Some 9/11 stuff from around here

If you hate when the media obsessively commemorates an anniversary like Sept. 11, you’ll enjoy Buzz Bissinger’s rant in the Philadelphia Daily News, in which he’s particularly annoyed with NPR’s coverage (he has a right to his say here – I know Buzz is a big public radio listener and supporter).

I get it, and I share Buzz’s disinterest a thousand stories that mostly sound the same. That said, here are a few things produced locally which caught my eye:

Daily News writer and Attytood blogger Will Bunch had an interesting piece Tuesday on ten unanswered questions about 9/11 – among them why NORAD misled investigators about the air defense response, whether top Saudi officials helped fund the attacks, and who killed five Americans with anthrax that fall.

In today’s Daily News, writer Chris Brennan recalls the craziness of his trip to Ground Zero on Sept. 11, including wondering at one point if a hijacked plane had crashed into Jenkintown.

And Fresh Air has a had a good week of interviews related in some way to Sept.  11, including my conversation which aired yesterday with Alissa Rubin, a New York Times reporter who has spent most of the last 10 years covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She’s a smart, incredibly grounded observer of the conflicts who sees disturbing trends in Afghanistan, and has some surprising things to say about on her own personal connection to the 9/11 attacks.

WHYY reporter Maiken Scott produced a one-hour documentary called Out of the Shadows on how treatment of trauma has changed in the years since the attacks. Much of that change was spurred by the return of thousands of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Finally, this isn’t local, but here’s The Onion’s take on the media’s wallowing in the 9/11 anniversary.