9/11

I was saddened yesterday to see the commemoration of September 11th buried, so to speak, beneath articles on Iraq in the New York Times. But when my eye wandered beneath the fold, virtually mind you, I saw this piece about an exhibition at the New York Historical Society.

If you've never been to the New York Historical Society, right next to the Museum of Natural History in New York, it is an impressive place. Having seen a few exhibitions there, this one seems quite different. The rows of the photos, hung by binder clips, with no frames, with no pomp and circumstance, is a very different approach for them. But, as the article correctly points out, it is most appropriate for this exhibition. Wandering through the photos on line is slightly discombobulating, as I imagine it was to wander through New York on and around September 11th. But I can only imagine...

And I am embarrassed that I didn't do anything to commemorate Sept. 11th at our library. Being in the second week of classes and feeling overwhelmed by all the projects, meetings, changes in the schedules...still, it's not an excuse. And I guess I want to say the same thing to the New York Times: where is the remembrance? Where are our priorities? I don't often write about politics here and I don't think I am writing about politics now. It is not about politics. It is about people. It is about community.

I am teaching a senior seminar this semester on Technology and Society and my students are spending a lot of time mulling over how different their lives would be without the digital technology we have come to depend on. I sit here wondering if we spent less time attached to our computers, our ipods, our cell phones, would we have more connection to remembering something like 9/11? Has an event like this been lost to our memory because it is not being flashed in front of our screens?

I'm not sure. I know that there are projects out there trying to remind us of the changes in our world. This exhibit is one example, the September Project is another. But since I don't own a television, I was curious as to what happened last night in the mainstream. So I just went over to NBC Nightly News' website. And again, I had to go beneath the proverbial fold. But I did find this one piece, by a producer on NBC. And it reminded me of why I am here, in the blogosphere. It is because we are individuals, making our way in the world. And whether or not the mainstream media does what I think it should, it doesn't matter. This, this post, is my remembering September 11th. This post is my promise to myself to never forget.