13th Annual Kansas City 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb serves as reminder of what happened

Firefighters from eight different states met in Kansas City on Sunday for the 13th annual Kansas City 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb.

By Mark Poulose Published: Sep. 10, 2023 at 9:24 PM EDT|Updated: 39 minutes ago

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - Firefighters from eight different states met in Kansas City on Sunday for the 13th annual Kansas City 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb.

The event is meant to honor the 343 New York City firefighters who lost their lives on September 11, 2001.

“Every year, we get further away from the events actually taking place, but never forgetting stays at the forefront of our minds,” said Kevin Joles, a firefighter in Lawrence and spokesperson for the memorial climb.

343 firefighters climbed 110 stories at 1111 Main to honor the FDNY firefighters who perished 22 years ago.

“The whole importance of it is as you’re going through the stairs, to remember, talk about stories, to show them that they are not forgotten,” said Dave Bova, the event director.

This year’s event was the 13th edition of the KC Stair Climb. The event draws firefighters from across the country.

“We get about 60-80 departments that do it every year,” Bova said. “We’ve almost had every single state represented here in Kansas City. Guys drive from all over the country to be here.”

Firefighters make the climb in full gear, which adds about 80 pounds. They had to climb to the top of the Town Pavilion building three times.

“It doesn’t take 10 minutes. It takes well over an hour,” said Joles. “They are usually sticking together step by step, staircase after staircase.”

Event organizers told KCTV5 it’s important for them to hold the event each year, so people remember the lives lost more than 20 years ago.

“This is going to be an event that as we get farther and farther away from it, it’s going to get more difficult to continue to want to do this,” said Joles. “This is a good remembrance of not only the 343 that died 22 years ago, but anyone who has fallen in the line of duty.”

https://www.kctv5.com/2023/09/11/13th-annual-kansas-city-911-memorial-stair-climb-serves-reminder-what-happened/

Sandy Healing Field honors first responders, victims of 9/11 attacks

by Victoria Hill, KUTVSun, September 10th 2023, 8:55 PM EDT

SANDY, Utah (KUTV) — Several Utah cities are creating a space to honor first responders and victims who lost their lives on Sept. 11, 2001.

Monday marks 22 years since the terrorist attacks on the United States.

In Sandy, a healing field features thousands of American flags on display just south of city hall.

The healing field was created to provide visitors with a sense of hope and a space to reflect.

Younger Utahns who were not alive during the attacks are also given an opportunity to learn about the history of Sept. 11.

The field is also a space to honor service members and first responders from Utah. The Sandy Police K-9 Unit shared on Sunday that K-9 Trigg visited the field to visit the flag dedicated to his handler, Officer Brad Taylor, who died on Sept. 3 due to a medical condition.

According to organizers, there are approximately 318 flags at the field honoring Utah service members and first responders.

The Sandy Healing Field is open through Tuesday.

https://kutv.com/news/local/sandy-city-healing-field-honors-first-responders-victims-of-911-sept-11-2001-attacks-american-flags-utah

Impact on physical and mental health

The events of 9/11 ushered in a new era of media coverage of collective trauma, where terrorism and other forms of large-scale violence are transmitted into the daily lives of children and Americans families.

I have been exploring these issues with my collaborators Roxane Cohen Silver and E. Alison Holman. My colleagues surveyed a nationally representative sample of over 3,400 Americans shortly after 9/11 and then followed them for three years after the attacks.

In the weeks and months following the 9/11 attacks, media-based exposure was associated with psychological distress. This included acute stress (which is similar to PTS but must be experienced in the first month of exposure), post-traumatic stress and ongoing fears and worries about future acts of terrorism (in the months following the attacks).

These harmful effects persisted in the years following 9/11. For example, the team found measurable impact on the mental and physical health (such as increased risk of heart diseases) of the sample three years after the attacks. Importantly, those who responded with distress in the immediate aftermath were more likely to report subsequent problems as well.

These findings bear close resemblance to research led by psychologist William Schlenger, whose team found that Americans who reported watching more hours of 9/11 television in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 were more likely to report symptoms resembling PTSD. For example, those who reported watching four to seven hours were almost four times as likely to report such symptoms compared to those who watched less.

