[1]The controversial coloring book "A Scary Thing Happened" was removed from FEMA's website last week. The coloring book featured a plane heading toward New York's twin towers.
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FEMA removes 9/11 coloring book for children from website
By Jimmy Orr | 04.30.09
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Now, from the same guys that brought you the Katrina rescue effort….. comes the 9/11 coloring book.
Joking? Sadly, no.
Ever get the feeling that that Ron Paul guy might’ve been on to something? Paul, the libertarian-like [8] congressman from Texas, isn’t a big believer in government. He thinks for the most part the government screws things up.
Just this week, he could point to the Air Force One photo op idea and now there’s this latest gem from FEMA.
Scary
A children’s coloring book called “A Scary Thing Happened” which shows a drawing of the Twin Towers ablaze with an airplane heading for them was removed from its website last week.
The idea behind the downloadable book was to help children cope with disasters, says the organization responsible for it. So on page 12, there are three images of the burning twin towers for children to color.
Heckuva
It’s not as though the new FEMA team came up with the idea just this year. You might guess. It was put up on the site under Mike Brown’s watch — 2003.
And the organization that developed it — Minnesota’s Freeborn County Crisis Response Team — still believes in it.
“I stand firm that it was a very well thought-out and useful resource for kids,” Olmsted told FOXNews.com. “But it’s obviously being misinterpreted by a lot of people.”
Maybe that’s because coloring and 9/11 might not be a good mix for children.
Removed
“The coloring book, which was put online in 2003, was removed last week and FEMA is currently reviewing all Web content designed and posted by the previous administration,” a FEMA spokesman said in a statement.
Makes no difference to Olmsted.
“I’m gong to be putting together to FEMA a letter detailing the many ways that this book has been used,” Olmsted told the Minneapolis Star Tribune [9], adding that she’ll be including a letter she has on file from FEMA praising the book.
If that letter came from Brownie, she might just want to move on…
Blogosphere
Not everyone agrees with the decision to pull it down.
The conservative PowerLine [10] blog sees this as a troubling trend.
“It isn’t hard to see where this is going. It started with the television networks imposing de facto censorship on all footage of the September 11 attacks. The pace of revisionism is accelerating as Obama’s executive branch reviews everything produced by “the previous administration.” Eventually the only public legacy of the September 11 attacks will be photos of American soldiers brutalizing detainees.”
But a blogger on the conservative Lew Rockwell [11] website says the government is too “obsessed” with 9/11.
“Is it that they want to keep the “fear” factor ever-present in the sheeple’s minds? After people complained, FEMA removed the coloring book from its site. Too bad we can’t remove FEMA from our sight.”
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Comments
2. hkcarpenter [at] gmail [dot] com">Holly Carpenter | 04.30.09
it was neither terroists or tornado, it was the US government that planned engineered and executed 911. this is just another way to keep instilling fear in the people.
3. Kevin | 04.30.09
A nation of wimps will not survive. Our government is nothing but our mommy now. Please protect us. You are all losers.
4. Adam | 04.30.09
This book is just another political indoctrination tool aimed at using fear to manipulate future generations.
I’d like to see a Olmsted (the hawk) putting out a coloring book about Katrina or the OK City bombing where children were killed at the daycare center there. Where are THOSE coloring books?
6. Dan | 04.30.09
Ron Paul was right on a lot of things. Who knew everything was going to implode just like he said it would.
10. Kevin | 04.30.09
Adam, Katrina would be pages 4 and 8 of the coloring book.
This article is misleading. It’s not a “9/11″ coloring book! It’s a “coping with disasters” coloring book. 9/11 gets a reference on just one page inside and part of the cover (note that the illustration above has been edited and does not show the full cover page).
11. meh | 04.30.09
This article isn’t worth ****, it fails at both reporting and giving a reasoned opinion. The coloring book was about disasters in general (including both tornadoes like the one on the cover and Katrina). It was made as an outlet for children who had gone through some kind of traumatic experience, not a coloring book for random kids to do for funsies.
I’m fine with a lot of libertarian political ideas, but using two public image gaffes as the reason for a drastic restructuring of the government is imbecilic.
12. CaptainObvious | 04.30.09
It should be called, “A scary thing happened BECAUSE WE LET IT HAPPEN ON PURPOSE”.
13. Jump’n Jack Flash | 04.30.09
when in doubt, blame it on a republican. They always do, after all a democrat doing anything proactive is ridiculous! sit and ***** maybe the graces of a great life will fall from the heavens like rain.
