"60 Minutes," and September 11th

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.

September 11th

This photograph, of New York firefighters, was taken on September 11th.  It is from a special issue of Time magazine, published soon after the catastrophe.

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).

Recommended Radio Host: NPR's Mary Louise Kelly

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).   

https://www.npr.org/2021/09/02/1033727665/as-covid-19-inundates-hospitals-staff-is-emotionally-pulverized

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.

https://www.npr.org/2021/08/31/1033002638/paula-hawkins-interrogates-tragedy-and-trauma-in-new-thriller-a-slow-fire-burnin

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.

Rosh Hashanah

Rosh Hashanah--the Jewish New Year--starts this evening, at sundown.  

The holiday is the beginning of Judaism's Days of Awe, the ten-day period which culminates in Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

If you are observing the High Holidays, my best wishes to you.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett turns away objections to a vaccine mandate

From New York Times Supreme Court reporter Adam Liptak:

The Supreme Court allowed Indiana University on Thursday to require students to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Eight students had sued the university, saying the requirement violated their constitutional rights to “bodily integrity, autonomy and medical choice.” But they conceded that exemptions to the requirement — for religious, ethical and medical reasons — “virtually guaranteed” that anyone who sought an exemption would be granted one.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who oversees the federal appeals court in question, turned down the students’ request for emergency relief without comment, which is the court’s custom in ruling on emergency applications. She acted on her own, without referring the application to the full court, and she did not ask the university for a response. Both of those moves were indications that the application was not on solid legal footing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/12/us/supreme-court-indiana-university-covid-vaccine-mandate.html

Twenty years

A month from today:  the twentieth anniversary of the September 11th catastrophe.

July of 1951

The link, below, is to a post on this blog from ten years ago.

The post (to which I made a few changes, before including the link, here) concerned, in part, two recordings from July, 1951 (one by Louis Armstrong, and one by the George Siravo Orchestra); it also concerned a weekly television show from 1951 starring bandleader Freddy Martin, The Freddy Martin Show (also known as The Hazel Bishop Show, after its lipstick sponsor). The program--on which my mother was a regular guest--aired on NBC from July to November of 1951.  I wrote about the program in my book about early TV.

There are a couple of references, in the original post, to "sixty years ago":  "sixty years ago this month," and "sixty years ago this week."

The passage of time most certainly startles;  those references, if written today, would read "seventy years ago."  My mother's first appearance on Freddy Martin's program--a show which in addition to Martin and his orchestra starred singer Merv Griffin, pianist Murray Arnold, and the vocal group The Martin Men--took place seventy years ago today.

https://andrewleefielding.blogspot.com/2011/07/july-1951.html