These findings were echoed in work conducted by Michael W. Otto, who also found that more hours of 9/11-related television watching was associated with higher post-traumatic stress symptoms in children under 10 in the first year following the attacks.

9/11’s impact on children

However, it is also the case that studies have found the number of children who reported longer-term distress symptoms to be relatively low. Among other factors, children whose parents had low coping abilities or themselves had learning disabilities tended to report higher distress.

For example, my collaborator Virginia Gil-Rivas, who studied American adolescents exposed to 9/11 only through the media, found that symptoms of post-traumatic distress decreased in most adolescents at the one-year mark. An important finding of her study was how parental coping abilities and parental availability to discuss the attacks made a difference.

Furthermore, children who had prior mental health problems or learning disabilities tended to be at higher risk for distress symptoms. That could be because children prone to anxiety in general experienced increased feelings of vulnerability.

Despite the number of studies that have followed children over the course of several years, no studies have comprehensively examined the long-term impact of 9/11 on children’s development and adjustment. That is because it is difficult to compare American children who lived through 9/11 with those who did not, since almost every American child was exposed to images of 9/11 at some point in time.

This limits the ability of researchers to examine how children’s lives might have changed over time.

However, some researchers believe that even media-based exposure to collective trauma could likely have a longer-term impact on the attitudes and beliefs of those who grew up in a post-9/11 world. It is possible, for example, that exposure to 9/11 and other acts of terrorism has led to fears of perceived threats, political intolerance, prejudice and xenophobia in some American children.

How 9/11 trauma impacts people today

Years later, a bigger question is: How does the collective trauma of 9/11 affect people today?

Over the past several years, my team and I have sought to address many of the issues that remained unanswered in the scientific literature after 9/11. We sought to replicate and extend the findings initially produced after 9/11 through an examination of responses to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, the worst act of terrorism in America since 9/11.

To this end, we surveyed 4,675 Americans. Our sample was demographically representative, meaning that our sample proportionally matched the U.S. Census data on key indicators such as ethnicity, income, gender and marital status.

This allowed us to make stronger inferences about how “Americans” responded. Within the first two to four weeks of the Boston Marathon bombings, we surveyed our sample about their direct and media-based exposure to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and their subsequent psychological responses.

Our study found that as media exposure (a sum of daily hours of Boston Marathon bombing-related television, radio, print, online news and social media coverage) increased, so did respondents’ acute stress symptoms. This was even after statistically accounting for other variables typically associated with distress responses (such as mental health).

People who reported more than three hours of media exposure had higher probability of reporting high acute stress symptoms than were people who were directly exposed to the bombing.

Then, last year, we sought to explore whether the accumulation of exposure to events like 9/11 and other collective trauma might influence responses to subsequent events like the Boston Marathon bombing.

Once again, we used data from demographically representative samples of people who lived in the New York and Boston metropolitan areas. We assessed people who lived in the New York and Boston areas to facilitate a stronger comparison of direct and media-based exposure to 9/11 and the Boston Marathon bombing: people who lived in New York or Boston were more likely to meet criteria for “trauma exposure.”

This study had two primary, congruent findings. First, people who experienced greater numbers of direct exposure to prior collective trauma (e.g., 9/11, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, Superstorm Sandy) reported higher acute stress symptoms after the Boston Marathon bombings.

Second, greater amounts of media-based live exposure (i.e., people watched or listened to the event as it occurred on live television, radio, or online streaming) to prior collective trauma were also associated with higher acute stress symptoms after the Boston Marathon bombing.

So greater direct and media-based exposure to prior collective trauma was linked with greater acute stress responses (e.g., anxiety, nightmares, trouble concentrating) after a subsequent event.

Stay informed, but limit exposure

Overall, our research indicates that the impact on children growing up post-9/11 likely extends well beyond the physical and mental health effects of exposure – be it direct or media-based. Each tragic incident that individuals witness, even if only through the media, likely has a cumulative effect.

Nevertheless, the positive finding is that most people are resilient in the face of tragedy. In the early years following 9/11, several studies examined how 9/11 impacted children nationally. Like adults, children exposed both directly and through the media tended to be resilient in the early years following the attacks and symptoms generally decreased over time.

