On Time Magazine's Pope of the Year Pick

In 1927, Time magazine launched its annual "Man of the Year" feature, renamed "Person of the Year" in 1999 to avoid the use of sexist language in the new millennium. Whether man, woman, or person, the feature was by and large, a pseudo-event, to use a term coined by Daniel Boorstin to refer to a news item that is not about any real event that took place in the world, but rather something created specifically for the medium, to provide it with content, such as an interview, a publicity stunt, a press release, and a press conference. Certainly, a large part of the motivation for creating this feature was to sell magazines, and it comes out at a slow news time, right after the Christmas holidays.

The first person selected was Charles Lindbergh, in recognition of his history-making solo trans-Atlantic flight:

Interestingly enough, Boorstin in his classic work in the field of media ecology, The Image, discusses Lindbergh as the primary example of how heroes have been transformed into celebrities, which he referred to as human pseudo-events.

Subsequent years included the likes of Mahatma Gandhi and Franklin Roosevelt, and the first Woman of the Year was selected as early as 1936, and it was Wallis Simpson, the American divorcée that King Edward VIII of England fell in love with and abdicated the throne in order to marry. 

The main criterion for selection was that it should be the individual who had the greatest impact on current events over the past year. As a news magazine, Time was naturally interested in the person who made the most news.  But the most newsworthy individual is not the same thing as the most worthy individual, in any kind of moral or ethical sense. As Sidney Hook has pointed out, much of history is made by individuals who might be termed evil, and/or insane, and it follows that Adolph Hitler was Man of the Year in 1938, and Josef Stalin was chosen for the following year, and again in 1942. 

The annual pick was not always a single individual. In 1950, with the outbreak of the Korean War, it was "The American Fighting-Man" that made the cover:

In 1956, with the unsuccessful uprising against Soviet domination in Hungary, the choice was "The Hungarian Freedom Fighter":

And in 1960, it was "U.S. Scientists":

Along with the typical types of political leaders such as Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev in 1957, French Prime Minister Charles de Gaulle in 1958, and American Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1959 and John F. Kennedy in 1961, the first Roman Catholic Pope to grace the cover of Time was John XXIII in 1962:

And the first African-American selected was Martin Luther King the following year:

In recognition of the role that youth culture was playing during the sixties, in 1966 baby boomers and their immediate predecessors were given the nod collectively, under the heading of "The Inheritor" (referring to the younger generation of people 25 and under):

So, I don't know about you, but I guess I could say that I was selected for Time magazine's "Person of the Year" in a way, sort of, kinda. And perhaps as a way of evening up the score, 1969 featured "The Middle Americans" who were otherwise known as "The Silent Majority" (as opposed to us noisy boomers who made up a sizable minority of the population):

Although those middle Americans were thought to be a bunch of squares, their cover image made them out to be pretty cool and groovy. And note the reference to "Man and Woman of the Year" on the cover. After Richard Nixon made the cover alone in 1971, and with Henry Kissinger the next year, 1975 was the year of "The American Women":

While choosing villains rather than heroes was a common practice, including King Faisal of Saudi Arabia in 1974 on account of the Arab oil embargo and consequent gasoline shortage in the US, and Deng Xioping in 1978 after taking control of Communist China by overthrowing Mao's successor, Hua Guofeng, a major turning point came in 1979 with the selection of Ayatollah Khomeini:

The trauma of the Iranian Hostage Crisis was too much, it seems, or television had so much eroded the readership of news magazines, and perhaps also the sensibilities of their readers (known to broadcasters as, "the audience"), that this decision cost Time a significant number of subscribers. And that affected their future choices, as never again would they venture into such controversial territory. Apart from the usual type of political leader, the 80s were noteworthy for two offbeat selections. In 1982, it was "The Computer" (aka the microcomputer, home computer, or personal computer) that was selected as "Machine of the Year":

And in 1988 it was "The Endangered Earth" that was identified as "Planet of the Year":

Hey Mars, someday, if you play your cards right, it might just be your turn to make the cover. That is, if Venus doesn't beat you to it. Anyway, 1993 was the year of "The Peacemakers":

And a pope was chosen for the second time in 1994, this time John Paul II:

New media received some recognition, arguably beginning in 1991 with CNN founder Ted Turner, and yeah, I know cable television isn't considered new media exactly, but neither is it a traditional form of broadcasting. Anyway, in 1997 it was Andrew Grove, Chairman and CEO of Intel, in 1999 it was Jeffrey P. Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com, and more recently Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg got the nod in 2010. 

