69 Comments on thursday june 14, 2007 : field report
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Sobering report, Joanne, but one that is very powerful. I was profoundly affected by this event and have also visited the monument. As horrifying as 9/11 was, I still believe that the work of Timothy McVeigh was much more insidious. I will never forget the cover of Newsweek with the firefighter carrying the lifeless body of an infant. Here in our midst was a terrorist who looked, spoke and lived like the rest of us. Until, that is, he loaded a rental van with fertilizer and destroyed a building and 168 lives. Why? We’ll never know for sure because he is in the same place as those 19 hijackers.
We’re a stupid country sometimes… or at least we do really stupid things.
Okay, toddinhb, please explain to me what we did as a stupid country to deserve the wrath of the Murrah and 9/11 terrorists?
Human rights. Thats why most terrorism exists.
Sorry
But every day 18 year old American soldiers lose their lives or limbs and those that do return are treated as annoyance when seeking medical treatment. Add to that the innocent Iraqis who are killed by the hundreds every other day. Where is their memorial? Where is the memorial for the 18-year old Americans that are dying for nothing but an exclamation mark a few idiots want to plant in the history books. Sorry for being so cynical, but today’s report didn’t move me in the least. Sorry for those who suffered the loss of a loved one that day. I can’t even imagine the hardships you’ve faced. REALLY. But don’t exploit that day as if it were “special.”
Buildings such as these are being blown up each day by terrorists and the US military—all without blinking an eye.
B-man, an answer to your disrespectful post:
The Vietnam Memorial. The Korean War Memorial. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The World War II Memorial. The thousands of Revolutionary War, Civil War, World War I, and World War II memorials in towns and cities across the nation. Given time, I’m sure there will be memorials to the dead of the Iraq Wars as well. You can’t expect a monument to be erected instantly.
We need to be reminded of all sorts of things, including the Oklahoma City bombing–in fact, *especially* the Oklahoma City bombing. That is now a stark reminder that not just Islamist radicals can be terrorists…our own people can, as well. It is a reminder of what can happen when our attention becomes diverted.
(And I wouldn’t think your post was so disrespectful if it hadn’t been for the obnoxiously large graphic.)
The Vietnam Memorial. The Korean War Memorial. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The World War II Memorial. The thousands of Revolutionary War, Civil War, World War I, and World War II memorials in towns and cities across the nation.
I think you correctly named them…however, I think there is a big difference. If not..where is the memorial for those blown up in embassies over the past 5 years? Just as many if not more people were killed. And when you say our own, yes, 50,000 Americans are murdered each year by gunshot wounds. We are killing each other every day, How about a memorial for those 50,000!
How about a memorial to the tragedy of guns and bullets!
I’m not being disrespectful. I just think everything is reduced to a Barbra Walters weeping contest these days..
look at the poor polar bears!
Sure, The incident was tragic & vulgar…have there been more other, even more tragic events…yes!
No memorials…why?
We are selective aren’t we!!!
How about a memorial to the 10,000 blacks who were injected with veneral disease to see what it would happen to them…this was done by the government, not some demented individual
sorry for the typos…
I can name you 100 tragic events…not memoralized…
Memorials for the dead. So what? I mean no disrespect for those who fell in service to our (once-grand) country.
Memorials do not replace the lack of care & rehabilitation that those who sacrificed for our country receive. Memorials do not replace the value of those who should rightly be alive & whole in body, mind and spirit among us. Is it really easier for you to respect a concrete edifice than those who have sacrificed their body, mind or spirit for the government that they agreed to follow?
What is disrespectful is the disrespect shown to those who have sacrifices for our country, the disrespect shown by the VA and the government they sacrificed to defend.
What is disrespectful is calling those who call attention to this disrespect disrespectful.
You oughtta be ashamed of yourself, JP for calling for someone disrespectful for showing their respect.
Hey, maybe you should lay off some of that ‘cider’ there slick–it may help you focus better! Ooops: was that dis-respectful? I apologize. However, if you’d re-read JP’s post a second time you’ll dicover that most of the “disrespect” reffered to is aimed at those of us who have to scroll past a huge, cumbersome, loud, unfair-attention-grabbing, “obnoxiously large graphic”. And perhaps secondly at the disrespect that one might interpret from B-man’s comment on how “today’s report didn’t move me in the least”: a report which was put together very well with excellent editing , mixing, and lots of hard work, not to mention the expense of sending a RocketBoom team way over to OakCity. But B-man has a good underlying message with some valid points, and JP has a good counterpoint.
Welp, this has been my pointless reply. The opinions have been solely mine.
