Essential viewing, tonight, on CNN: John King's election-night analyses (as he presides over the network's touch-screen electoral maps).
King, as I have written previously in this space, is a terrific analyst and reporter. He is CNN's Chief National Correspondent, and is the host of the weekday program Inside Politics.
Today is the third anniversary of the attack at the Tree of Life synagogue, in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh.
At the time of the murders, in 2018, three separate Jewish congregations had a home in the synagogue: the Tree of Life Congregation, the New Light Congregation, and Congregation Dor Hadash (Dor Hadash means "new generation," in Hebrew). The attack occurred as Saturday morning Sabbath services were taking place.
Eleven congregants were shot and killed, during the approximately twenty-minute attack. Several other people were wounded, including four Pittsburgh police officers.
The individual arrested for the killings--virulently anti-Semitic, virulently hostile to immigrants--has not yet gone to trial. He had frequently expressed, online,
his hatred of Jews. Days before the killings, he had written of what he called (I
am not reproducing, here, the entire word) the "k*** infestation" in
the United States. After he was shot by police, at the synagogue, he surrendered--and said, according to a police officer, that "all these Jews need to die."
A book about the 2018 tragedy and its aftermath was
published this month. It is by journalist
Mark Oppenheimer, and is titled Squirrel Hill: The Tree of Life Synagogue
Shooting and the Soul of a Neighborhood.
Here is the link for the book, on amazon.com:
https://www.amazon.com/Squirrel-Hill-Synagogue-Shooting-Neighborhood/dp/0525657193/ref
The following is an engaging epigraph; it appears in writer Peter Orner's short story collection, Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge (Little, Brown and Company, 2013). The epigraph is from a short story by the writer Gina Berriault:
It’s over me like a ton of water, the things I don’t know.(I read Mr. Orner's book recently, and enjoyed it very much--while admiring, even more, his 2019 short story collection, Maggie Brown & Others, also from Little, Brown.)
Another epigraph I'm fond of is from a novel I've
had for years, but have not read (one of many books I have that are still to be read): Norman Mailer's The Deer Park, from 1955. The epigraph is from Andre Gide:
Please
do not understand me too quickly.
Recently, I tried to find, in the apartment, my paperback copy, from college, of E. M. Forster's Howards End. I came up empty; the book seems to have disappeared. The reason I wanted to find it? Simply to see, again (after many years), its brief, beautiful, memorable epigraph:
"Only connect..."
I always enjoyed watching (and listening to) Alan Kalter, on David Letterman's Late Show, on CBS.
He was the program's talented (and funny) announcer--from the fall of 1995, until the show left the air in May of 2015. He was also regularly featured in comedy segments on the program.
Mr. Kalter died this past Monday, at age 78.
Here is an obituary, from The New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/arts/television/alan-kalter-dead.html
On Sunday, the day following the 20th anniversary of September 11th, CBS's 60 Minutes devoted its broadcast to the subject of the Fire Department of New York City, and September 11th. 343 members of the FDNY were killed that day.
The program--employing video, audio, and still images from September 11th, as well as retrospective interviews--was extraordinary. Its host and narrator--and interviewer--was the very fine 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley.
Mr. Pelley's interviews for the program--of firefighters, fire officials, and surviving family members--were conducted with great sensitivity, and are deeply affecting, and gripping.
Here is the link to the September 12th 60 Minutes program:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/september-11-fdny-world-trade-center-60-minutes-2021-09-12/
The program, for your reference, is presented in segments, via separate links; the first three are titled "60 Minutes remembers 9.11: The FDNY."
After viewing the first segment, which will appear when accessing the above link (the segment is 14 minutes-plus in length), one must then locate the subsequent links, just beneath the video screen.
Part 2 (it is labeled as such) can be seen within the thumbnails/links below the screen, and is nearly 16 minutes long. After Part 2 concludes, however--it is, unfortunately, a bit confusing (yet very much worth the effort)--one will then likely need to go backwards, within the gallery of links, by clicking the arrow at the left side of the links, to find Part 3 (which is just under ten minutes long). The last segment, titled "Scott Pelley on the courage of the FDNY," is a little over a minute long; one will likely, again, need to click the left arrow, after the end of Part 3, to locate this segment.
The first three segments, one notes, appear in transcript form beneath the video screen.
Beneath the photo is the title "New York's Bravest," which is followed by this, about the day: "Fire fighters were still going in when the buildings collapsed. One ducked under his truck and emerged to find everyone else in his squad dead."
The picture was taken for Time by photographer James Nachtwey (VII Photo Agency).
Ms. Kelly, a veteran journalist, is one of the hosts of NPR's afternoon/evening news program, All Things Considered.
She is an excellent interviewer and reporter, and her manner, on the air, is appealing. She is straightforward, thorough; there is often, about her, an agreeable kind
of reserve.
Here are two of her recent on-air conversations:
In the first, from September 2nd, Kelly speaks with two physicians--one from Texas, one from Florida--whose hospitals have been overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients ("the vast majority" of the patients, as noted in the segment, were unvaccinated).
The second interview, from August 31st, is with novelist Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train; Hawkins and Kelly discuss her new novel, A Slow Fire Burning.
In addition to Ms. Kelly, All Things Considered features hosts Audie Cornish, Ailsa Chang,
and Ari Shapiro; typically, two of the
hosts appear on a given broadcast.