A few more off-beat choices appeared in between, including "The Whistleblowers" in 2002:

And representing our involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, harkening back to 1950, there was "The American Soldier" in 2003:

And, wait a minute, you might be saying, what about 2001, and the very reason our soldiers were sent off to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq? Well, the obvious pick for that year would have been Osama bin Laden, as the individual who made the greatest impact on the news in 2001, by far. But commercial considerations won out over more objective evaluation based on the criteria Time uses to make its selections. In lieu of the most newsworthy individual, you might guess that they chose to feature the heroes of 9/11, by which I mean, to honor the firefighters, police, and rescue workers, at the World Trade Center and Pentagon, as well as the passengers on United Flight 93. But instead they went with the single "hero" who served as the spokesperson for the nation in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attack, New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani:

Anyway, for 2005, the selection was the odd combination of Bill and Melinda Gates, for philanthropy rather than Microsoft computer software, together with U2 lead singer Bono, under the heading of, "The Good Samaritans":

The following year Time made its oddest choice to date:

So, I guess I could say I made the "Person of the Year" twice now. And yes, it's another computer and new media connection. And yes, perhaps it was a bit premature, at least insofar as the claim that we are in control of the "Information Age" is concerned. I kind of think its more the reverse, and I know many would argue that the control lies with large organizations such as the government and the corporations. And anyway, I'm not "You"! I'm only "me" after all...  But some of those "You" people made it to the cover in 2011, as "The Protestor":

I neglected to mention that Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia, was the selection back in 1935, and  I did mention that Martin Luther King was chosen in 1963. There wasn't another African-American featured until 2008 with Barack Obama, who also was selected for a second time (and term) in 2012. And this brings us to 2013, and the third leader of the Roman Catholic Church to be picked, Pope Francis:

The fact that Pope Francis, who is also the first Jesuit pope ever in the history of the order, was selected was obviously a big deal for my home institution, Fordham University, New York's Jesuit university, and so it became the subject of a posting over on Fordham Notes, back on December 11, 2011. The post consisted of quotes from four faculty members. Three of them were from the Theology Department, as you might expect, and one of them was from our Department of Communication and Media Studies, namely yours truly, as you might have guessed.

You can read all four comments and get the whole context over on the Fordham blog post,  Fordham Faculty Weigh in on Time’s ‘Person of the Year’. I'll just share my own quote here on my little old Blog Time Passing:

Time's choice sometimes involves a conflict between their criterion of choosing the individual who had the greatest impact on world events and the potential negative response of their readership. In 1979 they chose the Ayatollah Khomeini and lost subscribers and sales. In 2001 they decided against the obvious choice, Osama bin Laden, knowing how negative the reaction would be. The editors must truly be in heaven to have before them such a clear-cut candidate who is not only a very positive figure, but an exceptionally inspirational one, not to mention someone who transcends nationality and even religious affiliation. 

 And I do mean that last bit, as Pope Francis has been received in very positive ways in Jewish circles as well as among many Catholics. And as for me, it's not very likely that I'll ever be pope, but there's always a chance I may make it to the "Person of the Year" another time or two. I'll keep you posted...

What to Blame for the Colorado Shooting?

So, this past Friday at least 12 people were killed, with 58 others wounded, 70 victims in total, in a shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado.  The fact that it was a midnight premiere showing of the new Batman movie, The Dark Night Rises, meant that the theater was filled to capacity.  The result was the largest mass shooting in American history.

