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A Tale of Two Media:Tragedy and Images
For me, the images down here will be the barges that chugged out of Battery Park carrying corpses bound for vast New Jersey morgues, the smoke and smell and noise, the gaunt and hollow-eyed looks of the cops and firemen digging desperately for their buddies with their bare hands, the relatives on their knees praying all over the place, the video of the couple jumping off one of the towers holding hands, crushed police cars and fire trucks, many with bodies inside, the distant figure on the water everybody said was the U.S.S. George Washington, an aircraft carrier sent to protect New York harbor, and the soldiers with machine guns that are guarding major roadways and airports.
Big stories like this now are covered two ways -- online and off. The former draws millions to websites like CNN's and USA Today's, and new kind of sites like this one. Bloggers and others put up sites so that people could describe what was happening in their own words. People in apartment complexes and news sites posted accounts, and looked for relatives and housing.
As interesting as the Net is -- some of the best and most graphic video of the tragedy was popping up all over the Web -- and as idiosyncratic, the dominant medium when stuff like this happens is still TV, by a wide margin. Hour by hour, TV culls and culls until it finds a handful of quickly familiar images burned into our national and global consciousness. In our time, somebody has a videocam aimed at everything all the time, and within minutes the pictures show up everywhere, on television and the Net. Almost nothing is our culture goes unrecorded or unobserved any longer. The immediacy was as astonishing as the images were unbelievable.
By nightfall, CNN, MSNBC and the networks were moving away from the dramatic video and the indescribable scenes of wreckage and carnage and calling in the policy wonks and propellerheads who hide out in Washington caves until something like this happens. The focal point of all the airtime then shifted from the devastation in New York to the parsing and analyzing of the political, governmental and intelligence communities. For future reference, that may be a good time to turn off the tube and get online, the medium of individual stories, feelings and experiences.
When things like this happen, TV, much more than the Net or the Web, reveals whether leaders rise or fall to the occasion. Mayor Guiliani of New York clearly rose to the tragedy. President Bush, sticking to his cautious sing-song monotone, fled to various bunkers and seemed to shrink throughout the day. Guiliani got bigger by the hour. Defying advice that he hide out until the shooting stopped, he rushed to the scene, was nearly killed, calmed the city down and took charge of the clean-up and rescue. Bush got on his best suit and stuck to the prompter. At least that was the image that TV brought of us of these two very different leaders.
If you love New York, your heart will break when the smoke clears. Something about the city is busted for good, no matter what the mayor says. The damage is not describable, and surely hasn't been captured on TV. There are dead firemen, cops and office workers all over the rubble, everybody is saying, and the dust is so thick even the cadaver dogs are getting sick. Five techs with thermal imaging probes were retreating uptown, their sensitive equipment almost useless in the mud (caused by water poured on the still-burning fires) and smoke and dirt.
The buzz from the cops and reporters standing around is that the death toll will be horrible -- between two and three thousand -- but nowhere near the much higher figures feared yesterday. It seems that many people did get out, calling wives and cops from their cell phones as they went, as did some of the doomed passengers on the hijacked planes. (And a number of the people buried under the towers are still calling for help on their cells. Others got calls from spouses and friends telling them to get out.)
Across the street, a group of structural engineers were reassuring reporters that the towers collapsed of their own structural weakness, the steel melting from the fires, the buildings designed to collapse inward -- rather than fall down -- to save lives.
With their usual hubris, reporters and politicians were promising us that everything was going to change. But if the attacks demonstrate nothing else, it is the folly of that kind of thinking. Terrorists change too, and for all the high-tech equipment pouring into Manhattan, sometimes there isn't a thing we can do to stop them.
Not to be distastefull, but the bigest towers in the world are in malaysia. The Petronas Twin Towers (well known from the movie 'Entrapment' with sean connery and catherine zeta-jones). At 88 floors and 452 meters.