P.S.: CiderJack you do make some very good remarks–in my opinion–elsewhere in your comment: ‘replace the value’, and ‘disrespect shown by the government’…
My point was this:
Yes, our veterans deserve a heckuva lot of respect from us. Yes, they’re not getting it. But that does not mean that we should denigrate those who died in other ways, as B-Man did. He wasn’t just showing respect for Iraq war veterans, he was disrespecting those who died in the Oklahoma City bombing. I’m fine with the former, but not with the latter. (He also seems to be suggesting that “just as many if not more” people died in embassy bombings than in WWII, so it’s a bit hard to take him seriously here.)
And you are correct, CiderJack, in that memorials don’t replace those whose lives were lost. But that is not the purpose of a memorial. A memorial is a reminder–a place to go and contemplate the loss we experienced (something I thought this RB episode did a great job of evoking). The question isn’t one of whether I respect a concrete edifice so much as whether that edifice causes me to pause in my daily activities and remember what we lost from a particular event.
And thanks, Mike. :)
JP: (He also seems to be suggesting that \”just as many if not more\” people died in embassy bombings than in WWII, so it\’s a bit hard to take him seriously here.)
B: I see where you could have misunderstood what I wrote. The reference was in comparison to the Oklahoma bombing, not WWII. How could you make such a ridiculous assumption.
B: Sorry for those who suffered the loss of a loved one that day. I can\’t even imagine the hardships you\’ve faced. REALLY
Did you read that part JP?
and you want to know what I find tragic…here\’s a news item in todays news: now this is tragic…!
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-06/15/content_6247454.htm
I guess you and other readers missed the point I was trying to make…SENSATIONALISM…SHOCK VALUE…has taken over today\’s media in general.
How many jet liners crashed with over 250 passengers aboard over the past 10 years. Are memorials set up to recognize their tragic loss? NO! The families involved in each of these horrific tragedies lost loved ones and suffered just as much as those in the Oklahoma bombing. But the bombing was HOT NEWS…SENSATIONAL.. THE TRIAL… THE MANHUNT…AND ON AND ON AND ON…RIGHT DOWN TO THE SHOCKING EXECUTION…whereas airplane crash victims (and there have been a number of them) are forgotten within days or weeks.
The media is very good at manipulating public perception.
They milk these events like a farmer milks a cow.
Which is why internet forums like this are good. Do you really know why you think the way you do. What has shaped your belief systems, your thoughts, reactions. Investigate why your mind takes you where it does.
OKC is remembered not for its numbers, but because a kid who washed out of Special Forces and mourning David Koresh parked an ANFO in front of the FBI office and the USDA office and the daycare center on the first floor where many were lucky enough to have their kids enrolled. The picture mentioned above is indeed a journalism classic. The firefighter is olive skinned but the baby is clearly Anglo, blond hair and white skin, and may not be dead yet. He did die, though.
It is a horror, to be sure, just like it was a horror when the madmen blew up the World Trade Center. I cut meat in that building, and drank stolen beer with my work buds. So when it fell, yeah, it affected me. What I’ve never been able to fathom is the connection everybody else formed with the event thanks to CNN. I saw flags on every lawn in tiny little towns 1,000 miles from Ground Zero. “They” had been attacked.
Idiots on U.S. highways kill thousands every year, true. But OKC and 9/11 push a lizard-brain button. And then the media whores do their thing and it becomes a brand. And anyone who doesn’t think the U.S. has killed many innocents is a starry-eyed dreamer.
But don’t sell the lizard button short.
All
Senseless deaths
At the hands of Americans.
Whether Iraqi, Palestinian,
Hebrew, African American,
American Indian, American…
The act of slaughter is evil enough;
That this country condones
The continuation of it
In God’s name is reprehensible.
All these lost lives have value to
their families, communities, countries,
to a world beyond.
Why diminish or compare
the value of one’s life to another?
In the end, we are equal.
“Denn alles Fleisch ist wie Gras“
“For all flesh is like grass”
May our spirit rise again
to a better world.
How did a video blog about a memorial in Oklahoma City bombing become a time to talk about the America\’s past policies and current foreign policies. Can\’t we mention anything without having to politicize it anymore.
This is absolute ridiculous!!!
Isn\’t anything sacred anymore.
Terry Ann, The Oklahoma City bombing was a political event. It had an extreme political agenda, otherwise this heinous act would never have been comitted. Choosing to feature it, is political act in itself. It\’s a political statement. Like it or not.
Anyway \”Tragedy\” and how one perceivse it is very subjective.
Have a look at this website for an idea (how accurate it is, I don\’t know) of how your fellow Americans feel about certain events.
http://www.rateitall.com/t-1022-most-tragic-events-in-us-history.aspx
Granted Timothy McVeigh might have intended to send a political message. But most importantly lives were lost. I can careless about the politics behind it.
Your argument is so convoluted it makes absolutely no sense.
Convoluted is trying to link an event that happened more than 10 years to something that is going on today that have nothing to with each other.
