Sunday, October 08, 2006

Memorial plans gone amok

I swear, I am still interested in keeping up this thing. It's just a lot of time, I'm not sure what I do is worth writing home about.

Anyway...a week ago, I attended this press conference addressing the controversy surrounding Arizona's Sept. 11 memorial which was unveiled, blessed, sprinkled with pixie dust, etc. on the fifth anniversary of the attacks. The press briefing was led by the chairman of the memorial commission, a firefighter. My story made the A-wire, which means the national wire. Bob, one of our sports writers, told me he saw my byline on Yahoo!

Arizona Sept. 11 memorial to be reviewed

I haven't seen the memorial upclose. But it's a bunch of stainless steel panels placed in the shape of an ellipse, surrounding a piece of debris from the World Trade Center. Each panel has quotes taken from news reports made during and in the aftermath of Sept. 11. This whole brouhaha started because some very conservative bloggers called it an anti-American shrine because some of the quotes are critical of U.S. policy and action. And then the dorky Republican candidate for governor, Len Munsil, who is behind in the polls, ran with it because he is struggling to gain any momentum. He's so not a contender. His campaign actually issued a press release more or less saying Janet Napolitano, who will likely get re-elected, doesn't care about kids because she wouldn't change a set date for a debate that falls on Munsil's kid's birthday. Hehe, when George W. was in Phoenix last Wednesday stumping at a fundraiser, he gave "Lee Munsil" a shout-out. Sad.

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