One & Two World trade measured in at 417 and 415 meters and 110 stories.
The Sears tower (443 meters, 110 stories) in chicago and the Jin Mao Building in Shanghai (420 meters, 88 stories) are also taller then the WTC's.
Anyways, non of it matters anyways.. just nit-picking.
i already posted this on everything2, but here goes.
total US-Israel state to state financial aid in millions of USD
1949-1969: 74*
1970-1973: 425*
1974: 2,646
1975-1982: 2,348*
1983: 2,501
1984: 2,629
1985: 3,372
1986: 3,800
1987: 3,050
1988: 3,050
1989: 3,050
1990: 3,050
* average amounts
after 1990, the amount of US aid to Israel accounted to about 3,000 million USD a year: 1,800 million as direct military assistance and 1,200 million as civil assistance (which is mainly used to pay interest on past military loans). the United States also provided Israel with 80 million USD a year in "refugee resettlement assistance" for Jews migrating to Israel. In 1996, Israel received another 50 million USD package for anti-terrorism equipment.
in 1998, Israel received the same amount.
in comparison:
Egypt received 2,100 million USD;
Jordan: 150 million USD (under an agreement with the United States, Israel and Egypt returned respectively 50 million USD to the newly created "Middle East Peace and Stability Fund". Jordan will benefit these other 100 million USD for its commitment to peace);
the Palestinians 100 million USD, mainly through NGO's. in August 1997, the US Congress allowed the expiration of a law, the Middle East Peace Facilitation Act, which permitted direct assistance to the Palestinian Authority. it did so because the Clinton administration was unable to certify that the PA was complying with their agreements with Israel.
the reader should note that in 1998 total funding to Israel was +/- 3.1 billion USD. total 1998 funding to Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine totals 2.4 billion USD. any figures on US aid to other Middle Eastern nations were unavailable at the time this node was written. i hope these figures make clear the fallacy of claims that the events of September 11th, 2001 were in response to American aid and efforts in the region.
A couple of days ago, you stated: "Reporters break down on the air and sob." Now you're saying that they were "remote and detached". Which is it? You have an interesting way of twisting things depending on the angle you wish to cover.
we've seen this happen many times in past. Extra security measures right after a crisis which begin to wane out soon. This had happened in India too.. when pakistani terrorists had hijacked a indian airlines flight and took it to afghanistan, there was unprecedented security at airports. but this soon waned out. This clearly is a much bigger tragedy but i'm afraid the reaction will be the same.
we should seriously consider having armed air marshells on every fligt .. armed with maybe not regular guns but something which'll not harm an aircraft if fired.
People should give up some of their convinences for the safety of everyone. Together we can prevent this from happening again.
I'd like to take issue with this statement, as this phenomena is largely due to design quirks that were a part of a questionable plan to increase floor space in the building. See more information on it in this discussion that was held over at Cryptome.org.
Is your company running tools written by ma
Actually, on at least one plane (the one that went into the Pentagon), the terrorists herded the people into the back of the plane and asked them to call their relatives and tell them they were going to die. That's what Barbara Olsen (I think that's her name) told her husband before the plane crashed with her on board.
1968, El Al 707 was hijacked to Algiers. After a month, Israel cut a deal to exchange the hostages for Palestinian prisoners.
September 6, 1970, the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) organized the attempted "simultaneous hijacking of four airliners bound for New York" . On one of the targetted planes, an El Al flight, the pilot put the plane into a nosedive, an armed air marshall shot dead hijacker Patrick Arguello, and the leader of the hijacking Leila Khaled "was overpowered by male passengers and savagely beaten". When the plane arrived at London, Khaled was taken into British custody. However two successfully hijacked airplanes had been diverted to Jordan at a former British airfield, Dawson's Field. The PFLP also successfully hijacked a fifth plane to bring their total to hundreds of hostages, dozens of them British. What followed were dramatic secret negotiations between the PFLP, Jordan, Britain, the United States, and Israel, some of whose details are now known because of a British law requiring release of documents after 30 years. A deal was struck to exchange Khaled and other Palestinians for the hostages. The PFLP had won again. Or had it?
