THE OTHER DAY IN SEPTEMBER
Finally rented "One Day in September," the amazing documentary about the hostage incident at the 1972 Munich Olympics. It details the extensive botching on the part of the West German police and shows a great deal of footage aired live that day by ABC. Among the live footage is a sportscaster and Peter Jennings telling their viewers exactly what time the police planned their surprise attack on the room in the Olympic Village. Viewers watched as the sneak attack was put into place. It was called off seconds after it was supposed to start -- seems the terrorists had the TV on in the room and were watching it all unfold, too. Eventually 11 Israeli athletes and coaches were dead and five of the eight hostage-takers were killed. There's also an interview with the lone surviving Palestinian terrorist, who says the Germans later staged a hijacking of a Lufthansa plane so they could "release" the three terrorists - as demanded by the hijackers - they still had in custody. If you haven't seen this, rent it soon.
- posted by Amy @ 11/17/2001 10:03:00 AM

 

CROATIAN CRIMES OF WWII
The U.S. Holocaust Museum has found and preserved long-forgotten documents about the Jasenovac camps, which were operated by the Croatians during World War II. This is important, and the camp's records - or lack thereof - were among the roots of the Yugoslav wars that started in 1991.

I first traveled to Croatia in April 1992 to meet my relatives - both of my grandfather's parents were born there. I took the train from Prague (where I was living at the time) to Zagreb with Joel Brand, who was then only a few months into what turned out to be a stellar career covering the war. On the train on Easter Sunday, Joel gave me quick primer of Croatian politics. I learned about the Ustashe, which was the Croatian Nazi puppet government during WWII. It disappeared under Tito's rule, but lately Croatian President Franjo Tudjman was bringing back some of its symbols - the red and white checkerboard flag, its currency and renaming some streets with ill-chosen references. Plus, Tudjman, an academic by training, was among those who refused to believe the Croats/Ustashe really killed very many Serbs during WWII. Mind you, at the same time Tudjman is whipping up a feel-good nationalistic tone from Zagreb, Milosevic down in Serbia is using every one of Tudjman's deeds to convince his Serbs that the Croats are poised to victimize the Serbs again, just like they did for the Nazis.

From Joel's apartment, we watched on the TV as the very first shelling started in Sarajevo.

When I got out to the very small town where my relatives live, I spent a lot of time visiting with a very kind and wise gentleman, Dr. Ivan Furlan, who spoke perfect English and was a retired professor from Zagreb University. He had been a partisan in the war, fighting against the Nazis. (My great grandfather was apparently also a partisan as he fled up into the hills to avoid the Croatian draft. He was actually already an American citizen by then and had returned to Croatia with his new wife and children when the war broke out. He fled to the hills and my great grandmother, uncles and aunt were stuck there for the remainder of the war.) Dr. Furlan, who died a year ago, was very patient with my questions about the new and old wars. He said that while the Nazis kept very good records of the numbers of people they killed in Germany and Poland and elsewhere, the Croats did not, so there was no precise way to determine exactly how many were killed. He said there were even some people who believed the Croats, so anxious to please the Nazis, may have actually killed more people in Croatia than the Nazis did elsewhere. He singled out Jasenovac as one of the worst.

So now that these records have resurfaced, the Holocaust Museum puts the number of Serbs killed by the Ustashe at 300,000. That number, the New York Times reports in its story today, was immediately challenged by a Croat diplomat.

The Holocaust Museum has a prepared a pretty awesome online presentation of its Jasenovac collection.
- posted by Amy @ 11/14/2001 12:39:00 PM

 

CHEF'S CLEAVERS CLEAR SECURITY
The Chicago Tribune takes Argenbright Security Inc. to task over new security lapses at airports in Chicago, Miami and Boston. Before boarding a United flight in Chicago, a chef was found with two cleavers in his bag. The bag had cleared Argenbright's security at O'Hare and previously for his connecting flight from Miami, where the same company runs security. In Boston, another Argenbright worker left her post for a few minutes and "caused hundreds of Delta Airlines passengers to be forced out of a gate area to be rescreened." The Miami Herald has an interesting comment from an FAA official:

However, the Federal Aviation Administration isn't sure there was any problem at Miami.
"When he was screened in Miami, they found a pair of scissors, a nail file and a razor, which were all confiscated," said FAA spokesman Christopher White. "They found the knives in O'Hare."

