9/11 TV Specials Abound Soon

Now that we've entered September, the "entertainment" section of my local paper The Gainesville Sun is running an article about the enormous quantity and variety of television programming that will discuss the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks against the United States. I will probably watch of some of these, as I am acutely interested in the topic. After all, who would disagree that 9/11, as tragic and dastardly as it was, has so far been the single most defining event of this still relatively new century?

One of the topics that will be presented in the coming days are the reconstruction efforts around Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan, where the World Trade Center towers were destroyed on that terrible day. I won't need to wait for any analysis on any TV show, though, to make this one observation: have you noticed how, politically speaking, we in this country have collectively spared no expense at aggressively lashing out to destroy our perceived enemies in response to the attacks while in the same time period letting ourselves become bogged down and divided over the comparatively smaller expense involved in projects designed to actually repair the damage, construct new buildings, and give some compensation to victims and their families?

I commiserate with others over the horrible loss of life from 9/11 and deeply admire the heroic efforts on that day, ranging from the rescuers who sacrificed themselves in the collapsing twin towers to those "let's roll" passengers on Flight 93 who prevented another attack on the nation's capital. And I'm sure that there will be plenty of accounts of that day and its aftermath by participants, eyewitnesses, and friends and relatives of the perished. But let's face it...

There is what I might term a little ugly side to all of this televised commemorating, too. The 9/11 attacks, especially on the Trade Center towers in NYC, were incredibly striking in their video images, much more intense than the mind-numbing computer generated special effects that too many moviemakers nowadays seem to have substituted for good stories and characters in their films. Just as the post JFK-assassination public couldn't get enough of the footage of our late president's fateful motorcade ride down that stretch of road in Dallas on 11/22, the more recent tragedy carries its own almost perverse vicarious attraction...