I know we all share in our sympathy for the victims and their families, and our sense of horror and outrage over this tragedy.  The natural response, then, is to ask why?  Why did this happen?  We look for reasons, explanations.  Senseless killing creates what Leon Festinger called cognitive dissonance, and we look to relieve that dissonance, to create psychological balance, by search for a rational explanation.  Here are some thoughts on the matter:

1.  Blame Batman.  A film full of violence, depicting vigilante justice outside of the law as entirely legitimate, seems like too strong of a connection to ignore.  Of course, it is not so much this film that is to blame, as the killer's actions were clearly premeditated, involving a great deal of planning and preparation, and this film was just opening.  But The Dark Night Rises can be seen as typical of the blockbuster motion picture that features scenes of massive destruction, explosions, acts of extreme brutality, and of course gun fire—the Shakespearean quote, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, comes to mind.   In a more general sense, there is the much studied phenomenon of the relationship between depictions of violence on the media, and acts of violence in real life.  The results of extensive research are fairly ambiguous, that for some individuals, under certain circumstances, in some situations, after being exposed to some types of violent media content, there can be an increase in aggressive and violent behavior.  It's ambiguous, but not entirely insignificant, so let's not entirely dismiss the glorified portrayal of justified and celebrated violent behavior as a factor.  But any attempt to blame the caped crusader ought to be qualified by noting that the dark knight, at least in the way that he came to be depicted in comics since the 60s, never used guns himself, and had an extreme personal abhorrence of firearms.  The story of Batman's origin, as you may recall, goes back to his childhood, when his parents are gunned down and killed by a mugger, an act of gun violence he witnessed and was helpless to prevent.  This colors Bruce Wayne for his entire life, and gives him focus for his mission, to the point of obsession, leading him to adopt the identity of Batman.  Still, this is a detail about the character that, while well known to comic book fans, can easily be lost on the mass audience of casual movie goers, and it certainly is not emphasized in the current Batman film trilogy.  I wonder if the filmmakers are rethinking that error of omission right about now?  Here is the director's statement on the shooting. taken from the official movie website:

"Speaking on behalf of the cast and crew of The Dark Knight Rises, I would like to express our profound sorrow at the senseless tragedy that has befallen the entire Aurora community. I would not presume to know anything about the victims of the shooting but that they were there last night to watch a movie. I believe movies are one of the great American art forms and the shared experience of watching a story unfold on screen is an important and joyful pastime. The movie theatre is my home, and the idea that someone would violate that innocent and hopeful place in such an unbearably savage way is devastating to me. Nothing any of us can say could ever adequately express our feelings for the innocent victims of this appalling crime, but our thoughts are with them and their families."

-Christopher Nolan

If I may make a suggestion to Christopher, and Warner Bros., without suggesting that either is to blame for the tragedy, given what has happened, how about making a new film that clearly and unequivocally depicts Batman as refusing to carry a gun, despising the use of firearms to threaten and bully, commit crimes and cause harm, and indeed, as being disgusted by their very existence?  Hollywood has a reputation for embracing liberal causes, so how about it?  Or is the great media conglomerate, TimeWarner, too timid to risk angering the NRA and its supporters?

2.  Blame Theaters.  Does this sound at all absurd to you?  If it does, let me remind you, if you are of a certain age, and if not let me inform you, that movie theaters used to employ ushers who would show people to seats, help people to find the exit, assist people in other ways, and warn or remove anyone who was unruly. 

The irony today is that while we have more theaters (in the sense that the motion picture palace has been replaced by the multiplex), we have less people working in them.  Movie projection is automated, ticket sales are done by machine or online more and more, concession stands are fast food operations that appear to be more or less independent of the actual theater, and you're lucky if anyone comes in to clean up after each showing (patrons being encouraged to clean up after themselves).

 While ushers would not have been able to prevent the massacre, if there had been more personnel present in the theater, there would have been a better chance of one of them spotting that something was amiss with this particular patron.  It's not just the number of people working in the theater, it's where they're deployed, it's how they're trained (or whether they have any training to speak of), and it's how motivated they are.

 

 So in the aftermath of the shooting, not just in Aurora, but locally here in New Jersey and New York, and I imagine all over the country, there is police presence at or outside of movie theaters.  There is just cause for this, as copycat crimes are not unknown, but I suspect the main reason is psychological reassurance.  After all, if there had been police presence outside of the theater in Aurora, could they have responded in time to prevent much or any of the shooting?  Should movie theaters provide a marshal for each showing, or randomly distributed, like our Federal Air Marshals?

