Steyn on the Soft-Focus 9-11 CommemorationsAs you might expect he favors the
up-close and personal approach:
The proper tone for 9/11 commemorations is to be sad about all the dead -- "the lost" -- but in a very generalized soft-focus way. Not a lot of specifics about the lost, and certainly not too many quotes from those final phone calls from the passengers to their families, like Peter Hanson's last words before Flight 175 hit the World Trade Center: "Don't worry, Dad. If it happens, it will be very fast." That might risk getting readers worked up, especially if they see the flight manifest:
"Peter Hanson, Massachusetts
"Susan Hanson, Massachusetts
"Christine Hanson, 2, Massachusetts"Indeed:
Here's the
family's memorial site. They have no doubt what happened to their loved ones; they were not "lost".
As the plane banked and crashed into that tower and exploded in a burst of flame, I screamed, I knew that all the joys we had together, all the love, care and good times we shared all the dreams and hopes we had were gone...ended by those murderous cowards. The thought of the three of you in each other's arms in that final moment will never leave me. I have been told that there could not have been any pain, but you knew what was happening. How could those murderers have looked at those innocent people on the plane, at beautiful Christine and so cruelly kill?