14. The Evangelist [16] | 04.30.09
I think we’re all looking into this too much. It was created by a “Crisis Response Team.” I think that, looking back, many would have considered this more appropriate when it was first published. As the cover says, it’s about helping children cope with the disasters. I doubt every parent is going to get a copy for their kids. It’s for a specific situation. I’m not saying that it is right, all I’m saying is that the entire “this book is propaganda” argument fails the test.
At any rate, while I don’t think we should let an event control our lives, I do believe that we should remember the significance of it and all who died as part of that tragedy.
15. woodape [17] | 04.30.09
A scary thing happened. FEMA was created and didn’t help people when Hurricane Katrina hit because it was deliberately inept. Then an even scarier thing happened. Because FEMA couldn’t help anyone. Disaster recovery became privatised and created a monster that jumps for joy whenever many people get hurt anywhere in the US because they make alot of money from scary things happening. When a disaster hits and there is no competent government organization that can help people…you can charge whatever you want. You can even get your friends elected so they can keep the scary-ball rollin’. So more disasters are bound to happen…lots for kids to color. What is the right primary color for Swine Flu?
16. Scott | 04.30.09
Attempting to completely shield children from ’scary things’, disasters, etcetera, is a mistake. It is a modern disease to believe that children should be ‘protected’ from everything (which just leaves them fragile and uninformed), or even that they *could* be. Life is not perfectly safe, nor could it be, nor should it be. Life is messy, and that’s just life.
Want some evidence that this is a new problem? Look at old nursery rhymes, which are made for and sung with children. Ring Around The Rosy is about the Black Plague. London Bridge Is Falling Down is self-explanatory. And there are many others.
17. Tourain | 04.30.09
It’s about time someone came out with a smart book that doesn’t try to white-wash reality. I’d rather our kids were psychologically equipped to deal with life’s real dangers and uncertainties than have them learn about it after they’ve offended half the world with the kind of self-righteous arrogance. Perhaps if we spent less time trying to protect ourselves from reality via movies, video games and populist propaganda, we might not engage in the kind of public policies that brings about terrorist attacks like 9/11.
18. LightlySalted | 04.30.09
The real point, the point most of the above comments have missed, is that children are not going to understand the significance of 9/11. This has nothing to do with “censorship” or “conspiracy.”
Generally speaking, coloring is synonymous with fun and good. Children are encouraged to color as a creative outlet. When you throw in planes and buildings on fire you’re going to confuse the point - 9/11 was bad, mmk? A child is not going to grasp that, whether or not they’ve been through a traumatic experience.
19. Read It | 04.30.09
Seems like people should read it before criticizing it. I took a look and it looks like a great tool for children who lost friends or family members in a disaster to deal with their feelings. I can tell from the comments that nobody else read it.
20. Stephen Smith [18] | 04.30.09
Lew Rockwell is a libertarian, not a conservative. There’s a difference, even if the media would like to pretend that the only three acceptable political ideologies are “conservative,” “moderate,” and “liberal.”
21. asdf | 04.30.09
whoever did it, we now look to the federal mommy government to take care of us. oh oh oh, pleasssssse protect us mommy!!! scary bad guys are coming for us, the earth is ending, and banks won’t loan me or my company money….boo hooo hooo.
**** sakes.
22. Tourain | 04.30.09
Personally, I’m tired of hearing about 9/11. How many times do we have to hear “9/11 changed everything”, “The world will never be the same after 9/11″, “9/11 was the worst attack on American soil since…”? Blah, blah, blah. Can we get over it, already! Yes it was traumatic. Yes it was heinous. Yes, a lot of lives were lost. But people far less able to defend themselves are subjected to inhuman treatment all over the planet everyday–some as a direct result of our foreign and economic policies.
The atrocity of 9/11 was the desperate act of a group of people who felt they had few other options. While the immorality of their actions is inexcusable, our willful naivete about our nation’s role in provoking other peoples is no less criminal. Given their resources, 9/11 was a brilliant tactical move. It was as ingenious as anything Napoleon or Alexander could ever dreamed up.
Our refusal to accept this bitter truth has fed our self-righteous crusade to dehumanize all peoples who don’t fit our criteria of “decent”. It’s the same self-satisfying smugness that one enjoys while watching reality show police officers deal with “human garbage.” It has prevented us from truly respecting our enemy and educating ourselves as to the best way to overcome his adversity.
