On the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Presidents Obama and Bush will be on hand at Ground Zero, according to yesterday's New York Times and this AP/ABC report.

It's a shame that Bush reportedly chose to decline Obama's invitation to join him at the solemn ceremony the week after Osama bin Laden was killed. A missed opportunity for bi-partisan unity.

Fascinating story in The New York Times on a study cited in the upcoming issue of American Psychologist. The surprising findings: some mental-health counseling in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks was, in fact, counterproductive, triggering deeper trauma.

The silver lining in the article: In the face of mass calamity, we may be more resilient than we imagined, harboring an astounding capacity to cope.

Alas, I'm unable to attend the Arles photography festival this year. But the next best thing, from afar, is to monitor the events on La Lettre de la Photographie, the nine-month-old, must-see, transatlantic daily online newsletter for All Things Photographic, edited by image impresario Jean-Jacques Naudet.

Last weekend family, friends, and colleagues of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Brian Lanker (who died suddenly in March, just days after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer) gathered in his home town of Eugene, Oregon, to pay tribute to a man revered as much for his bold, iconic portraits and photojournalism as for his innumerable acts of selfless generosity.

Last Saturday, friends shared their favorite Brian stories over a buffet lunch at La Perla, one of the photographer's favorite restaurants. On Sunday, hundreds flocked to the McDonald Theatre to celebrate his life in photographs, word, song, video tributes, and poetry.

Wrote his dear friend, Maya Angelou: "When great souls die...Our eyes, briefly,/see with a hurtful clarity./[Then,] after a period peace blooms,/slowly and always irregularly./Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration./Our senses, restored, never/to be the same, whisper to us/They existed. They existed./We can be. Be and be/Better. For they existed."

We can be better because of the lessons we've learned through Brian's examples: the countless kindnesses of this gracious, giving giant we were blessed to have had move among us.