September 11th anniversary.

September 4, 2003 8:39 AM

Next Thursday is the second anniversary of Sept 11th. The inundation is already starting both here and in all other media. Mayhap the anniversary will be a good time to talk about anything but (i.e. actively posting non-9/11 material)? Or am I being stone cold and inhuman?
posted by PinkStainlessTail to MetaFilter-related at 8:39 AM (42 comments total)

I would love a 9/11-free day on MetaFilter. We'll get enough maudlin, saccharine, jingoistic, bombastic, 'patriotic' crap everywhere else.

Sign me up as stone cold and inhuman. And yes, I live quite close to NY and knew people who died, and I still don't think we need to be beaten over the head about it - especially as 9/11 memorials are almost certain to be used to support the war 'effort' by the powers that be.

I would love to see non-political FPPs that showcase the best of the web (hmm, novel idea) that day, focusing on life, not death. That seems to me a suitable memorial.
posted by widdershins at 8:50 AM on September 4, 2003

My gut feeling agrees wholeheartedly with you, but reason combined with a desire to seem as non-inhuman as possible seems to recommend that we just look at the posting rules again.

Going out of our way to avoid September 11th-related material may be a bit much, but we should make more of an effort to avoid repetition of the same tired old themes. Conspiracy theories, the question of how have things changed, we've heard it many times before and I don't particularly care to hear about it on the 'filter again. Should something new and postworthy come up, then by all means, let's see it.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 8:55 AM on September 4, 2003

What DrJohnEvans said. If the FPP is along the lines of "it's been 2 years now, where do we stand?" then I say it's for the crapper. If something's actually there, go for it. In other words, it's not a damn holiday, so don't do anything special either way when the calendar day comes.

Thanks for pre-empting.
posted by scarabic at 9:06 AM on September 4, 2003

Close Metafilter on 9/11/03. I think it'd be a good idea.
posted by angry modem at 9:08 AM on September 4, 2003

I want cake and ice cream.
posted by xmutex at 9:09 AM on September 4, 2003

Close Metafilter on 9/11/03.

No! That's exactly what the terrorists want!
posted by DrJohnEvans at 9:13 AM on September 4, 2003

I want cake and ice cream.

Tuesday is Ice Cream Day.
posted by iceberg273 at 9:15 AM on September 4, 2003

"I want cake and ice cream.

Tuesday is Ice Cream Day."

Yes, and we never have cake without sodomy.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 10:01 AM on September 4, 2003

Everytime I hear of 911 memorials i remember that Onion article about the guy who's birthday is on 11th Sept and wonder if he can start having a birthday party again? :)
posted by carfilhiot at 10:03 AM on September 4, 2003

Yes, and we never have cake without sodomy.

Well, I certainly missed that memo.
posted by bshort at 10:13 AM on September 4, 2003

Yes, and we never have cake without sodomy.

I need to go to more birthday parties.
posted by Tin Man at 10:44 AM on September 4, 2003

Let 'em talk about 9/11 if they want. Doesn't mean you have to participate. I know I won't.

Control-freaks, every one of ya!
posted by mischief at 11:05 AM on September 4, 2003

This was a great 9/11 post.
posted by homunculus at 11:14 AM on September 4, 2003

you know the funniest thing about metafilter is there's alsways people who want it to do what doesn't come natural. war coming? for weeks in advance there's discussion of how to prevent war discussion. 9/11 anniversary? god forbid it be mentioned.
posted by quonsar at 11:23 AM on September 4, 2003

I'm with you PST. I'll be flying to Atlanta two days after the 11th, and hadn't even thought about it until now. I say we make it an all-Flash day. Or only post links to fart jokes.
posted by tr33hggr at 11:29 AM on September 4, 2003

Mr. quonsar
posted by timeistight at 11:30 AM on September 4, 2003

I thought this catch all thread last year was a pretty good idea: one thread where people could post a 9/11 link.

Maybe there should be another thread dedicated this year so people who want to could post links, thoughts, news or related stories. It would also provide a convenient bookmark for people who are of the "memorial" or sentimental ilk.

There will always be some people who want to move on and some who want or need to commemerate the day - everyone deals with these things differently. Personally, I would rather that it neither dominate the day nor be disallowed.
posted by madamjujujive at 11:38 AM on September 4, 2003

Yes, and we never have cake without sodomy.

Well, I certainly missed that memo.

