September 11: Two thoughts

The 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attack on the United States has come and gone.

The non-stop coverage of this anniversary all that weekend long by all broadcast media is still ringing in our ears.

Two thoughts on it, belated as they are here:

1) how does this compare to the 20th anniversary of another attack? there must have been some commemorations of Pearl Harbor Day 20 years later, December 7, 1961 -- were they at all like this?

Was there all this much navel gazing?

2) if there is a difference, then is it fair to say that the predominance of 9/11 in the collective public consciousness has something to do with the use of "9-1-1" as the American way of dialing for emergency health?

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