I could not listen to this yesterday, and was really hoping to listen to it today. In the days after September 11, 2001, the Brian Lehrer show kept me grounded, in touch, and feeling more sane, and I wanted something like that from your show yesterday. Please consider making this available on the website, because dealing with and healing from that awful day did not end yesterday.
Thank you.

Heartbreak changes and doesn't leave; its changes are lived with.

But what also stays is the shock of the aftermath--of the fights over the ownership of the space and who pays; of the bizarre questioning of the order of the names, of the design of the memorial, of the companies profiting over "advising" one "stakeholder" or another, of the so-called mosque fight, of the horrific nonsense over the Zadroga bill ...

In Congo, at least 5 million people died over the same time period (and let's not leave out the women raped as well, and left with *that* aftereffect). If they had a similar-size memorial for every 3,000 people, and a similarly absurd aftermath, the entire, huge country would be covered in cement and world headlines would never neglect the country's name. And that's only *one* other country that has needlessly and horrifically lost its people to attack. Yet while the US received headlines of sympathy and offers of help (from"enemies" as well as friends), and the breast beating of "nothing will ever be the same" continues in the US, Americans do not look outward with similar understanding to those other countries and their pain--and the ways in which *they* will never be the same. We individually send a few dollars and talk of "compassion fatigue" (and some complain of the .minuscule amount of federal spending that goes to foreign aid) and do not consider any systemic or ideological changes in how our countries relate, how U.S. children are educated about the rest of the world, how the terrible events overlap.

It's all so, so sad, in so many ways.

As the anniversary approached, the sick feeling was inescapable, and it is even stronger today. What our attackers started, our unelected and myopic leaders only made worse. Our nation is profoundly weaker, and we (or at least our supposed leaders) made it happen. If there is a hell, Bin Laden is proudly smiling at what he accomplished in making us self-destruct. As far as I am concerned, George W. Bush is not welcome in New York.

Hi Brian,

Exceptional work today. I am wondering who actually organized the anniversary ceremony at the WTC site. For example, who chose the music? Does the City itself get the honors in this multi-level event?

Your devoted fan in Amsterdam,

Ruth

Thanks for your sensitive coverage of this horrific event and all the great work you and your team do on many different topics throughout the year.

One thing that I feel that is missing from the dialogue about 911 is how all the media attention is re-traumatising many people about this event. For me, it is like tearing off a scab that has marginally covered an open wound. Perhaps you can do part of a show about how people have been traumatized (and possibly re-traumatized by the media attention) by the event, how to recognize trauma and post traumatic symptoms and where folks can seek out free mental health services to address their needs. Thanks for listening.

Brian, please don't say there was "no need" for the blood people donated on 9/11. Even though there weren't survivors of the collapse of the towers who needed it, there is always a need for blood. Even though more blood was given that day than was needed in New York City, the surplus was sent to other places where it was needed.

I was one of the people whose first reaction was to go to give blood. Of course, I was turned away from the 1st place I tried; they suggested trying another blood center, & 2 other donors & I went there together & were turned away again. (At one point along the way I noted that we looked like a crime-fighting team from a TV show: one Latino man, one black man, & one woman.) One of them was upset because he knew there was a day-care center on the ground floor of one of the towers & he was worried about the children, & I was glad to be able to tell him they were most likely to have been among the first to get out, both because they were on the lowest floor & because it would have been a priority to get the children out. When we got to the 3rd location, we were finally able to donate blood.

I want to honor Fireman Michael Cawley from Ladder 136. He was off-duty but rushed to the towers.

I used to work with his mother Margaret Cawley who worked at New York Hospital Queens in Flushing as a cancer nurse practitioner.

I hope his family is well today.

Thank you, as always, for your thoughtful non-sensationalist coverage. I can always rely on WNYC.

In Cold Spring, NY The Great Bell at the Episcopal Church of St. Mary-in-the-Highlands will be tolled once for each of the nearly 3,000 lives lost in the terrorist attacks. Both parishioners and members of the community are invited to participate in tolling the bell at any time during the memorial, which is estimated to conclude at 12:55 p.m.  For more information contact the Verger, Thom Harrington, 845-896-6333.

I am marking this 9/11 by participating in the United Synagogue of Hoboken's Mitzvah Day. This is an annual event on or around 9/11 in which we participate in a variety of social action projects. This day I will be working at a food drive at a local supermarket and then bringing the food to our local food pantry. Other examples of projects sponsored are working at the Jubilee Center (an afterschool center near our housing projects,) a nutrition program, a literacy program, and visiting senior citizens.

Also this day is a blood marrow testing drive being held at the Black Bear Tavern in Hoboken from 4 to 7 pm. This is a simple procedure that just involves a swab in your cheek and you will be entered into the database to see if you are a match.

Lastly, I will participating with my choir in the September 11 memorial service on Pier A in Hoboken at 6 pm.

Regarding "lost" versus "murdered" I agree with the sentiment of Peter T Daniels comment. I think just using the verb "killed" is accurate and an appropriate way to describe those whose lives were lost on 911 as a result of hijackers using planes filled with passengers as bombs. "Murdered" especially is charged because our response to the attacks has already been two massive military responses and ongoing targeted assassinations, not criminal investigations and incarcerations. Using the word "murder" now just adds fuel to that aggression and journalists should no be in that business.

As a documentary filmmaker, when I saw the first tower on fire on TV, I grabbed a small video camera and went up to my roof (I live in Sunset Park, Brooklyn). I watched for a moment, shocked, as the second plane flew into the other tower and a ball of fire appeared. I quickly turned on my camera, then biked TO the city to keep shooting, and I continued shooting what I experienced in the city the next day and the next....In many ways, the act of documenting was my own therapy.
I decided to make public most of the raw footage with the minimal editing. Its available here: http://asymmetricpictures.com/911new.html

What a poorly chosen and unhelpful reading by President Obama.

What can he be thinking, looking at the World Trade Center site and quoting the psalm:
“Come, behold the works of the Lord
what desolations he has made in the earth”?
Is our President trying to make the point that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were the “works of the Lord”?

And, why chose a religious verse that repeatedly invokes Jacob, and so underlines the exclusion of Muslims, not to mention the exclusion of all people of other faiths and of all people who live by reason rather than faith?

Why chose a religious verse at all given that religion was used to galvanize the terrorists?

What will it take for our politicians to realize that any breach in the wall between church and state leads inevitably to teleological suspensions of the ethical?

A caller said that the victims should not be called "the lost," but "the murdered."

However, they were not "murdered," because the Bush administration chose to view the attacks not as a crime, but as an act of war, and by definition those killed in war -- even in "collateral damage" are not "murdered."

Listening in the UK over the internet.
I was at work when the planes hit the WTC. We can never comprehend the loss of nearly 3000 people. We lost our eldest son to cancer in 2005. Only then I did I realise that each death is personal.
May they all Rest in Peace

I feel such a sense of relief that Osama Bin Laden is no longer listening and watching with satisfaction.

AT 8:47 I stopped to listen for the ringing of bells. My ears cued in for the chimes that did not follow, Instead I heard the sound of profound and utter quiet that joined me to a nation of silent listeners for a moment of deeply-felt compassion and empathy, for those who's lives were lost and those who survived for the reckoning

Brian suggests that President Obama selected his reading - is that the case or were the readings selected by an event committee and assigned to the readers?