King Hussein proceeded to launch a war which drove out the armed Palestinian groups he had formerly welcomed on his soil. This war was what came to be reviled by the Palestinians as Black September.
On the other hand, Leila Khaled has claimed "The success in the tactics of the hijacking and imposing our demands and succeeding in having our demands implemented gave us the courage and the confidence to go ahead with our struggle."
The problem with Asbestos is that the only safe level of exposure is zero.
.1 fiber/cc of air), the increased death rate is barely significant (3.2 deaths/1000).
Actually, that's a myth. The reason so many thousands got sick from asbestos is because so many thousands breathed in lots and lots of it, over and over and over for years. Mainly people who worked in construction and installed it almost every day for years. Also shipyards (asbestos was widely used in ship construction, as you *really* don't want those catching fire) and the factories where the asbestos was made.
Check out the graph on this page. It shows the asbestos-related death rates for workers who were exposed to various levels of airborne asbestos every day of their working careers. Even then, the death rate varies widely (and almost linearly) with the asbestos levels experienced. At low levels (eg.
Furthermore, asbestos exposure is a cumulative risk, very similar to the risks from smoking. Just as smoking 3 packs every day for a week won't kill you if you don't smoke again, even a relatively high asbestos exposure over a few days or weeks will not cause a significant occurance of disease. Or, as that link puts it, "Risk of asbestos related illness is Dose-Response related. That is, the greater the amount of exposure and the longer the time of exposure, the greater the risk of asbestos related cancers."
Assuming that Giuliani is telling the truth about the levels measured, there would appear to be little to worry about from asbestos here.
> The US has stood by and callously blocked the import of essential medicines, anaesthetics and spare parts. The US government is fully aware of their complicity in the suffering and death of innocent Iraqi civilians.
I'm always arguing this. The US is essentially the military arm of the UN; and this is a UN sanction. If you want to complain, complain to the UN. But, don't complain too loudly--the UN is doing a good job offering aid to the people of Iraq.
Text from the UN web site: "The [Security] Council has resorted to mandatory sanctions as an enforcement tool when peace has been threatened and diplomatic efforts have failed. In the last decade, such sanctions have been imposed against Iraq, the former Yugoslavia, Libya, Haiti, Liberia, Rwanda, Somalia, UNITA forces in Angola, Sudan, Sierra Leone..."
http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/committees/INTRO.htm
I would not know if that is true or not, but according to this site, they passed 1991 footage showing the palestinians dancing.
Anyone with better info can deny/confirm this ?
The Story is here
David
Oh yes, one more thing. The images of Palestinians celebrating in Israel you have seen on the news are most likely fake. In a manner of speaking, anyway. They are from 1991 and unrelated to anything going on currently.
... you imply the Palestinians are complaining about old footage. Funny, let's see ...
Palestinian Authority threatens camera crews covering celebrations
Oh but wait, an anonymous internet website that offers no proof is more credible than our corporate eviiiiil media, no ? Please.
- sigs are for wimps.
but it could be said to sound like the use of nuclear weapons has not been ruled out.
t ml
That is correct.
I know the United States has a long-standing 'no first use' policy
No the US has not, compared for example to the PRC's policy. See http://www.nuclearfiles.org/docs/1995/950406-p5.h
--Seen
"I used to be a dilettante. Then I thought I'd try something else for a while."
so if they're fake, why is Hanan Ashrawi, the Palestinian Authority Cabinet member, discussing them in a press conference?
"Hanan Ashrawi, Palestinian Authority Cabinet member, said the apparent celebrations in Ramallah in the West Bank were a minority reaction and focusing on them would be misleading, as far as Arab reaction to the attacks is concerned."