Well then, next time have a slice of cake.
posted by Space Coyote at 11:47 AM on September 4, 2003

I second the madam's suggestion that we repeat last year's single-thread-set-aside solution. It neither denies nor allows front page highjacking.
posted by JollyWanker at 11:59 AM on September 4, 2003

Normally I think pre-empting is silly and contrived, but I am happy PST posed the question. I hope this thread at least makes people think twice about posting more 9/11 stuff. No ban, no absolutes - just a request for good judgement. I think madamj's suggestion is a fine alternative to a cluttered front page.
posted by widdershins at 12:06 PM on September 4, 2003

Normally I think pre-empting is silly and contrived, but I am happy PST posed the question. I hope this thread at least makes people think twice about posting more 9/11 stuff. No ban, no absolutes - just a request for good judgement.

In fairness, I have a history when it comes to rash calls for pre-emption, so I probably deserve a wary/weary eye or two rolling in my direction. I was trying to be a little more level headed this time, but I think madamejujujive's reminder of last year's solution is all we really needed. If I'd remembered I would've just linked to that.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 12:14 PM on September 4, 2003

Fourthing madamjujujive's suggestion. It seems like a sensible compromise.
posted by squealy at 12:15 PM on September 4, 2003

madamjujujive, fucking word.
posted by vraxoin at 12:30 PM on September 4, 2003

*gazes proudly at juju*
to think she's come so far in just under a year.
5 days till the jujuversary? - how about a catch all jujulove thread?
posted by quonsar at 12:47 PM on September 4, 2003

Good call madam (now that we're forced to come up with a compromise).

Can we do the same thing with Christmas threads, gay-lesbian posts, bush bashings, macintosh this and that, flash-friday, RIAA hangings, and anything else somebody doesn't like or thinks they are too good for?

Can't stand the assholes who think the rest of us are somehow weak and inferior for "remembering". Everything would have been fine if you would've kept your mouth shut Pink. If you can't stand it, then I suggest staying in bed all day.
posted by Witty at 12:50 PM on September 4, 2003

Everything would have been fine if you would've kept your mouth shut Pink.

I ruined everything? It's Christmas '78 all over again!
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 12:54 PM on September 4, 2003

What the hell Witty? No one mentioned the words "weak" or "inferior." Worry much?
posted by tr33hggr at 12:59 PM on September 4, 2003

Keeping in mind of course taht everybody thinks their own judgment is good, so relying on that is asking for trouble. I like mjjj's suggestion, and I'll be sure to skip the thread entirely when it is posted.
posted by Space Coyote at 1:10 PM on September 4, 2003

I'm celebrating a mefi anniversary on the 9th, so that is what I will focus on.

Keep that cake away from me, you hear?

Sadly, the only thing that will pry most of America away from all these solemn formalities of the day will be to have something equally awful happen. If I had to choose, bring on the maudlin posts.
posted by konolia at 1:58 PM on September 4, 2003

I'm not worried about anything. But, while I don't think it will be a "problem" (especially now), having the front page slightly dominated by 9-11 posts doesn't sound like the end of the world to me. Limiting them somehow is ridiculous. Comments like widdershins suggest that anyone who does choose to remember and memorialize the day is buying into pro-war propaganda... and nothing more. That's just not the case. Just because mass media can't do anything without pounding it down our throats, doesn't mean the rest of us here on MeFi can't pull it off with a little more class. I still think everything would have been fine without someone creating special rules.

...bring on the maudlin posts.

Don't worry, I'm sure everyone will show much more apathy next year.
posted by Witty at 2:45 PM on September 4, 2003

One way to show a bit of class would be to avoid the need to think that a multiple of three hundred and sixty five days is somehow the best time to link to something. How about this: if you find something on the web about Sept 11th, and it's good enough to post to MeFi, just post it. If it's not good enough to post on the day you found it, it won't be good enough to post on the anniversary either.
posted by Space Coyote at 3:09 PM on September 4, 2003

Can't stand the assholes who think the rest of us are somehow callous and apathetic for not wanting to "remember" with an overdose of maudlin posts.
posted by dness2 at 3:11 PM on September 4, 2003

I can't stand any of ya, so I've got you all beat.
posted by Mick at 3:31 PM on September 4, 2003

...with an overdose of maudlin posts.

I don't want that either. I just don't see why his topic deserves any additional rules just because some people feel inundated by it all through other forms of media.

Hell, seems like Ashton Kutcher is everywhere these days... can we call for restraint on posts about him on his birthday?

