Although they didn’t reach a goal of two million riders, thousands of bikers rolled through the Washington, D.C. area to mark the 12th anniversary of 9/11 on Wednesday.The bikers — riding with the group “Two Million Bikers to D.C.” — snarled traffic on the Beltway with a ride honoring the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the members of the military called to serve after the attacks.Many participating riders were veterans who said they rode to protect Americans’ freedom in the midst of tumultuous times.“The enemy has a say when the war is over,” said rider Pete Raymond. “I believe they’re saying it’s not, so we’re here.”On their Facebook page, in all caps, the group said they will stand by the Constitution and Bill of Rights, adding that they’re “against any fundamental transformation of America.”
Although they didn’t reach a goal of two million riders, thousands of bikers rolled through the Washington, D.C. area to mark the 12th anniversary of 9/11 on Wednesday.The bikers — riding with the group “Two Million Bikers to D.C.” — snarled traffic on the Beltway with a ride honoring the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the members of the military called to serve after the attacks.Many participating riders were veterans who said they rode to protect Americans’ freedom in the midst of tumultuous times.“The enemy has a say when the war is over,” said rider Pete Raymond. “I believe they’re saying it’s not, so we’re here.”On their Facebook page, in all caps, the group said they will stand by the Constitution and Bill of Rights, adding that they’re “against any fundamental transformation of America.”
| Stunning Animation of Every Protest from 1979 Reveals Earth's Immune System Trying to Heal Itself |
| Republished from filmsforaction.org By Tim Hjersted |
This is what data from a world in turmoil looks like. The Global Database of Events, Language, and Tone (GDELT) tracks news reports and codes them for 58 fields, from where an incident took place to what sort of event it was (these maps look at protests, violence, and changes in military and police posture) to ethnic and religious affiliations, among other categories. The dataset has recorded nearly 250 million events since 1979, according to its website, and is updated daily…
The map also shows some of the limits of Big Data — and trying to reduce major global events to coded variables. Take, for example, the protests across the United States in late 2011: Some are Occupy protests, others are Tea Party protests, but the difference in the political identity of those demonstrations isn’t reflected in the map. There are some strange things that happen when the data are mapped, as well. A cursory glance at the map would suggest that Kansas is the most restive state in the union, but really the frequent protests popping up somewhere near Wichita are every media mention of a protest in the United States that doesn’t specify a city (the same goes for that flickering dot north of Mongolia in Middle-of-Nowhere, Russia).
