JMal CBC from Kenneth B Smith on Vimeo.

For eight or nine months after 9/11, I felt pretty depressed about the mass murder of people who were exactly like me and who on another day could easily have been me, and about the brutal attack on the city where I had made my home. Sometime in the spring, however, I read an article about a deputy fire chief named Orio Palmer, a marathoner who on 9/11 ran up eighty-some flights of stairs to reach a sky lobby that had been the point of impact, and who took charge of the scene and began directing rescue operations until, quite terribly, the building collapsed.

I cannot say why, but my mood was lifted when I learned about Orio Palmer. His magnificent courage, his steadiness, his calm determination to do what he had trained his whole life to do, just uplifted my entire spirit, and the terrible gloom I had felt for months fell away.

Later I began to collect stories of other acts of courage that day. Like that of Welles Crowther, a 25 year old kid who went to the floor of impact and rescued survivors. Only a handful of people who had been on that floor survived, but all of the ones who survived where helped by Welles Crowther, who himself did not survive. And Rick Rescorla, the old soldier who was head of security of Morgan Stanley, and who got nearly every one of the 500 people in his company out safely, singing as he went the ancient battle song Men of Harlech (amended to reflect his birthplace in Cornwall). He did not survive. Ed Beyea, a quadriplegic who was being carried down the fire stairs in his wheelchair because the elevators were out, and who took himself off the line because he was causing a back up. He did not survive, and neither did his friend Abe Zelmanowitz, who stayed with Ed with rather than leave him to face his fate alone. Dave Karnes, the retired marine from Wilton, Connecticut, who walked out of his office, went home and put on his old uniform, drove down to Ground Zero, and started climbing the wreckage, and who, on that night of 9/11, located two Port Authority officers buried in the rubble, two of the last people to be pulled out of the rubble alive. Bill Feehan, a fire chief who led his men from the front, and like Davey Crockett fighting to his last breath at the Alamo, was pulling rubble off of people with his bare hands when the second collapse overwhelmed him. Jan Demczur, a Polish immigrant window washer who was trapped in an elevator with some other passengers, and who used the handle of his squeegee to scrape through the drywall of the elevator shaft, creating a hole through which he and the others escaped. Bryan Clark and Stanley Prainmath, two men who found themselves alone in an stairwell, and who helped each other escape. What amazed me at the time, what amazes me to this day, is that so few people know these stories.

We cannot help but get swallowed up in the terrible tragedy of the 3000 people who died that morning, but maybe 10,000 people or more survived, thanks to courage and resolve of people like those whose names I’ve mentioned, and many, many more. We think of the event as a tragedy, and it manifestly was, but it was also our Dunkirk. Our inability to allow that view, our inability to recognize the acts of heroism, left us feeling weaker and more fearful, and frankly more vulnerable to the manipulations of our government. But we should not forget: Under the most terrible of conditions, courage emerged. Grace emerged. Determination emerged. Orio Palmer and Rick Rescorla and Welles Crowther rose up and wrestled the lives of thousands from the grasp of our enemies.

(For a time I tried to tell these stories in a screenplay and then later in a graphic history. An artist named Paul Maybury did these sample illustrations. At top, Rick Rescorla, wearing a black suit, leads his people to safety. Below, a triptych showing an isolated Stanley Prainmath escaping to safety with the help of a stranger on the other side of a pile of rubble, Bryan Clark. Thanks once again to Paul for his work and enthusiasm for this project.)

Ryan Adams shot the video for this gem of a song on September 7, 2001. The World Trade Center looms in all its dopey, stolid earnestness throughout the film, oblivious to its imminent destruction. It always chokes me to see this.

Disunion, The New York Times’ series on the Civil War which I helped create and worked on, was honored by the New Media Institute with one of its 2011 New Media Awards. This marks the second award for Disunion, which was honored earlier this year by the American Historical Association for Best History Writing on the web. Disunion was chosen in the field of history, and was selected for how well the site used technology to serve and communicate with its audience. Congratulations to my colleagues who helped create such an interesting site.

I had the great pleasure of talking about And the War Came with Jim Fuller and his friend Bill Walker on WOUB radio in Athens, Ohio. Jim and Bill are very knowledgeable about the Civil War, and it was very rewarding to talk with people who are so well informed and so thoughtful about the issues that surrounded the conflict. I am very grateful that I was invited onto the program. Anyone who wishes to hear the broadcast can listen to it here. Thanks, guys!

The streets and parts and sidewalks of London are home to some 800,000 closed circuit TV cameras, a huge number of which are mounted on walls of public buildings. The cameras capture the comings and goings of vast numbers of people, scarcely any of whom feel that the cameras constitute an intrusion on their privacy. The general feeling is, “We’re out in public, we’re behaving normally, we’re assuming that we’re being observed by many other individuals–what difference does it make if we are also being seen on camera?” A very common-sensical conclusion, even if my inner civil libertarian remains uneasy.

But what’s fascinating, and weird, is that the when the tables are turned, and the buildings are being photographed, there is great anxiety, at least among the security officers representing the companies that own or take space in the buildings. This video was created earlier this summer, when the London Street Photography Festival assigned six photographers to shoot various locations in the city–all on public ground. But as you can see from this video, which was shot by videographers accompanying the photographers, all six shooters drew the attention of private security guards. In three cases, police were summoned, although in each case, the police sided with the photographers. None of them bought the idea that security was being compromised. Another small victory for common sense.

But it’s odd, isn’t it? Apparently people can be observed and filmed, but in the minds of corporate security, not even the edifices that house the corporations, which are in plain view 24 hours a day, cannot be photographed. It does show that at least in the minds of the corporations, they are a state unto themselves.

