Oswald and Atta

Katrina & 9/11

Allow me to randomly speak of recent and past events on a more personal level today, on how I am relating to these difficult few days and anniversaries.

Remembering the Unbelievable

Name the biggest stories of modern media? Pearl Harbor Day? No, too long ago for you? JFK's assassination? Of course, if you are a certain age. Post-Edward R. Murrow, our modern broadcast news (live, in the field, and on video, versus archival, in the studio, and on film) began on 11/22/63. (Remember when we use to not write dates all the way out?) Yes, November 22, 1963. Four straight days of television news. I couldn't believe what I was watching. As a mere kid myself, I saw a kid from New Orleans named Oswald killed, live, while I was sitting on the back of my family's couch in my living room. Live. Unbelievable.

Then 9/11 happened. We all saw that "live" too. I "heard" the news through an email, turned on my television, and saw, like millions of others, the second plane crash. Live. I flew into New York City a month later to film an interview for a documentary, and my plane banked exactly over Ground Zero, on my side of the plane. I looked straight into hell. And I watched on television how this all changed our view of America. All over again. Unbelievable.

Katrina. Almost two weeks later, and it's still on the television, every day, almost every moment. This one crept up on us, and yet has turned into one of the biggest and most sorrowful of cabe news' human tragedies. A natural disaster that has become worse as a manmade one. Television, the internet, radio. Katrina, day and night. New Orleans is a great city that I have visited a few times. There's always been an underground twilight language part of New Orleans, of course. I informally once, even created a walking tour of all of the locations (thanks to addresses from John Gooch) where Lee Harvey Oswald lived, worked, demonstrated, and interacted with the shadow side of government. I've stood on the streets with my sons and caught beads. I've enjoyed the music of the city. Now on television, America sees little of the life, history, or traditions of that city. No jazz, no Lafayette Square, no, not even any stories about the Voodoo Queen in Cemetery #1. It is all about floating bodies, the horror of the Convention Center, and an Arabian horse guy heading FEMA these days (but may not tomorrow). On a more subtle level, it is about the race war in America, and reflects, as I've mentioned in The Copycat Effect how "death sells" in the media. Unbelievable.

Predictions

What the Katrina coverage does is expose an incredible vulnerable belly to the world. If you live in America, you know its truths. You realize that some whites are afraid of people of color, and some would rather think all blacks are going to loot that just be in need. You know that a rich guy's government will fly in troops within hours to Florida during hurricane disasters if your brother is the governor there, but if a black mayor and a Democratic governor are saying things to you about New Orleans, you just won't "get" it for a few days. We know that, on some level. Now it is being broadcast worldwide. We have to face this - what is being reported, that we have shown al Qaeda we are sometimes less than a super power, and that we are only human. And we are showing ourselves these things too.

Sure, sometimes is has not been the media's finest hour. We see the media stumbling around with words like "refugees" for days before they get it that these are American "survivors" or "evacuees." We still hear NPR's news department and PBS's nightly reports have "experts" debate "pre-planning," which actually, of course, means simply "planning." But from the brown water of New Orleans, the future comes forth. What of tomorrow?

The predictions have begun. It is almost 9/11 again, and we have some hard days ahead.

Take Tom Ritchford, New York author and Fortean thinker, for example. On an internet forum, he put out this list of predictions, including these:

-- al Qaeda clearly wishes to strike again at some point.
-- the resistance movement in Iraq is about ready for a "Tet
offensive" to cause serious damage to the (distracted by mutinies!) US
forces
-- China wishes to take Taiwan and doesn't care about headlines.
-- there are many other evil forces that want to take on the United
States now that it has moved to the dark side.
and September 11 approaches.
If I were one of these parties and I had a nefarious scheme hatched,
I'd be racing to get it going just at the point where the US's
resources are most tied up with disaster recovery -- Sunday, September
11. I'd hit people at a vacation center or some similar relaxation
place -- they've already made people feel unsafe at work, why not make
them feel unsafe at play?
If I were bold I'd hit the Patriot Day parade in DC. (Did you know
9/11 is now called Patriot Day?)

Why Portland?

Can such things happen? Will al Qaeda see that if there was ever a time to strike again, a la' London's 7/7, it is now, because of how far stretched America is? Will they decide to hit a mall, like the Bloomington Mall in Minnesota, or all those targets people have been watching like the Sears Tower. How many people are guarding the malls versus how many are watching the Seattle airport? You do the math.

