occurred), I know that I feel more strongly about some things then I used to - but ideologically, my thoughts, feelings, opinions, etc are largely what they were five years ago. I think that's what has really struck me about 9/11 - the fact that we don't seem to have changed.
But that's just my thought (I generally only have one a day). My other thought (sometimes I have two thoughts a day) is that a little less empty chatter would be fabulous. I know that this goes against most tenets of television, but wouldn't a little silence be nice? The constant bombardment of crap (I mean, high quality news programming brought to you by Rupert Murdoch) is exhausting. This is what really bothered me about the 9/11 memorial coverage - there was absolutely no silence or reflection. It was constant news, analysis, coverage of the memorials in DC, NY, and PA, and then more analysis - I watched more network TV Monday than I generally do in a week and I was really surprised, I honestly thought there would be more moments of silence. I didn't see one (literally, I may have missed them, but there were zero moments of silence that I saw).
Just as a comparison, on the News Hour, Lehrer does a role of the fallen soldiers. And he does the damnedest thing. Silence. He shows the official picture, name, and rank of the fallen soldiers and then closes the show with his goodnight. It is one of the most respectful thing I have seen on teevee. It's as though there is a place for dealing with what's going on in terms of military action around the world (in the body of the show) and a place for respecting the fallen soldiers (which is a special, seperate segment at the end of the show).
However, as a gift for those that do like the noise, here's a selection of comments from world leaders compiled by the BBC.
And that's all the coverage of the primary I'm going to bother with, mostly because I didn't get to vote (Maryland runs a closed primary).
Onto the other proposed topic: 9/11 rhetoric.
There are some things I like: songs like those by David Rovics (Reichstag Fire or Santiago) or cartoons like the clearinghouse of cartoons from MSNBC (which, as much as I don't like MSNBC, is pretty cool to look through). The cartoon I keep coming back to week after week is Tom Tomorrow's This Modern World. It's one of those incredibly long running cartoons and he has (throughout the 8 or so years I've been following him) mocked pretty much everyone (very egalitarian). What I really liked about his most recent comic which was done in honor of 9/11 and the Bush administrations handling of its aftermath? His use of the word 'defeatocrats'.
I do have to admit to the fact that I'm not all that moved by most of the 9/11 rhetoric. So much of it is based on the idea that something significantly changed with 9/11. Frankly, I don't think anything really did change. How many of us are doing the same thing we were doing five years ago? How many of us think, feel, and act the same way we did five years ago? Because my undergrad degree has taken five years, I found myself literally doing the same thing at the same time I was five years ago on Monday. Because I've been growing up (I was a teenager when 9/11 occurred), I know that I feel more strongly about some things then I used to - but ideologically, my thoughts, feelings, opinions, etc are largely what they were five years ago. I think that's what has really struck me about 9/11 - the fact that we don't seem to have changed.
But that's just my thought (I generally only have one a day). My other thought (sometimes I have two thoughts a day) is that a little less empty chatter would be fabulous. I know that this goes against most tenets of television, but wouldn't a little silence be nice? The constant bombardment of crap (I mean, high quality news programming brought to you by Rupert Murdoch) is exhausting. This is what really bothered me about the 9/11 memorial coverage - there was absolutely no silence or reflection. It was constant news, analysis, coverage of the memorials in DC, NY, and PA, and then more analysis - I watched more network TV Monday than I generally do in a week and I was really surprised, I honestly thought there would be more moments of silence. I didn't see one (literally, I may have missed them, but there were zero moments of silence that I saw).
Just as a comparison, on the News Hour, Lehrer does a role of the fallen soldiers. And he does the damnedest thing. Silence. He shows the official picture, name, and rank of the fallen soldiers and then closes the show with his goodnight. It is one of the most respectful thing I have seen on teevee. It's as though there is a place for dealing with what's going on in terms of military action around the world (in the body of the show) and a place for respecting the fallen soldiers (which is a special, seperate segment at the end of the show).
However, as a gift for those that do like the noise, here's a selection of comments from world leaders compiled by the BBC.
posted by Anonymous at 8:53 PM
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