The Falling Man

WARNING: This video is extremely sad. I just watched it in my Rhetoric of Violent Images class and it made more than one of us cry. But it's really powerful and it's a film people should see, so if you have some time, watch it.

It shows an aspect of what happened on September 11 that not many are aware of because the media and the country chose to exclude the horrifying details of this hidden story when many expressed outrage at its awfulness.

It didn't really give Americans a fair chance to understand what little we could about this part of the immense terror the people in the World Trade Center must have felt - enough terror to jump to their deaths a thousand feet below and become one of many "falling" people.



None of us will ever really fathom the magnitude of a situation like this since we weren't there, but the video gives a little insight into what it was like and lets us put ourselves in their position.

What would you have done? Waited bravely, albeit terrified, for the smoke and the flames to engulf you, or taken control of your last moments in a gut-wrenching instant of courage and spirit?

Zuckerberg the Philanthropist

I think it'd be very interesting to sit down and have lunch with this guy.

Zuckerberg the Philanthropist
The New Yorker

Posted by Jose Antonio Vargas

“What makes Mark tick?” is the most common question coming from readers of my Profile of Facebook’s C.E.O, Mark Zuckerberg. After that, they ask, via e-mail, tweets, Facebook messages, and a live chat last week, versions of “What will Mark do with all that money?”

Apparently, Mark will give a lot of it away. Wednesday night, the New York Times broke the story that the Facebook co-founder, in his first public act of philanthropy, will donate $100 million to the Newark Public Schools—one-eighth of its annual operating budget.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2010/09/zuckerberg-the-philanthropist.html#ixzz10bkoTgLn

Also, check out The Face of Facebook, a really interesting profile about the man himself. Good read.

chilling effect

I'm going on one of these someday. To the Arctic Ocean, preferably.

Coming with?

a few things

One:

Best of Austin City Limits Music Festival 2009: Andrew Bird: Not a Robot But a Ghost

Two:

Andrew Bird - Oh no (Live at 89.3 The Current)


I wish I could use my minimal violin, singing, and whistling skills as proficiently as this Northwestern University grad (violin performance, 1996). Isn't it amazing how he turned the nerdiness of being a music major into fame and fantastic creativeness?

Andrew Bird, everyone.

yesterday

Happy Birthday, mom!

You are great.

*photo by Kristin Campbell

Nine years

St. Paul's Chapel

It stood. Not a window broken. Not a stone dislodged.
It stood when nothing else did.
It stood when terrorists brought September down.
It stood among myths. It stood among ruins.

To stand was its purpose, long lines prove that.
It stands, and around it now, a shrine of letters,
poems, acrostics, litter of the heart.
It is the standing people want:
To grieve, serve and tend
celebrate the lasting stone of St. Paul's Chapel.

And deep into its thick breath, the largest banner
fittingly from Oklahoma climbs heavenward
with hands as stars, hands as stripes, hands as a flag
and a rescuer reaches for a stuffed toy
to collect a touch;
and George Washington's pew doesn't go unused.

Charity fills a hole or two.

It stood in place of other sorts.
It stood when nothing else could.
The great had fallen, as the brute hardware came down.
It stood.

- A poem by J. Chester Johnson

In March, I went to New York City with my mom and my grandma. After looking at Ground Zero from the upper floors of the Hilton across the street and having my mind blown by how enormous the site actually is, we stopped by the church next door, St. Paul's Chapel.

This little church is Manhattan's oldest public building, opened in 1766, a place where George Washington came to worship and where 9/11 firefighters, volunteers and victims sought refuge, care and healing because it was still standing after the World Trade Center towers collapsed in explosion, fire and terror just right across the street. The churchyard and church were full of debris and dust, but no windows were broken, no stones displaced; it was untouched.

This small inconspicuous chapel is full of memorials to those who died that day - art, photography, writing and love. It's where I found the poem above, printed on a card for visitors, paying a beautiful tribute to September 11, 2001.

Music

Andrew told me to look this up. And for good reason. Prepare to be impressed.

Buy me last pape, miss?

"News is something someone, somewhere doesn't want you to print. The rest is advertising." -Anonymous, someone of importance

"News is the first rough draft of history." -Benjamin Bradlee, executive editor of the Washington Post, 1968-1991

"Journalism largely consists of saying 'Lord Jones is dead' to people who never knew Lord Jones was alive." -GK Chesterton, English writer

"Yesterday's newspaper is used to wrap fish and yesterday's broadcast does not exist at all." -Martin Mayer, American writer

Someday I will...

fill up a library like these with my grand collection of books and spend unhealthy amounts of time in there hiding and reading.