My favorite piece in the fishwrap this week, by a long shot, is former staffwriter Chris Wright's lyrical snapshot of September 10, 2001 -- the day before the day that would live in infamy. It's under 800 words, and it never once mentions September 11. But in the way that it holds New York City suspended in time, it is both the most beautiful and the most terrifying piece I've read in this over-saturated week of 9/11 coverage.

In Teaching 9/11, I enlisted a Harvard professor and a dedicated Rhode Island teaher to try to figure out why the events of that day have been confined to a paragraph in most students' textbooks. It looks like we're not the only ones wondering about the ramifications of not teaching our nation's youth how to interpret history.

While half the nation is squabbling over some guys trying to build a mosque at Ground Zero; another guy trying to get a Muslim gay bar opened next to the proposed mosque; and still another (crazy) guy trying to burn Korans on camera, one 9/11-related enterprise that's not quite as controversial may have gone overlooked.

For all the anger, political strategizing and stabs in the heart that the plans to build a Muslim community center near ground zero may have brought about, land-use and zoning experts say opponents of the project have very little legal basis on which to rest their argument.