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Meet Rita Lawlor. She is seven years old, and recently received an award from the Sarasota County Fire Department for saving her mother's life. Upon finding her mother unconscious in their home, little Rita "called 911, but first I slapped her with a piece of pizza." [Buzzfeed, MySunCoast] More »
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Animatronic tabloid rage sex screed-writer Andrea Peyser has set aside her sexcellent sexcapades for a day in order to get good and rageful about something deplorably predictable. "More rage, less sexxx" may be Andrea Peyser's catchphrase, in 2012 (time will tell). What is Andrea rageful about, today? Well, let's just see what's in the movie theaters, shall we? More »
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Just when you thought Mark Wahlberg had traded his racist streetfighting for hamburger franchises and Oscar nods, he gives a crazed interview bragging about bare-knuckling boxing with terrorists and never masturbating. This can only end in disaster. More »
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MVRDV, the Rotterdam-based architectural firm that caused an uproar last week when they unveiled plans for a building that reminded a lot of people of 9/11, would like it very much if you would stop calling their offices and threatening their lives, please. Well, not you per se — because you presumably do not breathe exclusively through your mouth and have a "United We Stand" tattoo etched across your torso — but whoever has been leaving those kinds of messages, kindly stop. More »
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"AAAAAGH! YOU HAVE ERECTED A TERRIFYING MONUMENT TO THE NIGHTMARES OF 9/11!!!" was probably not the reaction that Seoul-based Yongsan Dream Hub corporation had in mind when they unveiled their plans today for an ambitious new construction project: Two high-rises connected by a "pixelated cloud" structure that, tragically, calls to mind the kinds of images you don't really want to call to mind when looking at a new set of twin towers. The design is by Dutch architectural firm MVRDV, who seemingly had no ill will when they envisioned the cloud as a kind of oasis in the sky, with "a large connecting atrium, a wellness centre, conference centre, fitness studio, various pools, restaurants and cafes." (Rendering here.) Actually, now that I've sat with it for a little while, a floating sauna inside a pixelated cloud sounds pretty relaxing — the kind of place Mario and Luigi might go to unwind after a hard day... More »
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Here is the latest trailer for Stephen Daldry's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and it is one damp mess. Based on Jonathan Safran Foer's 2005 novel, it's got all the requisite benchmarks of a sobfest-out-on-Christmas day movie. Behold, the Holy Trifecta: the wondrous and precociously wise child; the underlying "family is the true meaning of Christmas" message; and the most crucial nail in the Christmas film coffin: Tom Hanks. More »
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Hi Kids! Welcome to Gawker's famous "Kiddie Corner," a place just for you. Today, let's talk about 911. Does anyone know what 911 is? That's right! It's a phone number. A very important phone number. It's Santa Claus' phone number! More »
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If we still had a heart (we recently sold it for firewood), it would go out to Mamadou and Assetou Sy: a Manhattan couple of the Muslim faith who have been targeted by 911-dialing pranksters at least 155 times in the past two years. Are their harassers anti-Muslim? More »
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The Today Show got its hands on a harrowing 911 call from a family of three that became trapped in a corn maze in Massachusetts, and needed a rescue squad to get them out of the living labyrinth of hay fever and despair. More »
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Yesterday a passing motorist called 911 after spotting this Halloween decoration, which shows a fake man trapped under a riding mower, his fake-man blood messing up the lawn. Fake! Yet still scary enough to merit a "Caution: Graphic Images" warning from TV station WBTV. Boo!!! More »
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Usually, when you're in a high-speed chase with the police, you only have three options: pull over and surrender, outrun the police and escape, or crash and die. But what if there were a fourth option? More »
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On September 11, a Muslim man going by the name "Tarek G." on Yelp ordered a burger from the Houston restaurant Petrol Station and received it in a "Happy September 11" box complete with an airplane crashing into one of the Twin Towers. Now that's personalized customer service. More »
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The family of Jeffrey Schreier was a little miffed when they visited the newly-opened 9/11 memorial this weekend and discovered that his first name was spelled "Jeffery." And this man died in a terrorist attack. No respect! More »
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Leroy McKelvey, a 59-year-old Dallas Cowboys fan, went with three friends to see his team face off against the New York Jets on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Naturally, emotions were running high. But before the game even started, trouble was afoot in upper-deck Section 324 of MetLife stadium: More »
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New York Times columnist Paul Krugman became conservative persona non grata on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 yesterday when he argued that people's exploitation of the tragedy for political gain tore the country apart at the precise moment it should have come together, thereby turning future anniversaries into occasions for shame. More »
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Remember the various reports of "suspicious activity" on planes on the anniversary of 9/11? Here's the story of one of the people who was detained—apparently for being half-Arab and sitting next to two Indian men who got up to use the bathroom in succession. Very suspicious! More »
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Those patriotic Internet-Americans who honor the anniversary of 9/11 by surfing political blogs all day for something to get offended about seized on a pointed blog post from New York Times columnist Paul Krugman yesterday, and show no sign of letting up. Paul Krugman is now the most worst person in the history of America, for pointing out that certain politicians made some bad decisions after 9/11. More »
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By George W. Bush's own account, "the most nervous moment" of his presidency—indeed, of his entire life—was throwing the first pitch at the 2001 World Series. More »
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If you had to think of one thing that stood out on the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, you would probably say there was a lack of television tributes, right? Funny, because that's how the New York Post sees it, too. Fact-based reporting from the paper: More »
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In keeping with its role as America's official restaurant, Hooters has created a one-minute 9/11 commemorative video in which some of its orange-clad server-troops honor our nation's blue- and camouflage-clad service-troops. Hooters' business rival Canz apparently failed to release any such video, and therefore does not care about the troops. More »
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These photographs of today's September 11 memorial ceremonies in New York City, Arlington, and Afghanistan speak for themselves. [Image via AP] More »