Enough already. We need to move on. Like all large-scale tragic events, 9/11 will eventually go the way of myth, horror and, yes, even humor. We can expect that 50 years from now there will be movies about the “ghosts of the WTO”, children will dress like terrorists on Halloween, and some sharp-witted movie producer will find away to make a comedy about different aspects of the event, just like the Civil War, Jack the Ripper and the Titanic.
23. Daniel | 04.30.09
Next we’ll have coloring book illustrations of rape, murders, and suicide. All I can do is laugh.. this is just too ridiculous. Just glad the Bush administration’s incompetency on all issues have finally been replaced by reason.
24. db | 04.30.09
“Can’t wait to see what the global warming coloring book will look like.”
That one will be a cook book.
25. Philip | 04.30.09
Damn, you know what the collectability value of this will be in 50 years. Wish I had gotten a copy signed by Micheal Brown.
26. GArrett | 04.30.09
You people.
This book is a good way to help children who were exposed to those event, and others. IT helps them talk about it, learn about it, and minimize any long term effect.
This book is a good thing.
You morons want to turn it into some government control thing, and completly immerse yourselves in ignorance.
Whenh people are discussing issue with people being *** hats on the internet, they are talking about you people.
27. Jive Dadson | 04.30.09
How about a coloring book of FBI agents locking up a US citizen, a school kid living with his single mom, and holding him without the right to habeas corpus on a Patriot Act warrant? That’s a scary thing that happened.
How about a coloring book of Blackwater troops in the aftermath of Katrina forcing people to leave their homes? That’s a scary thing that happened.
A coloring book that shows the kid how many tens of thousands of dollars he and his little friends are debt to US bond holders? That’s got to be really scary to a kid.
The scary coloring book I could make would run to hundreds of pages, and it gets bigger every day.
28. Randy T | 05.01.09
Decision by ridicule and contempt…..will we ever get back to reasoned debate?
29. Rich | 05.01.09
Taking down the coloring book is an acknowledgement that the 9/11 event is over and it’s time to move on, which conservatives are reluctant to do because they savour the sensations that went with it; paranoia, nationalism, authoritarianism, militarism, patriotism, and enemy-hating. 9/11 was been a big release for the conservative subconscious, but everything runs its course, and at this point there are no children of coloring-book age who remember the event; they’re all in high school now. FEMA should take down the coloring book and make coloring books that deal with real-world events like tornadoes or hurricanes, because there isn’t anything teachable left from 9/11 that isn’t about torture or political corruption…
30. KB | 05.01.09
Folks - it is 2009! The kids who identify with 9/11 are teenagers and aren’t doing coloring books. My son drew about 9/11 regularly for at least a year after the event — he was in 1st grade then. Depictions of 9/11 don’t do anything for young kids who were not alive then. How about an instruction sheet for parents: ways to help your children cope (possible title: Don’t freak out, or why its okay if Johnny keeps bringing you brightly colored pictures of horrible things that you’d rather not think about).
31. Jay | 05.01.09
Has anyone who has commented actually read the document in question? It might prove helpful in drawing conclusions about it.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/graphics/pdf/femacoloringbook.pdf [19]
32. Mister Mistopholeece | 05.01.09
Ha, this is hilarious I love the slight religious influence throughout the “document in question”. You could download this and just a few well placed lines would make this a comedy.
33. James A. Ritchie | 05.01.09
9/11 qctually happened. Terrorists really did fly planes into the buildings, killing thousands of innocent people. Kids should know this. Only a fool thinks history isn;t important, or that anyone not alive at the time can’t relate.
If you can’t relate, yu’ll be the cause of the next attack.
As asdf says, the government is now the mommy of millions. It’s sad that half the country now believes in letting someone else support them, letting someone else protect them, letting someone else pay their way through life, whether it be by money, or by dying to keep these losers free.
We’ve become a nation of of adult breast feeders, afraid to let go of the teat and start eating real food that we’ve earned through our own hard work and courage.
Yes, the poor little kids will be harmed terribly by this coloring book. Heck, they might even grow up without their heads buried in the sand, and with teh knowledge that some things are worth fighting for, fighting against, and that eternal vigilance really is teh price for freedom.
Of course, there is no freedom for those who expect the governemnt to support them to find them jobs, to tax everyone but them, to wipe their noses and their bottoms because it must be someone else who does everyting for them, including fighting and dying.
34. neocon | 05.01.09
So Rich….after 8 years, liberals like you are ready to move on & put 9/11 behind us. 150 years later we kind of feel the same way about slavery.
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1. Craig | 04.30.09
What is with the Tornado in the foreground? That is just plain confusing to kids, did terrorists cause 9/11, or was it a Tornado?