This in reference to this:
"As Palestinians celebrated in one West Bank town and in Lebanese refugee camps on Tuesday, their leader Yasser Arafat offered his sympathy to Americans and said the Palestinian authority was "completely shocked" by the string of attacks."
taken from here
Please tell me that for your next act you're going to try to excuse the act of Jyhad as a natural response to the supposed oppression of the american government.
Nope, killing the dog is a fine choice and doesn't suck whatsoever.
Hindsight, however, doesn't reveal any immediate choices at all.
I just spotted this at the BBC's website. Quote: "Two Americans, two Australians and six Germans are being held in detention in Kabul, charged with spreading Christianity. If found guilty they could face the death penalty. " Apparently they've been held for some time, but our wonderful U.S. media failed to mention it before as far as I can tell. The link is as follows:
i a/ newsid_1543000/1543135.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_as
That being said, back to weapons:
As a business traveler, I carry quite an array of gadgets with me, and since I have some pretty detailed training, I know how to use these for more than their conventional use. Let's itemize them:
These hijackers had one weapon, not the knives, not the razors, but fear. Once people muster the confidence to believe they will survive, the fear is erased. Picture this:
This does a few key things, 1.) offbalances the attacker's advantage of fear, control, and 2.) makes them look like a complete idiot, and 3.) since you cut them off mid-sentence, shows you have no respect for them, and don't fear them. This is very important when dealing with people like this. You want to get them angry, because it is next to impossible to make clear, well-thought-out decisions when you're angry, enraged. Here's another alternative:
Again, don't let them finish their sentence. Let them feel the fear themselves.
Now that these things are public, people are talking, and in talking, comes out good ideas. People, the American people, will not stand for this any longer. We are wired, we are angry, and we are strong. And some of us are highly trained, and you don't want to be on the other end of my anger should I be on a plane when someone decides they want to crash it into a building without my approval.
They're going to have to resort to using new techniques now, possibly with uglier results.
This was a difficult, professional attack that took elite personnel; something entirely different from the regular street crime our police face every day. They successfully hijacked four commercial passenger aircraft in one day, without a single failed attempt. They bypassed some of the toughest security civilians are subject to. The calibre of terrorist that must have done this will be unfettered by attempts to control gun ownership, internet usage, cryptography or many other laws. Let's hope this doesn't "accidentally" force us into a police state.
Did you actually read that site? The latest news section is rife with US/UK references, ie the US and the UK are in agreement on these things. In fact the proposed smart sanctions are UK/US backed and most of the sanctions appear to be US/UK backed from I have read on that site. I think you're anti-US mindset has clouded your vision a bit. This is as much a UK problem as a US problem.
Q.
Now that all of the knee jerkers are ready to flame me - NOTHING that our government has done, should result in a tragedy like this. Regardless of the US foreign policy, innocent civilians DO NOT deserve to die.
There's quite a few things about US policy itself that display these characteristics. It's OK for US foreign policy to:
These points are not the mindless ravings of a Muslim fanatic (whatever that means - all the Muslim guys I've ever known are really cool). I'm a white journalist who has lived through 15 years of terrorist war in Southern Africa and then fought against it in Northern Ireland - and I'm not just mindlessly sounding off. (I've also travelled widely in the US). All of my points are facts which can can be independently verified. But don't take my word for it - check them out. Don't rely on your own mainstream media which can't even bring itself to talk about how Bin Laden was funded by the CIA and the Taliban are a bastard creation of a US-sponsored agency in Pakistan. Go and find out just why these political problems in other parts of the world are the fault - in whole or in part - of the self interest of the United States of America.
Mantras seem to be the order of the day so here's mine:
In the eyes of some, US citizens are fair game as long as they continue to ignore their own government's foreign policy
Having correctly pointed out that US foreign policy has caused misery, suffering and death to millions elsewhere in the world, you seem horrified that a couple of those people are ready to give as good as they get.
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.