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Jumpy? Us? On the tenth anniversary of 9/11? Who's jumpy? Oh my god did you hear fighter jets got scrambled to intercept a flight headed to New York this is it we're all going to die oh god More »
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Paul Simon was supposed to perform "Bridge Over Troubled Water" at the World Trade Center site today. He did "Sound of Silence" instead, not that we're complaining: NPR's Margot Adler called it "perhaps the most moving moment of the ceremony," and we don't doubt it. (If nothing else, the lyrics to "Sound of Silence" are much better, and arguably more appropriate, at least in the ways that their meanings have changed between 1964 and 2001, and between 2001 and now.) More »
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How do talk about 9/11, ten years later? What stories do we tell? What ideas grab us? We made a word cloud of editorials from 15 prominent local and national papers to see what came up. More »
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Bill Clinton, our most rascally of presidents, may have been out of office for ten years. But the guy can still bring the gravitas when he wants to—as he did today at the unfinished memorial to the victims of United 93, with a speech that's perfect in almost every way. More »
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The September 11 attacks placed all kinds of characters—some sinister, some sympathetic—in the public eye, both making careers and ending others. It helped conspiracy theorists attract followings, terrorists earn life sentences, rescue dogs win medals, and patriotic country music stars gain crossover fans. Let's check in with some of the folks (and dogs) for whom 9/11 became a watershed personal branding moment, whether they intended it to or not. More »
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Most people would agree that the ten years since the September 11th terrorist attacks have been pretty shitty ones. War, disaster, and economic collapse have all seemed to come pouring out of the hole at Ground Zero as if from Pandora's box. But! Light! More »
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The Mayor of 9/11, Rudy Giuliani, made a stop on The View this morning during his 10-year-anniversary media tour, where he considered a common hypothetical: Would America be "ready" for another 9/11, in the sense that we'd put politics aside and unite as a country again? He thinks we would, and that we'd all forget about terrible budget battles and whatever else we'd be bickering over. In that case, let's try it! No, that's probably the wrong takeaway. More »
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It seems like we've heard every last story remotely connected to the events of 9/11. But I'd never heard this one: the one about the female fighter pilot who came thisclose to a patriotic suicide mission that day. More »
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Ahead of Sunday's 10th anniversary of 9/11, Stephen Colbert interviewed former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw on tonight's Report about what he was doing when he learned of the attacks, how he got through the day, and the degree to which the tragedy changed America. You'll find all of Brokaw's responses in this video, but let's just quickly address the first one: he was in the middle of a yoga class. More »
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Officials "are very concerned" about new information regarding a planned terror strike on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, CBS News reports, with the plot potentially targeting either New York City or Washington, D.C. The threat is "specific and credible but unconfirmed." Great. What does that mean? More »
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Did you know that a Saudi family living in Sarasota, Fla., that met with 9/11 mastermind Mohammed Atta disappeared without a trace—leaving behind their cars, food, and furniture—two weeks before the attacks? Neither did Congress, or the 9/11 Commission! The FBI didn't think to tell them. More »
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In the excellent New York magazine 9/11 issue, Mark Lilla says, "The tragedy will be mourned, then trivialized, then commercialized, and then amnesia will set in." There are some tchotchkes that mourn, trivialize, and commercialize that tragedy all at once. Here is the tackiest 9/11 related crap we could find. More »
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The New York Times has assembled and posted more than two hours of military, air traffic, and airline radio communications—some of it never before heard in public—from the morning of September 11, 2001. It is depressing and fascinating. More »
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Aging television presenter Joe Scarborough is so desperate for you to know that he's cool and plays guitar and likes Elvis Costello that he decided to defile the memories of all those who died on 9/11 and in its subsequent wars with this horrible fucking song that will make you crack your teeth open with rage if you listen to it. Serving as a foot soldier for Newt Gingrich and rushing to the defense of an abortion doctor's murderer are no longer the worst things Scarborough has ever done. Playing rock star with dead people is. More »
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Noted Islamophobe Allen West must not own a television or a computer. Yesterday, West was stirring up one of 2010's dumbest controversies at an anti-Ground Zero Mosque meet-and-greet in DC, where he remarked, "We must never let events like Pearl Harbor or 9/11 go away. We must never forget the things that happened on those two days..." Call me crazy, but I don't think that's gonna happen anytime soon. More »
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Bruce Springsteen's The Rising has become, as the tenth anniversary of the attacks that inspired it approaches, the closest thing we have to an official soundtrack to 9/11. It is the "soaring musical statement" of that day's impact on our national psyche, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer's music critic. New Yorkers selected it in a poll conducted by WNYC as one of the top three records they want to hear on the radio on the anniversary. High school teachers are using it to evoke the visceral pain and confusion of that day for their clueless students. The problem with this is that The Rising is a terrible, bad, no-good record that cheapens us all. More »
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For the unlucky ones, the losses of 9/11—even ten years on—remain unspeakable. For the rest of us, in addition to mayhem and horror, that day unleashed a bevy of irritations and annoyances that continue to reverberate across the years—and are quite speakable. Here's what we have 9/11 to thank for. More »
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The two monoliths of the World Trade Center were such an integral part of the New York skyline, that you didn't even notice them in the many movie shots of Gotham's majestic sprawl. Now, a decade after they fell, their presence in a movie scene is all you can see. Here are some of their greatest starring rolls. More »
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Before she was Tiger Woods' mistress and a member of Dr. Drew's Celebrity Rehab harem, Rachel Uchitel was the 9/11 widow featured in an iconic Associated Press photograph that appeared on frontpages of newspapers the world around. As the ten-year anniversary of her former fiance's death approaches, Uchitel reflects on her loss: More »
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