I’m with ya, B-man. I’m a Vietnam Veteran.
It’s not ‘cynical’ or ‘disrespectful’ to question an unjustified, special interest war that kills and maims thousands. That’s called ‘patriotism’.
But I’ve been thru this so many times before, I’m quite fatiqued.
I love my country, but the government must earn my respect.
Enough said.
-s
Thanks Nab! Had I known the code I would have done it myself.
Could you post the code again? On how to reduce, thanks.
You can control the size of a picture with width and/or height attribute values, like this:
<img width=300 src=\”..\” />
<img height=300 src=\”..\” />
The width/height values are pixels, 300 pixels in these examples. Unfortunately, you cannot specify percents or inches or other units like you can in CSS. You can use this to make a picture bigger as well as smaller. If you specify both width and height you can stretch/compress the pic, but you cannot rotate it. I\’m pretty sure you cannot reflect the pic either (with a negative number). I don\’t know what a zero does.
I\’ll restore your exclamation point to it\’s original size if you want. It\’s just the pic was really loud, in my face, epileptic, 400-breaking. But it\’s not really my right to change it, so I\’m conflicted.
Thanks for the info. The exclamation mark is the perfect size now. Gotta go lie down, I have a minus headache! (small exclamation)
Sorry about your head. Those minus headaches are almost as bad as sigraines.
I added a few dozen minuses up above to my exclamation pargraph stealing a pahe out of The Hacker\’s Anonymous Handbook I let it be known twas I but neither of the 2 posts appeared. Have I exceeded the post limit for today?
there I fixed it!
Still not as adept as you Nab, but I peeked into the Hacker\’s Anonymous session where I live and the discussion was \”adding minuses\” to a blog or vlog to skew results.
I added a few minues to make everyone happy.
Oh…what\’s it doing down here?
B-man, I answered the question you asked in yesterday\’s comments.
I was wondering how one does a color background.
It was a question I was going to ask last week when the font fairy
granted me the ability to do color commentary.
I think the addition of pics and type have added flair & creativity to the banter in the comments section…providing a more RB community feel… which I acknowledged in my Academy acceptance speech to Will & Rob. I didn’t name names for lack of time, as Drew started playing music, but you know who you are…nab, kam, CC…et al.
I really need a white background. I\’ll have to register a new name if I remain special.
Does this work?
Nab, I prefer the white as the color box on my computer appears as a light grayish green that does not become you. I know there are more colorful backgrounds as I\’ve seen them on other blogs, but maybe we are not there yet. I still don\’t know how to change font style. But I did embed my first YouTube video…so watch out, there\’s more from whence it came.
Oh RB gods, thank you for giving me my white back.
Maybe \”post a comment\” could have an option to let the commenter pick a background color.
In the mean time, B-man, you can set color with <p style=\”background-color:yellow\”>comment text</p>.
Shoooot! We love you too big-B! But I was miffed that you didn\’t mention us while the light was cast upon you!
Oooooppppsssy! Did I just say that out loud?
Well, when I mentioned The RocketBoom Academy I assumed you knew who I was referring to. That is, the faithful fun-loving commentors who contribute daily. Once I pressed the send button it was too late to include the names I had in mind. Also I was so too excited to reply in Fontasize language.
BY the way, fame ain\’t all it\’s cracked up to be. Look at me today, I\’m a -19.
wow. random video post, but I appreciate it.
I remember being in Mr. Carnahan\’s 8th grade science class the moment I heard that someone had blown up the Federal Building. My school was about 15 mins south of downtown Oklahoma City, and I can remember being scared and not knowing what to think.
I personally didn\’t know anyone who was killed that day, but my family did. My aunt was working at a nearby bank and the windows blew out from the explosion. One of the first people pulled out of the rubble was a man my parents knew. He wrote children\’s books and was at the preschool that morning.
I drive by the memorial several times a week now and I\’m amazed to see people still attach items to the fence surrounding the memorial.
Women in art
To Drew (or whomever): the editing and mixing are excellent.
A message fer Joanne! Yarr!
http://eclectech.co.uk/pantspirate.php?i=hDg
Yeez got to runs yer mouse over da image….yarrr!
You\’ve got some nice stuff there.
That\’s pronounced: \”Aaaarmy Buckles!\”
-s
Great story. Wonderful use of light (and darkness) to express a mood of repect and compassion. Thanks.
Same three guys still hogging the page, only now it’s with high school prom type graphics. Why don’t you just call each other instead of using this comments page for personal communication. Or maybebe go outside once in a while.
“Hello bloggy, I’m calling to tell you I’m outside soaking up some rays & here’s the best thing, wi fi reaches my pool!”
I find this interesting, how I went from a +15 to a 0 on this post.
