Poll about 9/11

[wolfie]

The reaction to 9/11 was actually the opposite, everything became sunshine and rainbows for a few years in the US. All possible references to terrorism, towers, planes, etc were scrubbed out of the media and several films where even cancelled. There was a big uptick in escapist fantasy ( LOTR, Harry Potter, etc ) as people wanted something to take their mind off it. No one dared approach the topic for several years.

I'm surprised that Al Quaida didn't take advantage of pop culture to create an even bigger psychological impact. IIRC, the first LOTR movie was either out, or known to be on its way, on 9/11. If they'd planned the attack for opening day of the SECOND LOTR movie, they'd have "leveraged" the film's publicity. After all, any Tolkien fan knows the title of the second volume.

[Cooper]

Reminds me of the second book I probably will write, about the correlation (or probably lack thereof) of media and violence.

[Aethian]

If our mail didn't go through a virus/bacteria killing process I could see the US and Canada's demise coming from the mail system.

[Gravekeeper]

Thing about the Antichrist is I'm fairly certain it referred to Nero. (This is coming from one class in New Testament of course.) Seeing as the new Babylon was Rome.

Not exactly. Antichrist was a literal term for someone against Christ. Its used both as a singular and a plural in the New Testament. There's no actual Antichrist as in some supreme negative Jesus. That's a just a construct of misinterpretation of the Bible. Like many other things with modern Evangelical type beliefs. There is no usage of the term as referring to a singe person in the Bible. Its only mentioned in two places at that.

In fact its only used in the books of John ( Which are mainly rants at "heretics" ) and used against people that didn't agree with the author's view of Jesus as being antichrists. The teachers that did not teach that Jesus was the son of God ( that concept came after his death remember, it wasn't universal ) the author called antichrists. People that believed Jesus ascended spiritually but was not resurrected physically. Also referred to as antichrists.

Early Christianity was massively divided over the story of Jesus. The funny part is that labeling Nero the antichrist and Rome as Babylon was exactly the same thing as happens these days. Scholars interpreted and argued over the text for hundreds of years trying to make the verses fit whatever political or simply batshit beliefs they held. Like, quite literally labeling Nero as the antichrist was something some scholar did in like 100-200 AD then a bunch of other scholars argued against it and they all had a pissing match for about the next 200 years. >.>

A: OH! I was wrong! It's really [this date]. (I'd like to note that Jehovah's Witnesses have been doing this for almost exactly 100 years at this point.)

Wasn't there some old dude that had predicted the apocalypse, unsuccessfully, like 3 times in a row now and people STILL keep believing him?

Someone literally told him he was useless because 'reality didn't matter' because they were going to make their own reality, and the author could study that.

Yep. After 9/11 the Republicans got into the reality manufacturing industry and its been going on ever since. Just increasingly more crazy with each election.

[Cooper]

Actually, yes. His name is Harold Camping.

I am greatly amused by him, because he once predicted Jesus would come back about 5 days away from the day, in the year I was born.

[Pixilated]

*snip*
The scenario that scares the hell out of me these days would be one of these groups getting thier hands on a nasty virus (or bacteria). And that is even within the realm of possibility. We wouldn't know what hit us until it hit us and even then it probably would look like a nasty flu outbreak.

Not to sound like a tinfoil hat candidate, but the apocalypse might have already started, and it's got nothing to do with terrorist groups. Every bit of news coming from the Fukushima debacle indicates the situation there is far worse than we had originally believed. Not only that but they still aren't anywhere near getting it under control.

*snip*

Wasn't there some old dude that had predicted the apocalypse, unsuccessfully, like 3 times in a row now and people STILL keep believing him?

*snip*

Harold Camping, but Wikipedia has a mind-boggling list (You have to at its disclaimer: "This is an incomplete list ....") of claims that The End is Nigh. Make yourself a coffee and get a comfortable seat; reading through it could take a while.

[Gravekeeper]

Every bit of news coming from the Fukushima debacle indicates the situation there is far worse than we had originally believed. Not only that but they still aren't anywhere near getting it under control.

Fukushima is essentially just pollution at this point. Scary pollution sure, but still just pollution. It doesn't have the capability to do much else except keep leaking. Worst case scenario is they have to bury it and that area becomes a no man's land like Chernobyl.

Its ranked as the same severity as Chernobyl and seeing as Chernobyl didn't end life as we know it. Chernobyl was still much worse by virtue of being airborne from the explosion. Fukushima is just leaking and while it may spell disaster for the local environment, it won't get further than Japan. It can leak into the pacific all it wants but it would so diluted as to be immeasurable before it got anywhere else.

Granted, the Japanese authorities are proving amazingly inept at managing the situation. >.>

[protege]

I was 25 when 9/11 happened. I knew people who were *killed* on 9/11--one of the planes landed in their office, as they were having their morning meeting.