DrJohnEvans had it right when he said we should consider the posting guidlines, just like we do with everything else.
posted by Witty at 3:44 PM on September 4, 2003

What the hell Witty? No one mentioned the words "weak" or "inferior." Worry much?

hey, the man is just trying to pick a fight -- you know, using inflammatory language ("assholes", "stay in bed all day"), burning straw men (nobody said "weak" or "inferior", nobody compared 9-11 to Ashton Kutchner gossip, you did).
posted by matteo at 3:58 PM on September 4, 2003

Thanks to the Bushites' policy of promoting and encouraging terrorist activities wherever they find them, I wouldn't be surprised much if there's some new atrocity to wring our collective hands over, sometime around the anniversary.

I hope not, but I won't be surprised.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:56 PM on September 4, 2003

Office towers - or skyscrapers in general - rule. Lately though, the main purveyors of mayhem have stooped to building bombardo and other madnesses. Just as the stupid embassy bombing fad killed proper hostage-taking, the World Trade Center destroyers have been harbingers of change. I always scorned those boring old 60's radical bombings, but my main heartbreak now is the vaporization of all those financial consultants, now sadly reduced to toxic dust. Are you holding a torch for any of those legendary old school standoffs like Entebbe? Is the rock-tossing, unpardonably explosive and increasingly suicidal PLO the last death dealer to uphold its own hand-crafted nail-filled suicide bomb standards? When you do put match to fuse - if you still do at all - what's your stubborn choice?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 4:53 PM PST on September 11


heh.
posted by quonsar at 4:57 PM on September 4, 2003

*spfffffffttt*
posted by namespan at 5:26 PM on September 4, 2003

The coolest 9/11 gesture I saw all last year was OSDN (Slashdot, Newsforge, etc) taking their ad network dark. What an incredible contrast to those selling something 9/11 related -- flags, bumper stickers, memorial plates, songs, poetry, whatever. Their gesture cost *them* ad revenue, and showed up on thousdands of page views as a quiet tribute. Nothing else I saw around that time impressed me quite so much.
posted by weston at 5:30 PM on September 4, 2003

Next Thursday is the second anniversary of Sept 11th.

Actually, for some of us it's the 30th
posted by signal at 11:03 PM on September 6, 2003

Ok it's Tuesday now. I demand my ice cream.
posted by walrus at 6:44 AM on September 9, 2003

It's quiet. Seems like a nice, safe place to speak slowly. I don't know where else to go.

I remember the last time I was at the World Trade Center as an avowed 'visitor'. My sister wanted to buy one of those Palm gadgets. We went down to an electronics store nearby. Then we walked to a nearby bookstore at the north-eastern edge of the Center. Outside, we sat around and devoured some lunch on the stone benches amidst the largest, heaviest potted plants you've ever seen. I couldn't see the towers because I never bothered to look up. I mean, they're too big to see anyway.

Somebody took a pile of rubble and pointed the way into a world filled with murderers; a need for revenge turned into a rallying cry for the generations that built tried to build art out of a postmodern comfy-chair cynicism. WE HAVE SOMETHING NEW TODAY. ACTUAL ENEMIES. LET US HUNT THEM DOWN AND KILL THEM. I could relate. I wanted them all dead, then the world would stop again and we could all go back to manufacturing news. Because this was too real and there didn't seem to be an easy way out.

Now I'm sitting here, 'safer than ever', after two wars fought by pushing into the collapsed towers' void. Our friends and enemies call this symbolism. Who am I to disagree. What I couldn't handle emotionally flowed so easily into the political sphere. Long after all the car-mounted stars and stripes got worn down into woeful rags, that familiar bitter residue of what used to be remained, as if cracked down from a state of normal particularity into an undifferentiated heap of burning plastic and steel. Retaliation: too late from the very beginning. The bad guys had succeeded.

I doubt they were fully aware of what they accomplished. Is any terrorist? Fitting fifty thousand people into a 16 acre patch was an exercise in concealing a workaday riot from the surrounding area. In that sense, the World Trade Center was a success without parallel. From distance the towers looked as though life was impossible within their rectangular perfection. They rose above everything, uncaring, performing a morose magic trick, almost glowering over the raucous city below it. Sometimes it seemed the only way to make these featureless containers become truly part of the city was to bring them down, denigrate and trash-talk them until they were somehow humanized.

It never happened until that day. Only in destruction did I see any value in those towers: All those people inside. After symbolism wastes away and ideology collapses from exhaustion there's nothing left to do but to grieve and try to let it go.
posted by attackthetaxi at 12:49 AM on September 11, 2003