Who Knows What Day It Is? (Via Borderland.) This post by Doug at Boderland is my favorite 9/11 post of the day. There are only ever going to be more and more young people who need to have these conversations and need to have these questions answered. I also wonder how relevant or immediate this day will be to young students. I know that they will live in the world forever changed by 9/11, but I also know how events like Martin Luther King Jr’s death, or JFKs death were vague “history” for me as a kid (and seemed to have happened a long time ago), and yet my parents’ generation remembered them and understood them intimately. Similarly, neither of my parents can remember d-day (both were actually born that week), but to their parents that was a vivid memory. I see this happening now with students like Doug’s – or like my wife Eva’s, who are in kindergarden… most were in the womb on September 11th, 2001. How we tell this story will be every bit as important as what happened, if not more so – from the perspective of our students and children.
I also found Scoble’s post stangely striking. I feel it is a big deal (and a tragedy of sorts) that his blog posts from 2001 are gone. I do back up my blog regularly… and I feel every piece of information (especially historical first hand accounts like Robert’s blog) that we keep is valuable to humanity as a whole… and that each piece that vanishes is a potentially costly loss. The power we have to publish is greatly diminished if the publications lack permanence… or at least staying power. Imagine the value of today’s blogs to future generations of humanity, who will almost certainly have tools to make sense of the volume of information!
Of course, I’m something of an information pack rat, but I think even Robert’s wishing he had his son’s pictures would be justification enough for someone (anyone) having backed them up. I left a comment on Scoble’s post, too.