I thought I covered all the bases w/this visual joke, “hogging the page” “high school graphics” “calling each other” & “getting outside” geeez, what’s it take to get a laugh around here!
There you go Kam, a nice high rating.
Can you do that to my bank account? please! I need a ticket to Albuquerque!
Wellllll, I suppose I can help. Just send me all your bank-account and credit-card numbers and I’ll clean you out. I mean, I’ll fix you up.
Nab, you didn’t attend your Hacker’s Anonymous meeting tonight. What gives?
Kam, he already took your arm and leg, go for it. The sun sets so fine in New Mexico at this time of year, or so I hear….oh, oh…I hear the minuses starting to pile up and I haven’t even clicked the submit button yet.
Maybe I should check my horoscope…
Ditto from me, bloggy! My business is running smooth, I’m beside the lake on wifi, my cell phone on the table, and I like it here in the RB international playground.
Sadly; it is mostly in reaction to comments posted by some of the regulars that others actually chime in on anything.
http://eclectech.co.uk/messageyarr.php?i=hDm.
Yeah, I know a couple of us use these comments like a myspace page, or like twitter or a community blog, and sometimes I wonder if it’s appropriate. I don’t think it discourages more meaningful comments, and Drew/Joanne have never hinted that we should go away or even tone it down. If anything they encourage us, by letting us embed pics and videos. But I see you’ve got a positive rating, so maybe a lot of people really are bugged. Tell you what, if 10 people reply to your comment saying they’d like it quieter, I’ll post no comments next week, and I’ll watch and try to judge if that encourages more relevant commentry.
His rating tanked from a +12 to a -6 right now after these rebuttals! And you can’t vote twice so somebody else is reading all this and voicing their opinion non-verbally.
I agree it gets a bit rowdy sometimes but as Nab said; Drew & Joanne haven’t said anything against it (yet). There was the 400×400 pixel rule which often goes by the wayside yet Mike Dixon appropriately found a way around. Granted we don’t all have the in-house facility for that but the ‘how-to-get-around-it’ has been posted a couple of times.
Not posting for a week? Hmmm… interesting. I’m in if the criteria are met.
B-man, you got me on my bad side in that shot again! I told you to “say cheese” before clicking, not “eat cheese”!
Hey we lost the green/grey background!! Sniff. There in is the punishment for misbehaving.
Jealous bloggy?
http://kwwje.go.kr/basestudy/guker1/sound/gorilla.wav
B-man,
The one on the left is HOT.
BTW-Believe me, I’m not a new comer. I’ve been posting on this page from the start of RB…and thank you NAB for your well thought out remarks. I would certainly never discourage anyone from posting on this page. I’d just hate to see it turned into MySpace.
Bloggy, no one is discouraging anyone from commenting here. In fact, many months ago I posted a comment encouraging fellow RB viewers to post. I even questioned Drew’s stats at the time, as he claimed 350,000 viewers watch RB each day and all I saw, as you say, were the same dozen people posting. So I invite others to participate, otherwise, what’s the point of having a comments section. I’m really not familiar with MYSpace, always thought is was a kid’s site, so I don’t know what you are implying. However, I have frequented a few political blogs from time to time and there is a constant back and forth banter/exchange of ideas amongst participants. It makes for a more interesting experience when visiting a particular vlog or blog. It seems you do look at the comments section. Why bother, if you feel the way you do.
Again, I have on more than one occasion invited more people to comment.
There’s no warden in here doing cavity searches. Hope you’ll chime in next time bloggy, rather than criticize those who do.
Oh yeah! bend over buster, you’re next!
LOL! OUCH! LOL!
Im really happy with the way the comments pages have evolved now that we have graphics and videos available too. We’re working today on resorting the comments by vote in hopes it will be even more useful for people wanting to filter through the noise.
The comments continue to become more useful in supplementing the stories of the day. When people search and discover past episodes, the comments often lead to supporting the material in the most useful fashion. Just like Slashdot is most known for.
Ive said this many times before - I believe RB has a unique first-adopter type audience and when yall chime in with contributions and conversations, its really the best kind of feedback we get around here.
B-Man, I will point you out here as I guess you have been pointed out here today already just to say that I appreciate all the energy you put into the space here. I personally think it seems much more special when its not always, but its always [ahem, almost always] thoughtful nonetheless!
First!
No, wait…
beautifully shot, excellent camera work, interesting music - really well done…
This is classic. Colbert interviews Tommy Chong & asks \”Are you high now?\” \”Of course!\” he answers. I sent him the bud shirt he\’s wearing, we go way back.
http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/player.jhtml?ml_video=88498&ml_collection=&ml_gateway=&ml_gateway_id=&ml_comedian=&ml_runtime=&ml_context=show&ml_origin_url=%2Fshows%2Findex.jhtml%3FplayVideo%3D88498&ml_playlist=&lnk=&is_large=true