And speaking of math, what about the dates? This Bush administration's little known badly named Patriot Day (9/11) may or may not be that important to al Qaeda, as I think they have their own number, date, and name game agenda. They might wish to go for the real Patriots Day, in April, in Maine, or the Patriots Day in Massachusetts, at the Boston Marathon, for example. Thousands of people there. Of course, this is not an invitation, but we have to see that we might not see what they see. Maine, you ask? Why?

Well, then, truth be told, I live in Portland, Maine, where 9/11 all began for Mohammed Atta, who picked Flight 11, so needless to say, I'm not letting my guard down on 9/11/05. Or 11/9/05. Or 11/11 (Veteran's Day). Or on next April's Patriots Day 2006, 2007, 2008, and so forth. Atta, the leader of the operations wing of 9/11, historically, was tied into those elevens. Afterall, the first mastermind of the 1993 Twin Towers attack was Ramzi Yousef, and he used parts of Bonjinka, a plan to place bombs on 11 planes in the Phillippines, for the eventual 9/11 attacks. Yousef's test run for Bonjinka occurred on, you guessed it, another eleven, December 11, 1994. Sometime, look up the 1970 origins of the naming of the group "Black September," whose kidnapping of Israeli athletes attending the Munich Olympics (which was scheduled to end on September 11, 1972), ended in the death of 11 of those athletes. Certainly, 9/11 hits very close to home. And lives on. Mysteries remain that may be hidden in numbers and places.

For example, why did Atta pick Portland? A question that haunts my city. And it troubles me too.

Was that Arab man I exchanged glances with and a smile that wasn't returned, in the Portland International Jetport, a few months before 9/11/01, Atta? I was on my way to another speaking engagement. I would later remember him vividly because he seemed relatively out-of-place in Portland - and there was those piercing eyes. Maybe just a business man visiting to make a deal, I thought. Unlikely. Only later, when all the photos of Atta were published, did I join the ranks of those in Portland who think they saw Atta here months before 9/11/01. Was he practicing? Why Portland?

Oh yes, some things come full circle. Today, you can go on an informal driving tour of the spots where Atta stayed (Comfort Inn), went to the two ATMs (at a bank and a Mobil Station), ate (Pizza Hut), and shopped (Wal-Mart), just like those Lee Harvey Oswald places I've visited in New Orleans. Frighteningly unbelievable.

Why Portland?

Why New Orleans?

Where next?

Sharks, Gators, Oil

In The Copycat Effect, I discussed how shark and alligator attacks are frequent foci of the media. Despite the reality of how many actual attacks and fatalities happen every year, the articles increase when the newswriters decide to copy each other in a frenzy of animal encounter and attack reportage.

During the summer of 2005, the frequent sightings and infrequent captures of alligators and caimans are at one of their all-time highs. It has been building up all summer (into a "crazy croc season"). Since the attempts to catch an alligator or caiman seen in a lake near Los Angeles during August, the articles about gator sightings around the country have been appearing almost daily.

Now, according to Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner's Freakonomics blog, there seems to be something similar happening with articles about oil. In their blog today, entitled "'Peak Oil:' Welcome to the media's new version of shark attacks," they mention the copycat effect.

Steven Levitt wrote today:

"So why do I compare peak oil to shark attacks? It is because shark attacks mostly stay about constant, but fear of them goes up sharply when the media decides to report on them. The same thing, I bet, will now happen with peak oil. I expect tons of copycat journalism stoking the fears of consumers about oil induced catastrophe, even though nothing fundamental has changed in the oil outlook in the last decade."

I'd have to agree, wholeheartedly.


Thanks to Patrick Huyghe for bringing this one to my attention.

Yankees Logos and London Bombers

The New York Police Department has awakened to the worthwhile exercise of looking at the twilight language in the 7/7 and 7/21 London attacks.
On the first month anniversary of the attacks, the New York Daily News notes that "NYPD detectives are looking for hidden messages aimed at New York in the clothes the London bombers wore."
The story comments that "some of the terrorists dressed in shirts and caps emblazoned with the words 'New York' or the Yankees logo. 'We immediately seized on the fact that there were New York insignia,' David Cohen, NYPD deputy commissioner of intelligence, told business leaders at a briefing last week. 'We spent a lot of time examining this. We still don't know precisely what it meant.'"
Furthermore...
"Cohen said the NYPD was working with London officials 'to go back through the wardrobes of these characters ... to determine, was this a purposeful message or was this just something pulled off the rack?' Bruce Hoffman, a senior Rand Corp. analyst, said it is possible that the terrorists were trying to make a statement with their attire. He speculated that Mohammed 'wearing a New York shirt showed that in his mind he was perpetrating his own 9/11.'"
This is no surprise.
The twilight language is deeply involved in these bombings.
As I have been suggesting for months, the dates, locations, and more should be examined in all these alleged al-Qaeda incidents. Perhaps it is time that the wardrobes of the Madrid, Moscow, and Bali bombers now be reviewed too.
[Thanks to SMiles for the link.]

