Just two days after the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks themselves, writer Michael Luongo's piece, “Ground Zero as Dark Tourist Site,” was honored with a gold medal in the Cultural Tourism category as part of the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition sponsored by the Society of American Travel Writers. Said the judges: On the edge of darkness is where Luongo masterfully informs us of what is rising from the ashes of our memories. He takes us to the Tribute WTC Visitor Center and offers glimpses into the National September 11 Memorial and Museum scheduled to open in 2012. How ... Read More
Who is Bombing Mexico’s Nanotech Labs?
August 30, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
As if drug-war wracked Mexico didn't already have enough problems: Nature reports that its nanotechnology research laboratories have been hit with a wave of letter bombs that have injured several people. "An eco-anarchist group calling itself Individuals Tending Towards Savagery" has claimed responsibility for most of the attacks, writes Leigh Philips. Personally, I suspect this 'group' is a lone nutcase; the tactic, the obscure and narrow range of targets, and the loquacious anti-technology screeds that accompany the bombings all echo the modus operandi of Ted Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber ... Read More
Things We Know That Aren’t True, Poverty and Terrorism Edition
August 16, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
You might think that poverty breeds terrorism. It's a fairly intuitive view, and it has been trumpeted by some major figures. Here's Archbishop Desmond Tutu, for instance: “You can never win a war against terror as long as there are conditions in the world that make people desperate — poverty, disease, ignorance.” And here's Colin Powell: “We can’t just stop with a single terrorist or a single terrorist organization; we have to go and root out the whole system. We have to go after poverty.” God knows, there are far, far worse outlets for the energy that has hummed and ... Read More
No Way Out: Exiting Afghanistan and Iraq
October 3, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
On Oct. 7, 2001, U.S. forces launched an offensive in Afghanistan with the aim of dismantling the al-Qaeda terror network and driving the radical Islamist Taliban government from power. That was a decade ago, and the war goes on. Today, the U.S. finds itself facing a clear but intractable question: How do we end wars? As the “long wars” of Afghanistan and Iraq rumble on, the answer becomes more elusive and more vague. In an August 2010 speech, President Obama described how the world had entered a new era, “an age without surrender ceremonies.” Perhaps Obama remembered that ... Read More
The Physics of Terror
September 9, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Last summer, physicist Aaron Clauset was telling a group of undergraduates who were touring the Santa Fe Institute about the unexpected mathematical symmetries he had found while studying global terrorist attacks over the past four decades. Their professor made a comment that brought Clauset up short. "He was surprised that I could think about such a morbid topic in such a dry, scientific way," Clauset recalls. "And I hadn't even thought about that. It was just ... I think in some ways, in order to do this, you have to separate yourself from the emotional aspects of it." If the professor's ... Read More
A Legacy of 9/11: Years of Increased Illness
September 9, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
To most Americans, the 9/11 terrorist attacks were shocking, frightening, enraging. Newly published research suggests they were also, quite literally, sickening. Two University of California, Irvine, researchers report the tragedy triggered a large and lingering rise in self-reported health problems, as well as visits to medical professionals, across the nation. Among a nationally representative sample of about 2,000 American adults, reports of physical ailments increased 18 percent over the three years following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. This story originally posted on July ... Read More
‘If a Tree Falls’ Revisits the Earth Liberation Front
September 8, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
The trajectory of Daniel McGowan's life is a familiar one: A young man from a conventional background finds meaning in a cause greater than himself. Thanks in part to overreaction by the authorities, he gradually becomes radicalized, dedicating himself to violent resistance — a course of action that grabs attention but ultimately backfires on him and his movement. An Islamic radical? White supremacist? Perhaps an anti-globalization anarchist? None of the above. McGowan was one of the key figures in the eco-terrorism of the 1990s, a man who used arson as a weapon in the fight to ... Read More
9/11 Memorial: Ground Zero as Dark Tourist Site
September 5, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
New York's ground zero, where the World Trade Center's Twin Towers once stood, is a place of what was and what will be. Ten years after terrorists flew planes into the buildings, the memories of what had been are fading into the dust of time and new construction. Chaos mixes with normality, pilings are driven into the ground, steel clatters as new structures rise. Bicyclists whiz past briefcase-toting commuters, both groups oblivious to curious onlookers straining to see through slits in the construction fences. These are the ground zero pilgrims, numbering daily in the thousands, many ... Read More
Sept. 11 Mood Study Based on Texting Is Flawed
May 19, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Last September, we reported on an imaginatively designed study that attempted to document how the mood of the nation shifted in the wake of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. German researchers analyzed the content of text messages sent to more than 85,000 American pagers on that day, and found indications of anger — that is, the use of words such as “hate” or “annoyed” — rose steadily as the hours went by. In contrast, the number of words indicating sadness or anxiety stayed relatively steady. As a way of gauging the public mood, the study was groundbreaking. However, ... Read More
Taking Liberties Back From the Patriot Act
May 17, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
America has a long — and at times embarrassing — history of curbing civil liberties in times of perceived peril. There were the Alien and Sedition Acts of the late 1700s, authorizing the deportation of immigrants and restricting the free speech of government critics during wartime. Later, there came the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, the investigation of citizens suspected of sympathizing with communism during the Cold War and the surveillance of antiwar activists during the Vietnam era. "In each of these cases," said Julian Sanchez, a researcher at the ... Read More
