9/11
Remembering the fallen
The New York City Firefighters Memorial, one of the most peaceful locations in the city, two blocks from my apartment. I sat there often to reflect in the days after 9/11. Hard to believe it’s been nine years since I emerged from the N/R station at 8th Street at about 9:20 a.m., to see a huge cloud of dark smoke high in
9/11
From Godspell. Watch to the end. Positively creepy.
Benedict’s poison
We already knew that there’s a place of honor in the contemporary Catholic Church for serial child molesters. Now, by reinstating Richard Williamson as a bishop, Pope Benedict XVI has made clear that Holocaust denial is also welcome. According to the NY Times, Williamson just last week “said he did not believe that six million Jews died in the Nazi
Maher looks back
Bill Maher raised the subject of 9/11 on last night’s show, and countered Sarah Palin’s regurgitation of “they hate us for our freedom” with his own “they hate us for our airstrikes.” And there the debate remains frozen, still, seven years later. Although “they hate us for our freedom” is cartoonish and misleading, Islamist militants are in fact declared foes
Remembering
It is September 11 and the McCain campaign has us all ranting about lipstick on a pig. Think about that. Last year, to mark this anniversary, I posted a passage from Amitav Ghosh’s 1988 novel The Shadow Lines. I’d like to do so again. — The Shadow Lines is a semifictional account of anti-Muslim communal violence in Calcutta in 1964.
Music after 9/11
The following book review appears in the Winter 2008 issue of Jazz Notes, the quarterly journal of the Jazz Journalists Association (JJA), edited by yours truly. — Music in the Post-9/11 WorldJonathan Ritter and J. Martin Daughtry, eds.Routledge, New York/London, 2007; 328 pp.; $24.95 paperback Review by David R. Adler In the liner notes to Up For It, written about
Maher and the “truthers”
Lively turn of events last night on Bill Maher’s show, as a handful of so-called 9/11 Truth activists attempted to disrupt the live broadcast and impose their agenda. It’s been a while since I’ve bothered to comment on the 9/11 conspiracy phenomenon, but I must applaud Maher for hammering away at this sinister bullying cult. I’d also like to recommend
Fish on 9/11 “truth”
I’ve taken strong exception to the op-ed writings of prof. Stanley Fish before. But he gets much right in this piece about the controversy surrounding Kevin Barrett, a university lecturer in Wisconsin who is under fire for his view that 9/11 was “an inside job.” Fish argues that Barrett’s critics and supporters are both wrong — the critics for arguing,