Copycat of 7/7

How much more of a copycat could this be? Another Thursday in London, three explosions in the subway, one on a bus.

London Explosions

Reports from London are of series of subway and double-decker bus explosions this morning.

Al Qaeda? G8 is meeting in Edinburgh and the announcement for the 2012 Olympics being held in London was made yesterday.

Is there a twlight language angle here? If the reports are confirmed, apparently there were four explosions taking place on 7-7-2005 (with 2 + 5 = 7). Needless to say, al Qaeda has shown a deep interest in numerical symbolism, with attention to "elevens" in their past attacks, with the 9/11 incidents most discussed, as well as terrorist explosions occurring in the Philippines, Bali, and Madrid. Is there something going on with "sevens" too?

Such as with Flight 77 being one of the planes hijacked on 9/11?

Summer Scares

Shark Scares

The media appears to be salivating at the prospect that this could be another "Summer of the Shark." Two severe shark attacks, one fatal, in three days off the west coast of Florida have articles being printed with headline warnings that this may be "Just The Beginning."

Spielberg Scares

Since the summer of 1975 when a certain now-successful Hollywood director's Jaws terrified the teens off the beaches, shark attack scares have existed in the human psyche, thanks to Steven Spielberg.

Now Spielberg visits upon us his latest chronicle of cinema terror in his continuing series of screaming children flicks. I went to War of the Worlds with my older sons last night. It is a movie, both frightening and engaging. As a science-fiction motion picture, it will be critiqued as significant and important. But there's a twilight language text to this film. Spielberg has added a new chapter to his allegedly covert pedophile tendencies, in which his motion pictures (e.g. Jurassic Park, Hook, Artificial Intelligence: AI, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Poltergeist, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Twilight Zone: The Movie) appear to delight in scaring and emotionally abusing children.

This is not a novel idea. Adam Parfey wrote a 1996 essay on Spielberg's seemingly sinister trend in his movie themes, which was reprinted in the Steamshovel Press entitled "Pederastic Park?." If you get a chance, read Parfey's essay.

If you have young children, you might wish to think twice about them going to see the new Spielberg version of War of the Worlds. I frankly don't understand why some subplots are in there, such as the one involving the Tim Robbins character, who is one behavior away from overtly being a child molester.

Moodiness and Media Self-Defense

Copycat Events Catchup

I've been busy with other matters, but the copycat effect hasn't. And the media's reaction to it, as well.

There are the usual late spring shooting sprees, but the one that jumps out, of course, is the sad story of the Logan County, Ohio, high school senior who was about to graduate but instead kills six people. This, I find, had many elements of a school shooting and family rampage mixed into it.

As widely reported by the media, Scott Moody, 18, just hours away from graduating from high school, fatally shot three family members (his grandparents and mother), two friends and himself on Sunday, May 29th, in rural Bellefontaine, Ohio. The twilight language named "Logan" county has been the scene of many unusual events, down through the years.

As usual, accounts of the funeral carried this line: "Neighbors and friends said they could not reconcile the description of Moody as the gunman with the quiet boy they knew," Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 7, 2005.

Next, I wish to thank correspondent T. Peter Park for bringing to my attention an article in The Guardian of June 7, 2005. It begins somewhat humorously: "Reading the BBC news headlines on the internet one night last month, Graham Barnfield came across references to an academic blaming TV shows for the 'happy slapping' craze. 'My first thought was, here we go again,' he says. 'Yet another berk falling for the theory of copycat behaviour.'

As he read on, the article was about him.

While this funny scenario unfolds, however, we get this bit of media self-defense sent our way: "Anyone who had bothered to read any of Barnfield's published writings on the media would know that he distinguishes between the cognitive effects of television and film, where viewers absorb information, and the behavioural effects, where they allegedly copy scenes from the screen. 'While the first undeniably exists,' he says, 'there is very little evidence for the second.'"

Unfortunately, Barnfield seems to have missed out on reading about the Werther or Copycat Effect in the last thirty years. The Werther Effect notes that movies like The Deer Hunter result in an increase in Russian roulette deaths, events like celebrity suicides produce a bump in the national suicide rate, and school shootings are most certainly copycatted. If anyone knows Mr. Graham Barnfield's address, send it along, and I'll post him a copy of
The Copycat Effect.