Even so, being aware of the potential for distress through media exposure is important. Even small percentages can have large implications for our nation’s physical and mental health. For example, in the case of 9/11, 10 percent of a nationally-representative sample reporting post-traumatic stress represents 32,443,375 Americans with similar symptoms.

So, people should stay informed, but limit repeated exposure to disturbing images, which can elicit post-traumatic stress and lead to negative psychological and physical health outcomes.The Conversation

Biden needs to be in NYC or DC on 9/11: Guy Benson

Big Weekend Show September 10, 2023

'The Big Weekend Show' panelists discuss President Biden's plans to observe the 22nd anniversary of 9/11.

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6336940127112

DeSantis invited to meet with 9/11 families in NYC to commemorate 22nd anniversary of terror attacks

By Selim Algar Published Sep. 5, 2023, 7:03 p.m. ET

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will meet with families of 9/11 victims in New York City to commemorate the 22nd anniversary of the terror attacks Monday, The Post has learned.

Seven families invited the Republican governor and first lady Casey DeSantis to meet with them at the site of the attacks to mark this year’s anniversary, a DeSantis spokesperson said.

The details of their Manhattan itinerary next week have not yet been released.

President Joe Biden will observe the date in Alaska with first responders and their families, according to reports.

DeSantis first huddled with the 9/11 families at a Memorial Day barbecue at the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee after they had rebuked former President Donald Trump for hosting a Saudi-backed golf tourney that same https://nypost.com/2023/09/05/desantis-to-meet-with-9-11-families-in-nyc-on-22nd-anniversary/

Mike Pence Says He's 'Deeply Offended' By Vivek Ramaswamy's 9/11 'Truth' Claim

Ben Blanchet August 10, 2023

Former Vice President Mike Pence declared that he was “deeply offended” by “conspiracy theories” from Vivek Ramaswamy after his fellow GOP presidential candidate questioned the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Pence, in comments to New Hampshire’s Union Leader newspaper, slammed Ramaswamy for telling conservative Blaze TV’s Alex Stein that he doesn’t believe the government “has told us the truth” about the terror attacks and that he doesn’t believe the 9/11 Commission.

Pence said the 38-year-old Ramaswamy “was probably in grade school” on 9/11 while he was on Capitol Hill.

“I think comments like that, conspiracy theories like that, dishonor the service and sacrifice of our armed forces who fought against our enemies determined to kill us,” Pence said.

Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur who has pledged to pardon Donald Trump if elected, said he had “no evidence to suggest” the moon landing was fake before answering Stein’s question on whether 9/11 “was an inside job or exactly what the government tells us.”

“I don’t believe the government has told us the truth,” Ramaswamy said. “Again, I’m driven by evidence and data. What I’ve seen in the last several years is we have to be skeptical of what the government does tell us.”

“I haven’t seen evidence to the contrary, but do I believe everything the government told us about it? Absolutely not. Do I believe the 9/11 Commission? Absolutely not.”

Stein chimed in: “Yeah, 9/11 Commission lied.”

https://news.yahoo.com/mike-pence-says-hes-deeply-115001333.html

How 9/11 influenced the way conspiracy theories spread today

The theories began almost as soon as the attacks had finished, writes Andrew Griffin 9/8/2023

There are some things so difficult to countenance that it can seem simply easier to believe they didn’t happen: that one man could put a bullet through the president’s skull, that human beings could stand on the moon, that a seemingly average man might walk into a school and kill the children inside. And, throughout history, many people have chosen simply not to believe those unfathomable events, telling themselves stories that help make the world make sense, albeit more sinister.

So when the first plane and then another collided with the Twin Towers in Lower Manhattan in September 2001, it opened a wound so unfathomable in its horror that it seemed necessary to tell a new kind of story – one that helped make sense of the tragedy, even as it distorted it. The conspiracy theories began almost as soon as the attacks had finished, and they have stayed with us to this day.

The theories themselves are so well-worn that they have progressed all the way to memes: the common refrain that “jet fuel can’t melt steel beams”, once an earnestly communicated part of conspiracy lore, has now become so hackneyed that it is almost meaningless. But there are many others, which either tend to suggest that that the US could have intervened but decided not to, or that it actually orchestrated the attacks itself.

