The 9/11 5 Year Anniversary Spectacular

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

I was watching the repeat of that 9/11 film made by the two French brothers last night (bad idea. it was depressing) and I expect the next week or so are going to be filled with more usless documentaries tenuously linked to the attacks. Mainly on Channel 4 I expect.

Now what can there be said about it (leaving aside conspiracy theories) that hasn't already been said before? If this wasn't such a well documented attack would i have the same impact it does now? Why is it more terrible than the 100s of people that are blown up in Iraq everyday?

Why is the media still so obsessed with it? I mean I could quite happily go the rest of my life not seeing that footage of the planes hitting or the towers collapsing  again, but I just know they are going to be replayed again and again over the next week or so. Surely this does no one any good?

I don't really know what I'm trying to say really. Maybe this could just be a reminiscing "Where were you when they shot JR?" type thread.

[sproggy]

That's not even a Bald Eagle is it?

Don't deprive them of their melodrama, it's what made America great dammit.

[Pinball]

That and self-obsession.

[Sherringford Hovis]

Why is the media still so obsessed with it?

Because it's cheap, and whether it's print or broadcast media, it can be chucked together in a minute by junior editors while everyone else takes a long liquid lunch.

If media outlets have done some research that tells them that their audience wants tawdry recycled 'news', fair enough, but I doubt that this is the case. If they do have to pore over 'olds' rather than 'news', I would like to see a lot more exposition of pictures and footage that haven't been seen before, and definitely some sort of examination into why certain iconic images seem to have been swept under the rug: for instance the falling photos of the brave souls who decided to chuck themselves out of the towers rather than perish in the inevitability of flaming horrible death when the buildings fell. Rather than finding it morbid, I hope that faced with a similar no-win situation I could accept my own fate with similar dignity and grace; plus topping oneself annoys many different flavours of religious types, so I can't think of a finer way to spend my last few sentient seconds than annoying some twats who place their imaginary friends at the centre of their lives.

One also has to ask what other important issues are going to be glossed over or drop off the news radar completely over the next few weeks while the 'nine-e-heaven' 5-year celebration juggernaut gathers momentum. If I was leader of the Secret World Government[tm], I'd be using this sort of media event to motivate the white denizens of the planet to accept some further costly hi-tech initiative involving the deaths of a lot more brown people.

[Mister Cairo]

Why is the media still so obsessed with it? I mean I could quite happily go the rest of my life not seeing that footage of the planes hitting or the towers collapsing again, but I just know they are going to be replayed again and again over the next week or so. Surely this does no one any good?

Because it's easy for lazy programme makers and journalists to re-hash old stories with the odd vacous angle than focus on important new stories like the jets being sold to Saudia Arabia by the UK, only reported in Private Eye.

Across London, columnists have been whacking away at their keyboard. Deboarh Ross is halfway through a column on how she couldn't get her VCR to work on that day to tape the people falling out of the towers for her parents who have no TV. Richard Littlejohn is writing in the Daily Mail about how three thousand Muslims should be forced to jump out of towers to "even things up". The Observer Magazine today ran a piece by Martin Amis detailing forensically what one of the hijackers did the night beofre. Did you know he hadn't done a poo since May? ITV News plans to ask "Could it happen here?" with a reporter eyeing the skies around the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, any streets with the word "Tower" in them and Tower's Takeaway.

[Pinball]

Al Jazeera showed virtually nothing else apart from the 'WTC jumpers'.

[Purple Tentacle]

To be honest, that French Brothers documentary is the only one worth watching, really. You can't get any more 'real' than being with the witnesses to the first attack, who were in the first tower when the second collapse, and those fucking horrible noises of people landing on the ground from 100 storeys up.

[Mr. Analytical]

Were they thuds or more of a plat?

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

Yeah. That was the worst bit. Like a big water ballon bursting.

[Purple Tentacle]

WHAM! type of thuds.

[Purple Tentacle]

'WTC jumpers'.

Fucking sick merchandising.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

There were people making money from it by selling WTC caps (with the fireball stiched in, of course) and all other kinds of clothing/keyrings/coloured rubbers, etc when I went to New York. I'm not sure if they're still there today. I wish I'd taken a picture of that as well as ground zero to remind me of what the U.S can be like.

[Pinball]

True.

I wonder if the censored photos from the (former) land of the free will ever be released?

[sproggy]

I would say it was more a 'Phock' type of noise.

[Purple Tentacle]

When I was at the WTC site 3 weeks ago, there were NO mechandise sellers, and lots of cops, presumably stopping that shit. Which is good, really.

Grim and macabre thing to visit though. It's just a big hole in the ground, and I couldn't get those THUMP noises out of my head.  It's weird looking up at the vast empty space where two enormous buildings should be.