Mr. Media, a/k/a the charming Bob Andelman, recently interviewed me for his radio program/podcast/column, and we had a delightful time talking about not only And the War Came, but also bygone days at Spy and Playboy. It was a lot of fun. Anyone who would like to listen to the program can find it here. And the War Came also got wonderful treatment at The Nervous Breakdown, a wonderful site devoted to books and authors. As my British friends would say, I am seriously chuffed by their notice, given how youthful and hip and with-it everything else on the site seems to be. Either I am more highly regarded than I thought, or they have some sort of quota they have to fill. Anyone who wishes to take a look can click here. Finally, to help spread the word about And the War Came, my friend Marshal Zeringue asked me to contribute to his wonderful blog Campaign for the American Reader, participating in both The Page 99 Test, and also his What I’m Reading feature. Many thanks to all!

Fifty years ago (fifty years ago tomorrow, to be precise), my mom and dad drove my brother and me from our home in Baltimore MD to Culpepper County, Virginia, about sixty miles away, for a centennial reenactment of the first Battle of Bull Run, which took place 150 years ago today. About 2000 reenactors restaged the first great battle of the war for about 70,000 spectators. It was an awfully hot day, about 100 degrees, and my dad declined to pay $4 each for grandstand seating, preferring to maneuver for a slice of shade. Northern newspapers criticized the event: “90 minutes of profuse feigned violence in scorching heat”, ludicrous restaging”, “a grisly pantomine” and a general chiding for staging such pageants while the scars of the war remained unhealed and great issues remained before the nation. True, true, very true. Nonetheless, we loved it!

My dad, Clem Malanowski, took these pictures. I believe his ambitions exceeded his equipment and his skill, but I like some of these shots quite a bit: the troop in the top photo, with the unfurled Stars and Bars and their gallant brigadier with his sword and the lovely crinolined ladies on the right (God, think of the sweat!); my brother Matt and me (wearing a Confederate cavalry hat with the left brim dashingly upturned, plus a canteen on a strap), posing with a Yankee reenactor; the spectators, who even from the back look all abuzz (the men’s straw hat industry has been clobbered by the universal appeal of the baseball cap); a rebel artilleryman, ramrodding something into the barrel of his Parrot gun; and the rather bulky statue of General Thomas Jackson, standing like a stone wall at the battle where he earned his name, in a cape that he doubtless did not wear during the battle 150 years ago today.

People may not realize, but many institutions and groups made special efforts to mark the centennial, not the least of which was Life magazine, which, with its visual eclat and dexterity, was still at its peak as an American institution. Life published a six part history of the war, the highlights of which were a series of fourteen full-page or double=page paintings of battles, which to my eight year-old mind, were some of the most stunning images I had ever seen. For the first Battle of Bull Run, the editors chose Stanley Meltzoff, an artist known primarily for his painting of fish and sport fishing. Meltzoff decided to depict the scene where a stampeded Union army ran into the gaggle of spectators who had come down to watch the splendid battle, resulting in clogged chaos on the Warrenton Turnpike. Meltzoff brilliantly assembled in one scene a group of individuals who in all likelihood did not run into one another, and created a thought-provoking, emotionally moving painting. From left, by the cannon: Alfred Waud, the noted Civil War artist, works at his sketch pad; a vivandiere mourns a dead soldier, while behind her another stands with a pistol, just to the right of William Howard Russell, the famous war correspondent of the London Times, looking through binoculars; at center, photographer Matthew Brady, in a white duster, who has lost his camera but found a sword, walks between two Zouaves; a drunken officer, reported to have been wearing two hats, is above a despondent young picnicker; at right, in the carrriage, Judge Daniel McCook, transporting the body of his son Charles, an 18 year-old private in an Ohio regiment. The 63 year-old judge had ridden with several congressmen to join the fight; by happenstance he met up Charles, who met his death later that day. here shown .

The highly revealing Parliamentary hearings into Rupert Murdoch and the News Corp. hacking scandal were interrupted yesterday when spectator Jonathan May-Bowles, a.k.a. “Jonnie Marbles” tried to throw a shaving cream pie at the media baron but was thwarted by his wife, Wendi Deng. In an article in The Guardian, May-Bowles defended himself. “Simply put, I did it for all the people who couldn’t,” he said. “For a few bright moments I thought I might see justice done, keep the pie in my bag, and spare myself a night in jail. Those moments were short-lived: As committee member after committee member feebly prodded around the issues and [James] Murdoch Jr. began to dominate, I knew I was going to have to make a massive tit of myself.” I am more impressed Deng, Rupert’s 43 year-old third wife (wearing pink in the video.) That little lady can sky! Patrick Ewing couldn’t have done a better job of rejecting that pie.

Explaining his intention to support the gay marriage bill now before the legislature, New York State Senator Roy McDonald said “You get to the point where you evolve in your life where everything isn’t black and white, good and bad, and you try to do the right thing. You might not like that. You might be very cynical about that. Well, fuck it, I don’t care what you think. I’m trying to do the right thing. I’m tired of Republican-Democrat politics. They can take the job and shove it. I come from a blue-collar background. I’m trying to do the right thing, and that’s where I’m going with this.” Way to go, Roy! Like “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore,” “Fuck it, I don’t care what you think, I want to do the right thing” captures the feelings of frustrated electorate. Put it on a button and I’ll wear it. Put it on a banner and I’ll wave it. Give me a candidate who runs on that line, and he or she just might have my vote.