The bottom line being the bottom line, the question is, will the shooting has a significant effect on ticket sales?  Movie attendance reached its peak in the 50s, and then went into decline due to television.  Home video and cable further eroded the attraction of going to the movies, forcing cinemas to rely on the blockbuster experience created by larger screens, dynamic sound systems, and more recently 3D visuals.  But the home theater set-up duplicates many of these features, and convenience often trumps quality.  There is the immediate gratification of seeing the film now, rather than wait for its release onto video on demand and DVD formats, but the gap between the two is shrinking, in some instances disappearing.

So, it is not at all inconceivable for movie theaters to install metal detectors, and even engage in airport like security measures.  As an added bonus for them, a pat down might reveal that the patron is bringing in food not purchased at the theater, which they then might confiscate.  This may seem extreme, but security in entertainment venues is not at all unheard of in other parts of the world.  Or at sports stadiums, for that matter.  Look for it in a theater near you, coming sooner or later.

3.  Blame guns.  This is the obvious point of contention for our culture, between advocates and opponents of gun control.  As a native New Yorker, American gun culture is foreign to me.  Growing up in Queens, the only guns I ever saw were with police and security guards. When I was an undergraduate at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York (home of Ithaca Gun Company), a few of my fraternity brothers had shotguns in the house, and went hunting on occasion.  As you might imagine, I was a bit uneasy about that.  One time, one of them made a mistake and a shotgun accidentally went off in the house.  No one was seriously injured, the shot hit the floor, but a few pellets that ricocheted off of the tile found their way into the foot of another fellow, who had to go to the emergency room. 

When I got married and moved to New Jersey, I knew that firearms were being sold, and that there are people around who go hunting, but I have never seen or heard about any gun use in our area of northern New Jersey. We lived in an apartment building for several years, and there was a young unmarried couple living next door, and I did hear that the woman had previously been engaged, and her fiance was accidentally killed in a hunting accident, by his own father.

So, when I heard about the shooting, my immediate response was, another shooting in Colorado.  After all, Aurora is not that far from Littleton, the site of the Columbine High School shooting, with which this incident seems to have something in common.  And of course there's the whole wild west thing they have going there, but I'm not going to add "Blame Colorado" to the list because I happen to like that state a great deal (and not only because of South Park), there are many very progressive people over there, and anyway, this kind of shooting is not limited to the American southwest.  The Virginia Tech shootings also come to mind, and that's over on the eastern side of the country.  Now, it is absolutely clear that New York is unique, but I believe that the entire northeast has a different, less extreme relationship with firearms than the west and the south.

I recently was defending Neil Postman's criticism of online eduction, and new media in general, and one of the arguments raised against him was that he didn't use personal computers, for example didn't care for email, and therefore was not qualified to speak on the topic.  Of course, I disagreed, as you can learn a great deal by observing others using the technology, you can talk to other people about their experiences, you can evaluate their remarks and arguments concerning the medium, and you can generalize from other, similar types of media.  Similar arguments were made, I should add, regarding television, that you can't really criticize it unless you've actually produced a television program, a much weaker argument clearly, in that the critic still can observe what's been produced. 

But the point I'm getting at is, I admit that I do not own a gun, have never fired a gun, have never even held one.  I don't pretend to understand them, find them foreign and frightening, and am in favor of gun control legislation.  So, you can say that I am not qualified to weigh in on the subject, and maybe you're right.  I also have opinions about nuclear weapons, by the way, although I have never experienced one going off, set one off, or been near one.

So, for me, this one comes down to a simple, basic, media ecology principle.  A medium or technology has a bias, and the bias of firearms is violence.  When you have a gun in hand, everything else looks like a target. That should be obvious enough. Pick up a gun (and I have played with toy guns of course), and you inevitably aim at something, and quite often that something is another human being, even if it's just in jest or practice.  Any given medium or technology, once adopted, tends to be used. It is made to be used.  So when you have guns, they will be used.  And it is impossible to separate the positive from the negative, so they will be used in good ways and bad ways, legal and illegal, appropriate and inappropriate.