What I still find so scary about it...is that until the planes hit, it was like any other day. I was at my desk at work, simply going through my morning routine. Radio was on, we were talking to our main office in NYC, etc. Until the phone lines to NYC suddenly went dead, and reports of the first plane hitting the Tower came in. Until that happened, it was just another day at the office, no different than the day before, and the day to come. Total surprise attack, involving four planes--two into the WTC, a third into the Pentagon, and a fourth crashed in SW PA.

Trying to get home from work took hours. Nearly every bridge and tunnel in Pittsburgh was either closed or under heavy guard. Not exactly what you want when the entire downtown area is being evacuated! Everyone was asked to leave--remember, Pittsburgh is the second busiest inland port in the country...and several big banks have their headquarters here.

I also remember the mass paranoia that went on during/after 9/11. Quite a few people who looked "Muslim" were harassed or roughed up as retaliation.

Whatever else went on, nothing can change things back the way they were. Our world changed forever. Our economy was wrecked, two of our airlines driven into bankruptcy, two wars, and thousands killed.

[Gravekeeper]

I also remember the mass paranoia that went on during/after 9/11. Quite a few people who looked "Muslim" were harassed or roughed up as retaliation.

Or straight up murdered in some cases =/

The paranoia hasn't gotten much better in certain southern areas. Republicans are obsessed with Sharia law. There are only 8 countries in the entire world that use Sharia law as their full legal code. Hell, Turkey is 99.8% Muslim and Islamic fundamentalists couldn't even get any part of Sharia law implemented there.

But somehow Oklahoma thinks its going to take over their legal system at any moment. >.>

[Cooper]

Aw, too bad. I have a collection of crazy (funny) internet nutters, and I swear I had one about how there was a muslim conspiracy. Apparently, it starts by having a few. Then they convert everyone. Then they invoke Sharia law.

The thing about the big Muslim fear is that people don't seem to get that, historically, Muslims were pretty well-behaved, considering. When they conquered a country, instead of the regular 'convert or die' they would let all religions 'of the book' live, with some punishments, of course.

And Sharia law was progressive for its time. (So was the bible, actually. When I did a comparative on gods around the time of the new testament, God was actually the least assholey.)

(That's the extent of my research on Muslims, that and one of those "30 days" episodes where a Christian spends 30 days as a Muslim. I do intend to learn a lot more.)

[Cooper]

Just for teh lulz, I looked through my collection to see what people said on Islam:

"Cruz is a crusader for justice! Obama is a soft muslim terrorist hell bent on destroying the United States. WE HAVE A TERRORIST PRESIDENT HOW DID THIS HAPPEN!?"

I'm not entirely sure how he can be a 'soft terrorist.' Unless he's fat. (Which he isn't.)

The other one was a rant about gay people. So I'm not sure what the connection was.

I'll give you a less common type of comment I found:

"Interracial or interspecies relationships? When animals within a group are determined to be genetically different they are classified as different species. When human's are found to be genetically different within their group they are classified as different races. White is a species as is black, latino, Asian and so on. Race is just a PC terms applied to it to desensitize the whole white/black relationship thing."

Yeah, because when my gray colored rabbit and brown+white colored rabbit had babies, the babies were actually a hybrid of species, not colors.

[Seshat]

Wow, that last commenter (about interracial/interspecies) doesn't understand taxonomy at all, does he/he?

My tiny little terrier looks a lot more different from a great dane, than I (so white I glow in the dark) look from .. oh, Michelle Obama, or Oprah Winfrey. Yet I'm sure the commenter would consider my terrier and the great dane to both be dogs!

As for the Muslims-are-all-terrorists thing: some of that stuff happened here in Aussieland, I'm sorry to say. Among the worst: a tram (light rail) driver who wouldn't let a Muslim schoolgirl board his tram. Because she was wearing hijab, she was obviously a terrorist.

[Cooper]

The only time I've seen islam be an issue was when I was at Cedar Point. I was hot, and I remember feeling so bad for the women in hijabs because it had to be even hotter for them. Both my mother and I wanted to commiserate, but couldn't determine how to do it in a sensitive way, besides: "You! In the hijab! Sorry your religion sucks* and it's hot outside!"

So we didn't. >_>

* I don't necessarily think that

[NorthernZel]

The only time I've seen islam be an issue was when I was at Cedar Point. I was hot, and I remember feeling so bad for the women in hijabs because it had to be even hotter for them. Both my mother and I wanted to commiserate, but couldn't determine how to do it in a sensitive way, besides: "You! In the hijab! Sorry your religion sucks* and it's hot outside!"

So we didn't. >_>

* I don't necessarily think that

Just to ease you up a bit, these ladies might not have been bothered by the heat as you think. If worn in layers, a hijab (or other Muslim clothings like hilbab, chador or niqab) may actually insulate well against heat.

[sms001]

...or other Muslim [desert] clothings like hilbab, chador or niqab) may actually insulate well against heat.(alt. added.)

That's what I was thinking too... The headgear in particular seems pretty useful, as someone who has felt his brain baking on construction sites in Florida.