about the rush of confidence

President of the United States George W. Bush visited Ground Zero after 9/11, and his team arranged for him to speak while standing with rescue workers, firefighters, and police officers atop the rubble of the Twin Towers. Someone in the crowd yelled out, "We can't hear you!" President Bush produced the perfect response: "I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!"

 

 

Notes: 

Bob Beckwith was the firefighter standing next to President Bush. Bob died earlier this month.

Link to segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7OCgMPX2mE

 

A thing on "The Spirit of Terrorism", essays by Jean Baudrillard

Was disappointed with these essays. Baudrillard alternates between skin-deep pontifications on the symbolic meaning of terror and basic leftist moralizing against the methods and consequences of US hegemony. Too bad: despite the volumes of writing on the attacks, I expect there's a real dearth of good literature on the subject.

Baudrillard doesn't argue points so much as reflect on them, so his writing is loosely structured. The edition I read was translated by Chris Turner.