I will say that I have enough respect for the United States (admittedly being biased as an American) and the Constitution of the United States that I am willing to grant that the Second Amendment has a rationale, and there are solid arguments for respecting it. In contrast to the First Amendment, I think the Second Amendment hasn't been studied enough.  Sure, there has been a lot of discussion and debate over its interpretation and its legal ramifications, it is an amazingly ambiguous verbal construction, and of course there's much that's been said about its relation to American gun culture.  But there is even broader significance, as it relates to the dominant values of individual freedom in American culture, our traditional suspicion of government, our celebration of the vigilante hero, and our love of technology.

Are automobiles a type of arms?  Internal combustion engines do fire, after all.  So, perhaps we need to treat guns like automobiles, meaning that you need a license to own and operate them, and that they all need to be registered.  This might not prevent another tragedy, but it could trigger red flags when someone is suddenly stocking up on guns and ammunition, and that might not be a bad thing.

Blame mental illness.  That someone who commits such horrific acts is not normal goes without saying. The Batman comics are noteworthy in their evolution towards depicting villains that are criminally insane, giving the series an intense psychological emphasis.  This shift reflected the changing view on criminal behavior in American culture that can be traced back to the sixties, from the moral concept of evil to the medical notion of sick, or simply put, from bad to mad.

In our desire to reduce cognitive dissonance, we may say, he's crazy, and that explains it all away. Some might say, he's evil, and that could work too, if you are willing and able to work within a moral framework.  And we yet might find more specific reasons for why this happened, so that blame for the tragedy could also be ascribed to a need for revenge, or jealousy, or poverty, or perhaps even some highly rational motive, if it were discovered that he was paid to shoot-up the audience (highly unlikely, I know, I'm just noting that this would constitute an explanation).

What probably wouldn't work is to say, he's a criminal.  That might work if it were a matter of stealing, burglary, mugging, etc.  But of course, he is a criminal, it's doubtful that he'll be able to plea insanity, at least not successfully, given the degree of premeditation involved in the massacre, and he will quite probably be sentenced to capital punishment.  So you could certainly say that he's a criminal, but that does not reduce dissonance at all, given the lack of personal gain in the shooting.  What this ought to do, though, is call into question our use of criminality as an explanation for illegal behavior under any circumstances.  Being categorized as a criminal only tells us that the individual in question has been put on trial and found guilty. It's the judgment of the legal system, not a rationale or motivation.

Now, some have commented on what has not been said about the shooter:  that he's a terrorist.  And the fact that he was not branded as a terrorist has been connected to the fact that the shooter is white, Christian, and American.  And this is an entirely valid criticism.  Simply put, there is no clear dividing line between terrorism and criminality, and saying, he's a terrorist, is no explanation for anyone's behavior, just as saying, he's a Muslim or he's an Arab would not be an explanation.  Have some individuals who have been identified as terrorists also been found to be psychologically troubled and unstable?  Absolutely.

What we need to understand is, terrorism is not a motive.  It is a form of behavior.  Whether the motivation is political, religious, economic, or pure insanity or evil, hardly matters to the victims.  So what we need to do is to find ways to prevent this sort of behavior, as much as possible.  To keep citizens safe.  Security is the bottom line for any society.

Acts of violence can be categorized as military action, terrorism, or crime, but let's take a lesson from general semantics and not be mislead by these labels, and not become confused about the underlying reality that it is violence that is the problem, and maybe violence can never be fully eliminated, but minimizing violence is the goal.

Blame technology.  It's guns, but it's not just guns.  As we saw on 9/11, it's airplanes.  As we've seen over and over again, cars and trucks can be turned into bombs easily enough.  However much violence has always been with us, contemporary technology has increased the potential enormously.  Technology is inherently violent, as I've discussed in a philosophical vein, drawing on both Hannah Arendt and Marshall McLuhan (see my previous posts Violence and Technology, Violence and Power, Violence and Identity, and Violence and Unity), and this goes far beyond the capacity for destruction of specific technologies, and far beyond the violent effects of content and medium alike, although both are contributing factors.  But more fundamentally, this is about the generally disruptive consequences that accompany the adoption of innovations.  Moreover, technological progress has made society increasingly more complex, and therefore in certain ways more fragile, so that the effects of violent acts are greater than ever before.  

