What technology (asp, php, joomla, rails, grails…) for a website from scratch?

IMHO Java really excel in web-application that is really enterprisey. If your website do not need enterprisey feature, Java might be overweight for you. Besides that, to build a website with Java you would at least need a web framework otherwise it will be painful to build it only with Servlet+JSP.

For an agile web-framework, Grails is a good candidate. Another thing you need to consider if building a website with Java is that you would need more investment in the human resource (as Java programmer tend to be more expensive) and infrastructure (as you would need quite large memory). The good thing about Java is the deployment as you can just deploy one war file to your appserver.

Use something you're familiar with. Period. It's perfectly fine to use a new technology (or a technology new to you) if you're experimenting, but when you need to get the job done, stick with the familiar.

Very few of us are being paid to experiment, especially when working on a new project.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.