Buzz Bissinger on 9-11 overkill

[esport12]

I know Bissinger is a divisive figure on this board. But I thought his column was worth sharing.... I think he has a point, though I'm not sure I fully support it. Was wondering what people here think.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/columnists/129512513.html

 

[Flip Wilson]

He's got a point. On last night's SportsCenter (which I watched this morning), Berman tried making what seemed like off-the-cuff remarks on the significance of 9-11, and failed miserably. Mike and Mike were talking about it this morning, and it just seemed shallow and not well thought-out.

In a lesson on social media last week, I told my students that if they didn't know much about a subject, don't get into a Twitter argument about it. Some sports folks should have done that this weekend. Just stick to sports; it's what you know.

 

[steveu]

I'd love to see the comments Buzz gets on this or the letters that are sent in. The Daily News is sort of a hipper, more irreverent paper in the Philly area, so they might get away with getting something like this in there. Put it in the Inquirer and people might go ballistic.

As it is, they might anyway. 9/11 deserves remembrance. There won't be as much next year because this was the 10-year anniversary.

 

[Brian]

Things don't need to be remembered until they do.

It's hard to say when that point in time is reached.

I rolled my eyes a few times on Sunday.

For a 10-year old kid, it's probably good there's overkill already.

Most of us don't need to be pounded over the head with 9/11. But in 30, 40, 50, 60 years we will need to be reminded of the sacrifice and historic shift it brought to our country.

I look at 9/11 overkill accusations like the criticism of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. (Stay with me here.)

My dad always tells me the hall is a futile attempt to recapture the spirit of early Rock and Roll because it's nothing like he remembers it.

But what happens when my father's generation dies and no one alive remembers Little Richard and Buddy Holly and Fats Domino? It's not a catastrophic loss. It's just music. But there will be a void there that perhaps the HOF can fill a tiny bit to let people know what the movement meant to those who experienced it.

9/11 celebrations will seem heavy-handed and trite and overdone until they become the only thing that connects our population with the event. That might take 75 years. But there will be a moment remembrance is valuable.

Not knowing about 9/11 isn't going to cripple the development of an eighth grader in 2071, but it will be hard to understand the motives of our generation if they don't.

We made a lot of decisions that will be debated for decades because of that day. I'd argue many will end up being fatal to our empire. And there was heroism that should be written in America's elegy hundreds of years from now. But I do want people to one day realize what went into those decisions and what fear and heroism can equally do to and for a country.

I hope when sober, removed judgment is given by historians in the future, they'll also take our raw emotions into consideration when weighing the verdict. Remembrance may well help preserve that.

People who find history useless probably disagree with me completely.

And Buzz Bissinger, he'd be pissed the **** out by this.

 

[SF_Express]

For the first time in my memory of such things, I got a bit uncomfortable as some of the "remembrances" went on and on over the weekend. Maybe I'm just getting old, but there were places where it simply seemed to much. My place did two stories Friday and moved on, and I was happy with that.

 

[clintrichardson]

The first paper I worked at, the front desk secretaries would forward general calls from the public to whatever reporter they saw sitting in the newsroom. Two years in a row, on Dec. 7, I randomly fielded a call from the same man who had called to complain the paper had not done enough to commemorate the anniversary of Pearl Harbor.

That was in the mid-90s. I didn't get it then, but I do now. This past weekend was too much by far and I avoided media as much as I could because of it, but at the same time I would be disturbed if on, say, September 11, 2038, no one was doing anything to acknowledge the anniversary.

 

[Boom_70]

Since we are on our way to not having any workers, we should dump Labor Day and have a 9/11 holiday.

 

[Smasher_Sloan]

Buzz wrote an entire book about the genius of Tony LaRussa and he's lecturing about overkill?

 

[UNCGrad]

Buzz wrote an entire book about the genius of Tony LaRussa and he's lecturing about overkill?

Well played.

 

[jfs1000]

The only overkill is stories on people who actually didn't have any connection to 9/11. The survivor stories are powerful, the shift it had in our country and the subsequent trillions spent on military and homeland security are valuable stories.