In sum, technology results in vulnerability.  

There may not be much we can do about technology, as individuals.  Certainly, there's nowhere we can run away to, as the whole earth is subject to the violence of technology, whether it's in the form of climate change, or radiation leakage.  Violence itself is a solution, in the sense that enough of it could knock us back into the stone age, but that's certainly not something a sane person would hope for. Jacques Ellul has noted that we typically seek technological solutions to technological problems, thereby exacerbating the problem, but in this case I am going to suggest a technological solution, however flawed that may be.  

It's a matter of design, and policy, together.  It's not enough to prescribe appropriate use of technology, or outlaw inappropriate use.  We need to design our technologies so as to minimize their use for violence, regardless of the motivation, and we need to design our technologies so as to minimize our vulnerability to violence.  We need to design safeguards for our guns, and vehicles, and buildings, and our media of communication too.  We need to design safeguards for our technologies, because there is no way to design safeguards for our fellow human beings.

 

On 9/11/11 Remembering the Heart of New York

On this sad day of remembrance, I would like to share with you a video, just released, which features a song called "The Heart of New York" by recording artist John Watts, with animation provided by his daughter, Leila Watts.  The song and video are sensitive and moving, and here is what John has written about it over on YouTube:

'The Heart of New York' was originally a song inspired by the eloquent way in which the victims of September 11 were able to communicate to their loved ones on the phone, under those terrible circumstances - simply beautiful human communication. My daughter Leila animated those words to accompany the music. I was very interested in the idea that some of the lasting legacy should be sentences and sentiments and words, rather than images of disaster. The wonders of human nature were demonstrated to me by such clear and dignified expressions of love in adversity. The animation is mine and Leila's tribute to the victims and their relatives and friends.

Actually, it would be best if you saw it on YouTube, because then it would count as a view, and maybe it can go viral--here's the link:  

http://youtu.be/YAJIaRj7-xU

But of course, you can also view it here (and then go watch it again on YouTube):

In contrast to the spectacular and sensational videos of the planes hitting the twin towers, and their subsequent collapse, "The Heart of New York" provides an intimate portrait, on a human scale, of the tragedy, based on the personal medium of the cell phone, and utilizing the less visceral visual motif of the alphabet.  

The song alludes to the longstanding promotion of New York:  I Love New York and I ♥ New York:

And the song reminds us that the true heart of New York is not to be found in any advertising campaign, or in any building or monument.  

The heart of New York is the people.  That became so very apparent in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, and it has been crystal clear ever since.  And I want to say, thank you John, for reminding us of that.

John Watts is a recording artist with 20+ albums under his belt going back to the 80s with the band Fischer-Z, and then solo.  Some of you may remember that he joined us for the 2009 IGS conference, and treated us to an outstanding one-man performance.

Simply put, John is a great guy whose work deserves more recognition than it gets, and this video especially ought to be seen far and wide.  If you can, please let others know about it.

9/11

As a tribute and memorial, I thought I would post here two poems I've posted on my MySpace poetry blog on this theme.

long, long time

rubble, rubble
toil and trouble
jet engines scream
buildings crumble
fire burns

ashes upon ashes
dust upon dust
fire burns

shock and stumble
fire burns

autumn leaves fall
falling
falling
fire burns
fire burns
fire burns

swing me low
sweet cherry
it has been a long, long time since I been home

swing me low
sweet cherry
it has been a long, long time since I been home

what followed

following the shock and the panic
the desperate race to collect the children
and huddle together in what once was
the safety of the home
the black curtain of smoke
rising in the distance
the horror replaying replaying replaying on TV
(but cable only, the networks knocked off the air)

following the exodus, stuck in traffic
the tiny sliver of an island sealed off
like some bad sci fi movie

following the chaos and the confusion
the mad rush to the supermarket
the cries of disbelief and anger
the first of many tears

following the day of madness

came a long moment of silence
a time of stillness
a quiet never known before
in the city of cities
no cars on the road
no planes overhead
no people rushing to work, or play
the ever-present buzz was gone
the white noise replaced by black silence

and all that could be heard
was a whispered accounting:

one brother
one husband
one son

Aftermath.

