In poor taste

I received a DVD in the mail yesterday. While I participated enthusiastically in the 2004 campaign cycle, I'm beginning to regret some of the donations I made because I think my name has been sold to some real.. let's say "unusual" groups, and I don't use the term lightly.

The DVD is called "Confronting the Evidence: A Call to Reopen the 9-11 Investigation". (The word "Investigation" is misspelled, being short an "i", as it appears on the cover). I haven't watched the disc, and I don't plan to, but judging from the URLs listed on the back and some of the details "exposed" in the gatefold, it's a big conspiracy tract about that terrible day: The government knows more than they'll admit, the Twin Towers were blown up from the inside, the air quality in Manhattan has been poisoned to a far greater degree than the EPA will ever admit, etc. Standard black helicopter stuff.

Normally, I would have ignored this disc and tossed it into my recycling bin. But the cover image bothers me so much, and it has for so long - not just in its appearance here but in the many ways I've seen it reproduced in the last three years. It's United Airlines Flight 175, a split second before it crashes in the south tower of the WTC. It's full of passengers, crew members, and a handful of terrorists. When this photo was taken, all (or at least most) of those people were alive.

In the days, months, and years since September 11th, we've all seen footage of the attacks played out endless in news clips and documentaries. The images of the two towers billowing dark smoke instantly puts the same gnawing pit in my stomach that I've always gotten watching black and white footage of the empty shell of the USS Arizona leaning to one side and burning violently. You know you are watching something that has changed everything, and you are at a loss of words to explain exactly how. You just know things wouldn't ever be the same.

But these before-the-disaster photos and film footage have always struck me as even more tragic and difficult than those taken directly afterwards. While one can tastefully use footage of the twin towers burning to aid a broadcast or make a point, it is really impossible to do the same with footage capturing the moment before disaster strikes. To use a less drastic example, it's like the difference between pictures of President Kennedy and his wife deplaning at Love Field the morning of the President's death, against pictures of Mrs. Kennedy, in her blood-stained outfit, standing next to Lyndon Johnson hours later as he is sworn in. The latter picture evokes a flood of emotions: Sorrow for the death of President Kennedy; pity for a widow and mother with little fatherless children; and even pride in a nation continuing to function in such a dark hour. An even more difficult clip to swallow is watching the President's brother, Robert, rally his supporters hours after winning the California primary in 1968. He is understandably cheerful, with his smiling wife behind him. Minutes later, he'll be destroyed in what still seems, decades later, like a pointless, random act of violence.

These images and footage are so difficult - so much more so than actually seeing the twin towers finally collapse - because they capture a moment of impending doom, and effectively taunt the viewer with his own helplessness. I can't stop Flight 175 from hitting the south tower. When I see it, poised to strike and captured forever on film, I can only think of the lives of the people trapped on that plane, still breathing as the photo is snapped but gone forever by the time the camera is ready for another picture.

OK, now I'll throw this DVD away. If you produced it, please take me off your mailing list.