What the overkill is, is that entire towns were having memorials when in fact no one from their town died. It's become a sort of thank you day for firefighters and police officers in every town in America.

It's also narcissism, people don't want to talk about the effect of 9/11 on the country, it's how 9/11 affected them. It's also getting shoved down our throats. Why is 10 years significant? Is 11, any less so? How about 9?

I think this will be the last one like this. It's going to fade into memory kind of like OK City and Pearl Harbor. Sure, there will be a day and there will be stories, but time moves on.

There is an important political and historical discussion about what 9/11 did to our society. That wasn't the focal point. It was more "where were you on 9/11 and how is your life different?"

It was unbearable. I actually thought politicians controlled themselves. Bush and Obama were dignified. The media? They have been trying to sell this for months.

 

[Double J]

Buzz wrote an entire book about the genius of Tony LaRussa and he's lecturing about overkill?

Well played.

Exceedingly well played.

 

[Elliotte Friedman]

This is going to sound odd: but when I saw that Budweiser commercial with the Clydesdales, it was a total turnoff for me. It cheapened the memory of the attack, and at that moment, I'd had enough.

 

[Den1983]

Agreed 100% with Buzz. There was more bad than good leading up to the 10th anniversary tributes.

 

[Ben_Hecht]

This is going to sound odd: but when I saw that Budweiser commercial with the Clydesdales, it was a total turnoff for me. It cheapened the memory of the attack, and at that moment, I'd had enough.

I hate the brand, and I love how their sales are plunging into the sewer. This was just the latest reason not to go near the swill.

 

[Football_Bat]

9/11 and Pearl Harbor have much in common as national tragedies, and will probably mirror each other in how each is observed as the years progress.

Each will still be important as long as the survivors live, but eventually they will pass on, as the WWII veterans are starting to do, and all that'll be left is a date in the history books. But 9/11 is still fresh in the memory of everyone, even those as young as 16 who were in kindergarten when it happened.

So I don't see a lot wrong with the overkill, although I agree the commercialization of it in the State Farm and other commercials was a bit much.

 

[Versatile]

I loved Sports Illustrated's approach to 9/11, which was one article by Tim Layden recounting several interviews and defining the spirit of the event and sports' role in it. The end, with the Wounded Warrior who talked about how that moment of silence may not seem like much, but it means people are forced to consider the event, was very nice. The article was the first after the "Inside" section. It was only 3,000 words and was teased on the cover but not the cover story. S.L. Price on Gary Patterson was there for the people who read for the writing, and Austin Murphy took a look at Week 1 of college football for people who read for the big stories. It felt balanced. It felt the way SI should.

ESPN The Magazine, as it tends to, took it all about 10 steps too far by theming the entire issue around 9/11. ETM sees its role as a complimentary piece of the ESPN puzzle, though, so perhaps this was their equivalent of the special section many newspapers produced for Sunday papers. Either way, I'm just not sure anyone was going to read that many 9/11-based sports stories with all the other 9/11-based stories out there. That last feature, though, on buzkashi, the national sport of Afghanistan, was a very nice surprise.

 

[crusoes]

If Pearl Harbor had been in New York, we'd be bombarded every year with that, too.

 

[Boom_70]

If Pearl Harbor had been in New York, we'd be bombarded every year with that, too.

DC gets bombarded every year with the War of 1812 remembrance when The British burned down the White House.

 

[Smasher_Sloan]

If Pearl Harbor had been in New York, we'd be bombarded every year with that, too.

If Des Moines had 110-story twin buildings that symbolized capitalism, there would probably be plenty of attention paid when terrorists attacked and destroyed them with hijacked commercial airliners.

 

[baskethead]

I didn't think I'd be particularly moved by any of the remembrances and expected it to be way overplayed. But though it was overplayed, I was fairly moved by some of it. And then I saw the Budweiser clydesdale commercial, causing me to blurt out, "Oh give me a break." That was pretty much all I could take.