"media whores on line" haven't they? Any outrage for a click ... no need to do anything particularly original ... much less progressive or creative ... just stir that pot, raise that venom and ire and .... sit back and bask in the "reaction" ... karma is a bitch ... and while such cheap thrill tactics may buy you and Salon some time, "negativity won't get you through" ... hell, even here, the thrill is gone ... what's left tastes increasingly bitter ... and sour ... (and it smells funny)

This is a hard subject for me-- specifically, as an engineer. As a local political commentator, I was called after the south tower was hit by a local shock jock. He wanted to know my opinion on the environmental effects of such a catastrophe. Like most Americans, I was in shock. After he asked, my first response was "I think we're going to have other things besides environmental problems to worry about." My second was thinking "at least one of those towers is coming down." As someone with a BS in civil engineering, we had studied the towers, and failure from aircraft impact was a subject discussed-- and this was back in 1981.

My professional inclination holds the fire chief and various police captains who sent their men into the towers after the crashes as being professionally culpable for criminal malfeasance. The fire chief was killed when the building collapsed. In the end, the firemen and policemen called to the scene could do nothing to prevent the eventuality that happened. Professionally speaking, it is hard for me to believe that there was no one in the chain of command at either the NYPD or NYFD that wasn't a structures expert that should have been calling the shots with regards to the feasibility and action plan for such an event. Such a person should have viewed the tower collapses as highly probable-- not impossible, as was portrayed in the press.

But then I ask myself what would I have done had I been in charge? In such an emotionally charged situation, it can be unfair to judge men, confronted with such an extraordinary situation. Had they not sent their men in, what would have been the consequence had the towers not collapsed? It is the classic question of real leadership-- can one rely on their objective thought process in the midst of such a calamity? And should we hold them responsible if they do not?

The credit for saving the 47K+ people who escaped from the Towers rightfully goes to John O'Neill, the head of security at the Towers, who devised the escape plan, predicted the eventuality of the attack, and was Clinton's #1 guy in the FBI on Al Qaeda. He too was killed when the South Tower collapsed. I still am amazed at the fact that some 47K people escaped both towers in an orderly evacuation in about 25 minutes time. It is nothing short of amazing.

Regardless of how one feels about the leadership, the rank-and-file did what they had to do, what they believed was their mission. They followed the commands of a flawed leadership, and most were killed. Theirs was the ultimate, profound, noble sacrifice.

I agree. I was standing in Powell's City of Books for the first time last week when I was trying to remember where I had first heard of it. (Powell's) I then remembered they were a huge supporter of Salon back in the day...the day before Joan took over and just created this clusterfuck of People meets Fox News meets Cosmopolitan meets Teen Beat. I've been away from Salon for some time...and that recollection made me wander back to see if things have improved.

They haven't.

Movies about 9/11 are the absolute limit of obscenity. Is there no stopping the goulishness of Holllywood? Americans should take it upon themselves to refuse to suport this film in anyway...boycott it! Why should we enrich those who would capitalize on this tragedy? Lets face it the movie was not made as a memorial it was made to make money!

Movies like United 93 and WTC neatly sidestep the fact that they are COMPLETELY exploitative by being well made, acted and directed.

It is absolutely irrelevent whether highly talented directors have successfully dramatised 9/11 and turned those events into good movies: they shouldn't have been made in the first place and just because they are high quality does not exonerate the tackiness of making them.

Stephanie Zacharek (sp) says that this movie depicts the worst moments of our lifetimes.

Nope.

Dropping an atom bomb on Hiroshima and incinerating 200,000 immediately and fatally scalding 60,000 others - that was our most shameful, devastating occurence - not to mantion Nagasaki, of course.

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?

docid=-5946593973848835726

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?

docid=1951610169657809939&q=911+revisited

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?

docid=964034652002408586&q=911+revisited

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?

docid=-3498980438587461603&q=911+revisited

Oliver Stone tackles the most harrowing shared experience of our lives

Unless you're Iraqi, or just about any other ME citizen, or lived through Hiroshima/Nagasaki, or Rawandan, or Bosnian or just about anybody else except a f**king USAian

Box office!

Oliver Stone!

Nicolas cage!

Is there a hot chick involved?

I'm gonna hurl, see ya.

C.

P.S. It really did hurt

There's a whole generation of people who don't know anything about 9/11. They just read about it in the history books (for those of them who have already learned how to read).

I'm sure Stone had the 5 year-olds in mind when he made his movie, because he knows that all of us who actually lived through it don't need that part of their lives dramatized.

or the previews I saw. I don't need Hollywood to tell me what happened. Hell, I don't think anyone that woke up that day needs anyone to dramatize the events. There really isn't much to say about this movie. I won't see it just on principle alone and I know many others that won't for the same reason.

I usually enjoy Stephanie's reviews - even when I disagree vehemently with them (as I did, for example with Superman Returns) I respect her reasoning.

However, one particular line in this review stopped me short -

"But if movies about 9/11 have to be made at all -- and no one has yet answered the question, for me, at least, of why we should need or want them just yet"

You know what, I haven't heard a convincing argument why movies about 9/11 should NOT be made, that doesn't sound like hypocritical American insularism. It was five years ago - there were films made about other 20th century disasters and wars while they were going on, or in the immediate aftermath. Why should 9/11 get special treatment? To me, its just another example of American chauvinism - their culture will happily leech off the tragedies of other countries but agonise over their own. Either grow a spine about the whole thing or don't watch.