The Boston Globe story notes this is the second time since Sept. 11 that Argenbright has been caught at Boston with an unstaffed security checkpoint.
» UNITED COULD FACE FINE
» A WHOLE LOTTA KNIVES
- posted by Amy @ 11/14/2001 10:53:00 AM

 

DEMOCRATIZING JOURNALISM
The Online Journalism Review has posted my latest offering, "Democratizing Journalism," about the spike in personal journalism after the Sept. 11 attacks. Let me know what you think.
- posted by Amy @ 11/13/2001 02:11:00 PM

 

BBC: AL-JAZEERA'S KABUL OFFICE DESTROYED
The BBC reports that a U.S. missile destroyed the Kabul offices of al-Jazeera, which is frequently described as the Arab world's version of CNN. No one was hurt in the attack. The BBC report, however, has no comment from U.S. sources, not even a "no comment." Mind you, NATO did indeed bomb Serbian media outlets in 1999.
- posted by Amy @ 11/13/2001 12:26:00 PM

 

WSJ: BIRDS MAY HAVE CAUSED LATEST CRASH
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that there was a large amount of "foreign object debris," or "FOD" in one of the downed engines of American Airlines Flight 587. It indicates "the engine may have ingested a flock of birds and then caught on fire." The WSJ report is now available via MSNBC.com.
- posted by Amy @ 11/13/2001 11:33:00 AM

 

FRIENDLY READING MATERIAL
Thought I'd come up with a little list of some good reading material from some people you may already know. Matt Welch has no doubt again stirred up the good citizens of the San Fernando Valley with his latest op-ed, Saudis Have an Odd Way of Being Allies. Emmanuelle redesigned her site and has posted some links to the tribute to her Radio France Internationale colleague, Johanne Sutton, who was among the three journalists killed in Afghanistan on Sunday. Eric Wahlgren at BusinessWeek.com survived the latest cutbacks there, a subject he's been writing about lately. One of his recent stories advises that in these times, the job search may take as long as a year for some people. Check out his How Long a Hunt? Ken Layne has been developing a theory about a bin Laden/James Bond connection that's worth following. The Rough & Tumble site, which has a fabulous daily summary of news stories in California papers, is having funding problems and is asking for donations. And if you'd like to participate in Rev. Pierce's Web experiment, check out his reasons why you should send him a dollar to buy a car. He only wants your money if you don't know him. He's up to $303 so far.
- posted by Amy @ 11/13/2001 11:11:00 AM

 

HOW THE NORTH TOWER FELL
Before you throw out the Sunday Times, make sure you check out the very fine graphic in the back of the B section that illustrates the leading theory explaining how the north tower collapsed. It's in the "A Nation Challenged" section, attached to a story by James Glanz. It explains how the weight load was transferred in an arch around the impact site, allowing more people to escape the tower. It was only when the heat exceeded 1,100 degrees that specific elements of the building began to melt and trigger the chain reaction that brought the tower down, "with the upper floors striking the ground at an estimated 120 miles per hour."
- posted by Amy @ 11/12/2001 12:34:00 PM

 

PLANE CRASH IN QUEENS
Everything looks and sounds normal from here in the West Village. No smoke, very few sirens. Though we're about an hour or so from Rockaways. I checked a few sites and CNN.com looks to have the best information so far, including numbers of passengers and crew. ABCNews.com has a short report up, with a witness and no wire copy. They are also running streaming video of the site. So far Reuters has only a two sentence pickup from CNN (which was relying heavily on CBS since it happened.) AP has three grafs available via Yahoo! and also quotes from CNN and gets a no comment from American Airlines. MSNBC.com has a staff and wire report up.
- posted by Amy @ 11/12/2001 10:27:00 AM