The Best Reason To Not Watch TV On 9/11

If you are not already suffering 9/11-itis, you will after reading this. A game-show winner has been invited to sing the national anthem at the Lincoln Memorial tribute.

I was in the Balkans when the WTC attack happened last year, so I’m less emotionally invested in its anniversary than my New York friends. At the risk of sounding unpatriotic, which I believe I’m not, I think the media is going overboard in its coverage. Surprising? Not at all. But the game-show ridiculousness at the Lincoln Memorial is just one indicator of many that the remembrance of a tragedy is being turned into a promotional farce. September 12 cannot arrive soon enough.

Author: Peter Maass

I was born and raised in Los Angeles. In 1983, after graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, I went to Brussels as a copy editor for The Wall Street Journal/Europe. I left the Journal in 1985 to write for The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune, covering NATO and the European Union. In 1987 I moved to Seoul, South Korea, where I wrote primarily for The Washington Post. After three years in Asia I moved to Budapest to cover Eastern Europe and the Balkans. I spent most of 1992 and 1993 covering the war in Bosnia for the Post.