From 9/11 to 5768

It's a rainy day in New York City this September 11th, six years after the 9/11. Every anniversary of that day of death and destruction is sad, but this year the heavens seemed to have opened up to add their tears to our own terrestrial ones. I'm not going to try to duplicate or imitate the mainstream media coverage of the anniversary, or include photographs as reminders of that day. It's all burned into our memories, I would think, and if not, that material is readily available elsewhere. And as with all things, so much emphasis and repetition starts to drain events and memories of their meaning.

Instead, I went back through my e-mail messages to find the ones I posted on the media ecology listserv at that time (this was before we switched over to our current ibiblio.org host). I found that I had posted the following message to our virtual community on the evening of September 11th, 2001, at 8:00 PM, with the subject line simply reading WTC:

I heard the first report in New Jersey on the car radio, newsradio
broadcasters talking to eyewitnesses by telephone. At first, they thought
it might have been an accident. During one conversation, the second plane
hit, and they weren't sure what happened, whether it was an explosion, or
a helicopter that got too close. I saw the plumes of smoke where the
World Trade Center used to be. I can't believe the twin towers are just
gone.

I know there are people on this list who were much closer to ground zero,
and I pray they are all well.

The video footage is unbelievable. I can't help noticing the similarities
it has with films like Independence Day, and I wonder if our
computer-generated disasters didn't somehow play a role in making this
nightmare manifest. MSNBC had a background visual, behind two separate
windows, that repeated the collapse of the 2nd building over and over every
few seconds, and I found it nauseating. So much slick video, all the
"America Under Attack" logos, so soon into the special disaster coverage!
And so many cable channels like MTV turning their programming over to
network news. Local coverage dominated the NYC network stations, so it
was good to get the big picture from these other stations' network feeds.

So much on technology here. Skyscrapers, jets, cell phone calls from
hostages, the loss of local broadcasting with the collapse of the 2nd
tower, but not cable, and UHF stations, many public, broadcasting the feeds
of the major stations. Telephone service disrupted. And the Internet all
but unaffected! Perhaps it really could withstand a nuclear attack. Maybe
the terrorists are attacking the wrong target?

I just heard the local CBS station reporting on significant people on the 4
flights. Everyone named was from TV or professional sports.
Media/celebrity logic. The lack of information on casualties is chilling.

They just reported that police stopped a truck filled with explosives
under the George Washington Bridge.

I'd welcome seeing others' accounts and reactions.

Lance

I found another message to the listserv dated September 16th, 2001, which began:

I am still in shock, and have had a hard time doing much else than watch
the television coverage these past days.

I then mentioned some of the people we knew who had been lost, which I am going to omit here. The rest of the message went as follows:

The local coverage has devoted considerable time to
the desparate family members and friends who are searching for their loved
ones, describing them, displaying flyers and pictures, pleading for
information. It is heartbreaking.

Flags are being displayed everywhere now. We had two, so we put them up on
the front and side of our house. The thick black smoke that replaced the
twin towers in the skyline that we see from across the Hudson has faded to
a thinner, white cloud. Commercials are being reintroduced, along with
regular television programming. Is this the all-clear signal?

Lance

I posted a poem on my MySpace poetry blog about 9/11, and you can click here to go that page and see it in that context, in its proper layout (which I wasn't able to duplicate here because blogger doesn't have the indent commands that MySpace does) along with the comments people posted about it there, and my responses. But I'm going to include it here as well:

what followed

following the shock and the panic
the desperate race to collect the children
and huddle together in what once was
the safety of the home
the black curtain of smoke
rising in the distance
the horror replaying replaying replaying on TV
(but cable only, the networks knocked off the air)

following the exodus, stuck in traffic
the tiny sliver of an island sealed off
like some bad sci fi movie

following the chaos and the confusion
the mad rush to the supermarket
the cries of disbelief and anger
the first of many tears

following the day of madness

came a long moment of silence
a time of stillness
a quiet never known before
in the city of cities
no cars on the road
no planes overhead
no people rushing to work, or play
the ever-present buzz was gone
the white noise replaced by black silence

and all that could be heard
was a whispered accounting:

one brother
one husband
one son

Aftermath.