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

I hope you screamed BUILDINGS DON'T EAT PLANES at the top of your voice when you were there.

[Sherringford Hovis]

Al Jazeera showed virtually nothing else apart from the 'WTC jumpers'.

I'll send 'em my licence fee.

I'm lucky enough to have the technological wherewithall to get whatever current affairs info I need, but in my patrician way I want the general populace to be exposed to the real issues via tabloids and terry-stool telly.

[Purple Tentacle]

I hope you screamed BUILDINGS DON'T EAT PLANES at the top of your voice when you were there.

I pointed out to the locals the INARGUABLE EVIDENCE that burning kerosene fanned by oxygen wasn't enough to warp the steel structure of the buildings, putting aside the question of the giant hole in the sides, so therefore the US government executed hundreds of innocent civilians at some unknown airbase, based on the buildings not collapsing quite as I would have imagined, but luckily the locals pointed out that I was talking absolute bollocks, so that was alright.

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

Obviously these people haven't seen Loose Change and the amazing evidence it puts forward.

[Purple Tentacle]

Obviously these people haven't seen Loose Change and the amazing evidence it puts forward.

That fuckface got a whole page to himself in Empire recently, I managed to vomit blood all over it.

I really ought to make a documentary where I pick and choose facts to back up my supposition, and fill in the blanks with wild speculation, I might get a job with the Daily Mail.

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

Really? Did they actually press him on the fact that his 'documentary' is a load of fanny farts?

[Purple Tentacle]

Really? Did they actually press him on the fact that his 'documentary' is a load of fanny farts?

Don't be silly, this is Empire.

"Thank you for talking to us, it really is an honour, don't worry about these questions, we'll just print that nice press release you've given us..."

[Mister Cairo]

The number of times I have seen graffiti saying "google Loose Change" in Brighton worries me.

It does surprise me that they advocate the use of Google, giving the anti-corporate mentality of many Loose Change fans.

They could just put the web address on the wall, interested people would copy it down.

[chand]

My abiding memory of 9/11 was the moment hours later that day when I had to decide whether enough time had passed for it not to be disrespectful to put my Playstation back on for a bit of footy.

[Purple Tentacle]

I like the irony of 'Loose Change' fans who, if you say that their documentary is a pile of unresearched selective speculation, say 'Don't believe everything the government and media tell you!', oblivious to the fact that they're willing to believe the poorly-thought out conclusions of a patently journalistically unethical film.

[Suttonpubcrawl]

My abiding memory of 9/11 was the moment hours later that day when I had to decide whether enough time had passed for it not to be disrespectful to put my Playstation back on for a bit of footy.

My abiding memory of 9/11 is how upon arriving at school the next day, we all conspired together before each lesson to get the teachers talking about 9/11 so that we wouldn't have to do any work.

[Circusfire]

To be honest, that French Brothers documentary is the only one worth watching, really. You can't get any more 'real' than being with the witnesses to the first attack, who were in the first tower when the second collapse, and those fucking horrible noises of people landing on the ground from 100 storeys up.

Whilst it is the best documentary about September 11th out there, it isn't 100% accurate. Why? Because the sounds of jumpers hitting the ground was heavily edited. In the documentary you only hear about 4 or 5 massive thuds. Before they edited it there were hundreds of those horrid thudding sounds.

As for the media going mad on the anniversary of September 11th, personally I still find it a very fascinating subject. I'd be pissed off if the history channel didn't show countless programs about it.    

Did anyone see you can get the a graphic novel version of the 9/11 report? It looks rather cool. I'll be adding that to my comic book collection.

[Purple Tentacle]

Whilst it is the best documentary about September 11th out there, it isn't 100% accurate. Why? Because the sounds of jumpers hitting the ground was heavily edited. In the documentary you only hear about 4 or 5 massive thuds. Before they edited it there were hundreds of those horrid thudding sounds.

But there was only a limited amount of footage where they were in the lobby, wasn't there? I haven't seen the doc for, well, five years, but maybe only 4 or 5 people jumped in the segments they kept in the documentary.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

How's that new thing they're building coming along?

[actwithoutwords]

I like the irony of 'Loose Change' fans who, if you say that their documentary is a pile of unresearched selective speculation, say 'Don't believe everything the government and media tell you!', oblivious to the fact that they're willing to believe the poorly-thought out conclusions of a patently journalistically unethical film.

How much of Loose Change is bollocks? A lot of it I thought was patent nonsense, and the general tone was annoying but I thought it at least raised some interesting quesions.
I can't find a thread on it here, do you know of a good place on the net where it is discussed properly?