A Much Delayed Post

September 12, 2006

It is the day after the fifth anniversary of the infamous 9/11 event that brought down the twin towers of the World Trade Center five years ago.
Most television programs today and yesterday had some mention of the catastrophe which ended the lives of close to three thousand people in the city of New York. President Bush has appeared in several tv broadcasts some of whom hinted that this was an effort to prop his sagging political fortunes. He was shown placing a wreath in the site at the Pentagon where one of the renegade planes crashed into in commemoration of those whose lives were snuffed out by the disaster. I am probably a jaded spectator of the antics of politicians who take every opportunity to exploit media events and squeeze out brownie points no matter how sordid the events were. It is in bad taste, and yet these callous antics actually bring up the popularity ratings of those who have insensitively seized the opportunity. I am sure the assiduous image makers of these politicians would do post surveys to find out how much gains have been made by their clients after coming out in the media for photo ops and coverage of tragic and disastrous media events. And like vultures they become better at eating carrion with every tragedy exploited.

In blogsphere, bloggers were invited to write about the individual casualties and post them in their blogspots. Called Project 2996 a name of a victim has been assigned to bloggers to write something about the person in condolence or as a eulogy to the unfortunate victim.
One of the memorable blogs written was that of Quinn Cummings in the QC Report who honestly proclaimed his difficulty in writing about somebody he knows nothing about and so he, instead, wrote about the effect of this tragedy on those who were left behind, mainly their children. A praise on somebody who is completely unknown would have reeked of insincerity and hypocrisy, but blogger Quinn was able to capture the universal feeling of loss and create a compassionate empathy on the tragic effects on the children of the victims who would suffer and carry indelible scars long after the shock and the trauma of the incident had long passed.