One of my favorites has passed. Freedom fighter. Rebel. Truth-seeker. Truth-sayer. Non-believer. Believer. Passionate. Passionate. Passionate."People like me who have passion are derided: 'Ha ha ha! She's hysterical!' 'She's very passionate!' Listen how the Americans speak about me: 'A very passionate Italian.'"
"There are moments in Life when keeping silent becomes a fault, and speaking an obligation. A civic duty, a moral challenge, a categorical imperative from which we cannot escape."
She could not be silenced. Will not be silent. Even in death.
Update: In memorium. A friend remembers.
Truly. Madly. Despicable."Yesterday, Slate posted this piece criticizing Frank Rich's New York Times column about the 9/11 photo shown here. The picture was taken by Magnum photographer Thomas Hoepker on the afternoon of 9/11. Calling the image "shocking," Rich suggested that the five New Yorkers were "relaxing" and were already "mov[ing] on" from the attacks..."
Read the letter from one of the individuals actually IN the image: http://www.slate.com/id/2149578/
Update: Hitchens takes down Rich in another article: http://www.slate.com/id/2149377/?nav=tap3
I'm frightened. Really I am. The Dem leaders are railing against the as-yet-to-be-aired Path to 9-11 film that few have seen (at this writing, it's still in editing) and asking for it to be removed. They've started a hostile counter campaign to the film's promotion and have created fake websites to capture eyes interested in the film and to exert their denouncement of Path to 9-11 on the inquisitive visitor. (case in point: www.pathto911.com)It's o.k. to complain. That's not what I take issue with. It's that if the Dems are complaining about something that someone else told them is bad, what does that say about their governing? Someone says "hey, this makes you look bad, I've 'heard' it's inaccurate, etc" and they go off half-cocked w/o pausing to review, research and investigate the facts FIRST...This does not bode well for the loyal opposition. It's actually quite frightening--it also explains a lot of their Iraq complaints since 2003--bascially that they were duped and/or didn't READ/INVESTIGATE pre-war assessments, rather they went forward with what someone else told them and that was good enough for them, for the country.
So basically, they're completely stupid because someone pulled the wool over their eyes (Bushco) or they're completely incompetant because they don't bother to research the facts for themselves.
Geez. Shouldn't we get more out of our leaders than this? Shouldn't they be serving the public in a much more meaningful way?
What's more, they seem to think we're not grown up enough to discern the "truth" and now want to censor...in the name of what? 9-11 reset the clock for me and many others-- we grew up and certainly I started paying much more attention. We've already bared witness to the horrible events of 9-11, I think we can handle a little made-up drama. Doesn't this frighten you? It should.
POSTSCRIPT: If the Dems or Repubs for that matter don't like the docudrama they can go out and spend money and creative resources and make their own.
POSTSCRIPT 2: Comparisons to the Reagan docudrama brouhaha don't hold water --that was a drama about people, the Reagans. The Path to 9-11 is about events leading up to the attack based on the 9-11 Commission Report--it's not about Clinton, it's not about Albright, it's not about Bush --though I suspect that there'd be not a whimper if it was...
"What is objectionable, what is dangerous, about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents."- Robert Francis Kennedy