On September 17, 2001 (which was my 44th birthday), I posted another message to the listserv:

There were a lot of tears in Temple tonight as we observed the beginning of
the year 5762, a span of time that roughtly coincides with the entirety of
the history of writing, of written history, and of what we at times call
the history of civilization. It is customary to say at this time, may
you be inscribed in the book of life for the coming year, and I can think
of no better wish to send out to you all than this. Live, that we may
reverse eviL.

Lance

As I recall, my colleague Paul Thaler, then from Mercy College, now at Adelphi University, liked that last line, "Live, that we may reverse eviL," (without the final capital "L") so much that he quoted it in his keynote address at the New York State Communication Association's annual conference.

This year, Rosh Hashanah begins tomorrow evening, September 12th, 2007, and it represents, again, a very welcome affirmation of life following this day of mourning and remembrance. The new year will be 5768, and while Rosh Hashanah is a religious holiday for the Jewish people, the Jewish New Year, it is also considered the birthday of the world, and in a sense belongs to everyone. And this oldest of calendars, as old as writing itself, also belongs to all of humanity. Plus, in our new age, where among other things, Kabbalah is embraced by many non-Jews, this is a time of hope and reflection that all can share in.

We are accustomed to a calendar where the old year ends and the new one begins shortly after the winter solstice, and we therefore employ metaphors where spring represents youth, and winter old age. But the Jewish calendar represents an alternate way of punctuating and representing the solar cycle, one that is not entirely alien as it also coincides with what we refer to as the school year, which begins in the fall, climaxes, in a sense towards the end of spring, and tapers off in summer.

With all that in mind, I wrote another poem where I tried to capture that different sense of the yearly cycle, and to personify it. I used subtle references to the Jewish calendar and holidays, so as to leave the sense of spirituality open to interpretation, allowing non-Jews to relate to this more easily than would be possible if I had been more specific. Again, you can click here to see it on my other blog, along with comments, but I will also include it below:

Head First

Head first, she emerges
newly born from the womb of eternity,
takes a breath, and trumpets her arrival,
crying, here I am, here I am!

Her name is carved
on the great Tree of Life,
whose trunk is a winding,
ever-widening scroll,
and so begins the cycle of renewal,
first days, a time of awe, and reflection,
summer's end, and lessons newly begun.

The infant suckles honeyed milk
at her mother's tabernacle breast,
she is fed from the first harvest,
meals prepared for her in the year now gone,
she is schooled in ancient, sacred knowledge,
beginning in the beginning with the very first utterance,
she learns the secrets of the ox-house line.

In winter, she comes of age,
it is a time of trials,
as she takes her place,
a daughter, dutiful and diligent,
kindling lights to defend against the darkness,
conquering the cold night with courage and compassion,
now sound, and strong, in mind, and soul, and heart.

Come spring, and she is crowned as Queen,
rejoicing as the waters part to let her pass,
celebrating freedom and fertility,
delighting in life,
reveling in sacrament,
entering into the covenant of love,
sowing seeds for the harvest to come,
consecrating herself to the future's conception,
she is eager to bear her burden.

As summer arrives, weariness sets in,
she feels heavy with the passing of days,
sadness for all that she has left behind,
but, as well, she feels the warmth of wisdom, and
contentment with all that she has achieved, and accomplished.

It is time to slow down, to rest,
to prepare for the final labors,
so that she may welcome
the daughter, yet unborn,
who will take her autumnal turn,
head first, into creation.

And so, on this sad day, I want to wish everyone a good year, a sweet year, a happy and healthy year, and as we say on Rosh Hashanah: May you be inscribed in the book of life for another year!