At the same time, however, they borrowed from tropes and ideas that had existed for centuries before, and which have continued to prove popular in the decades since. For the most part, 9/11 conspiracy theories are the same as those that went before, and those that followed, with the nouns swapped.

Perhaps the most distinct facet about the 9/11 conspiracy theories is the way they were pushed through formats that are familiar now in everything from advertising to the arts. In 2005, as the early viral internet we know today was finding its feet – it was the year of the first Pepe the Frog drawing, the beginnings of “Chuck Norris facts” and the “Million Dollar Homepage” – there appeared a video known asLoose Change, a documentary that presented the central ideas of the 9/11 conspiracy theory in a way that sent it swiftly across the internet.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/911-attacks-conspiracy-theory-b2408214.html

Authoritarians are the reason we still have 9/11 conspiracy theories

John A. Tures September 07, 2023

On September 11, 2001, 19 hijackers from several nationalities, but aligned with Al-Qaeda, flew four planes that led to the deaths of all aboard these commercial jets, and many more in World Trade Center and Pentagon. Despite the overwhelming evidence in support of what happened, a small number, fueled by populists, reject this notion in favor of a series of highly contradictory explanations. These narratives are either launched or amplified by authoritarians, seeking perhaps converts to their ideology, perhaps trivializing what happened to the victims.

It’s been more than two decades since that tragic day. But far from forgetting about it, some are seeking a far different explanation for the day’s event. Their conspiracy theories are incredibly varied and therefore impossibly inconsistent, yet the lack of logic behind this has hardly served as a deterrent for the most hard core of those who spread them.

For example, we’ve heard that it was a missile, not a plane, flown by representatives from the Saudi Arabian government, Israel, and Iraq too, along with U.S. CIA agents, just to name a few. And if you think the cockpit is getting a little crowded, there’s also the theory that they were flown by remote control, that the buildings were brought down by controlled detonation, that the USA government allowed this to happen too, or simply did the job itself. Motives are just as varied: to take down the U.S. Government, or it was by the U.S. Government to take down the Muslims, or part of a “Jewish World Conspiracy?” There’s even some that say it was about blaming Cuba or that a SAM shot down a plane. Aliens can’t be far behind on the list.

The percentage of Americans who believe this stuff was small at first, owing to patriotism and rejecting the largely foreign content of the conspiracies, but with the invasion of Iraq and the dubious assumptions and rationale for that fueled a lot of questions, leading to a number of truthers by 2006. But by the publication of a 2011 article, their numbers had fallen to 15%, still higher than it should be. It’s unclear what those numbers are today.

Now there’s a new trend in 9/11 conspiracies. Though the anti-Semitic conspiracies and many of the questionable arguments and contradictory contentions have been debunked, we’ve seen Russia pick up the baton, with its bot farms spreading disinformation on this and a host of other subjects. Despite the incredible incoherence of these arguments, they persist in the minds of the hard core believers. And now some populist presidential candidates have dabbled in these conspiracies, and for a good reason, when you see who is willing to believe in them.

In his 2017 article in Politics and Policy, GSU Professor Sean Richey writes “Using 2012 American National Election Study data, I find a clear and robust relationship between the authoritarian personality and conspiracy theory beliefs. In all models, authoritarianism is a chief predictor for a predisposition toward both conspiratorial beliefs.” For this study, this included those who believed in the discredited “birther” theories about Obama and where he came from, as well as these contradictory “truther” arguments. Sadly, Richey finds this authoritarian personality and predisposition to believe conspiracies “is linked to greater anxiety and cognitive difficulties with higher order thinking.”

There’s a reason why foreign governments and domestic opportunists are pushing conspiracies about 9/11 and other elements of American history and life. “’When you can’t subjugate people using the appeal of your own model, you have to undermine the allegiance of citizens to their own system,’ Rudy Reichstadt explained,” as reported in LeMonde. “And the conspiracy scene, this machine for hating existing elites and democratic institutions, is a perfect channel.”

This 9/11, let’s honor those who lost their lives by rejecting the arguments of those who push the conspiracies. They undermine what the victims believed in before the terrorists killed them.

https://www.alternet.org/911-conspiracies/