shortformblog:

thedailyfeed:

He didn’t know anyone was watching, but as Robert Peraza, 68, fell to one knee, bowed his head and placed his left hand over his son’s name at the National September 11 Memorial, a photographer with a long lens captured the very private moment. Overnight, the photo went viral, becoming the iconic image of the 10th anniversary of 9/11. [more]

An amazing photo. An amazing story. An amazing reflection.

(via shortformblog)

In 2004, Rescue Me became the first scripted television show to directly address the effects of 9/11 on America. Over its seven seasons, the show, which stars Denis Leary as a veteran New York City firefighter grappling with alcoholism and the death of his cousin in the 9/11 attacks, has alternately been called both brave and insensitive. With the series finale set to air Wednesday night — just four days before the tenth anniversary of the attacks — critics are reflecting on Rescue Me’s groundbreaking portrayal of 9/11. Here, some talking points:

• Rescue Me accomplished the “impossible”
  As the nation reeled from tragedy, says Randee Dawn at MSNBC, it was “impossible to imagine” that a TV show could possibly make sense of 9/11. Yet that’s precisely what Rescue Me did. It offered a way to “refract our national outrage and sadness,” says David Wiegand at The San Francisco Chronicle. The show “helped us personalize not only what survivors and family members are still going through a decade later, but maybe what [the rest of us] are feeling as well.”

• It taught us to laugh off the tragedy
  Rescue Me found the “humor in sad situations and the sadness of lighter moments,” says Rick Bently at the Kansas City Star. Whenever things got too heavy on the show, says Molloy, “there was some banter about a penis that resembled a baby carrot, or a flatulent girlfriend, or an endless array of cheap stereotypes.” It’s the same humor that those who struggled to overcome the grief of the tragedy used, says show creator Peter Tolan. “This is how people move forward.”

• It honored and appealed to firefighters
  The life of a firefighter portrayed on Rescue Me was certainly “dizzying,” says Gilbert, swinging from “firehouse buffoonery to alcoholic grimness,” from “a whisper to full-on alarm in a matter of moments.” But firefighters quickly became some of the most passionate supporters of the show. “It showed we weren’t angels and were just doing a job,” says firefighter Lt. John Kilbane. We’re a “functionally dysfunctional family.”

More ways the show succeeded in handling 9/11

We Shall Never Forget 9/11: The Kids’ Book of Freedom

The 36-page coloring book depicts the Twin Towers smoldering, survivors mourning the tragedy’s victims, and a Navy SEAL shooting Osama bin Laden, who is (inaccurately) cowering behind a woman in a Muslim hijab. The publisher nevertheless claims it’s “a very clean, honest read that does not shy away from the facts” about 9/11.

A little wine with your remembrance? To coincide with the tenth anniversary of the September 11 tragedy, Lieb Family Cellars, a vintner from Mattituck, Long Island, is producing two varieties of 9/11 Memorial Wine — 9/11 Memorial Commemorative Merlot and 9/11 Memorial Commemorative Chardonnay. The price? A rather on-the-nose $19.11 a bottle. Guess how much of the proceeds the winery is donating to the 9/11 Memorial Museum…