It was one of those lazy summer days, where the past didn't matter and the future stretched off into an ill-defined haziness of endless opportunities. A day where the heat, rather than oppress you, gently descended from an impossibly blue sky and enfolded you in its warm arms, comforting, soothing, a mother's embrace. The surf sighed across the sand with a quiet, sibilant hiss as a soft breeze blew straight off the Lake, a zephyr tugging softly at your hair, whispering in your ear like a seductive lover.
Monarchs flitted and floated on that breeze in lazy loops, now swooping here and there, now rising majestically in an impossible choreography. The air itself in motion, riding invisible currents as they went about the important business of butterflies, forever beyond reach but just right there, close enough to touch. Just one good leap, one good push off the shifting sands beneath your feet, and you would be there with them, soaring through their ethereal domain.
Chasing butterflies at the water's edge, an intricate dance of pure innocence in motion, a leap of faith and joy untainted and existing only for itself, only for that moment. Leaping, twisting, bounding across the sand, a yip of excitement and delight, a snort of puzzlement and wonder. The dance goes on, each partner now leading, now following, neither one hearing the music but living it, creating it as they move across the floor to the lilting, eternal notes.
A perfect moment in time, forever lost to description, a thing that can't be told but only experienced. Bodies in motion, uncomplicated by expectation or self, with no meaning other than not everything has to have a meaning. Just a pure soul, at peace with itself, chasing butterflies.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Deconstructing the Deconsructionists, Part II
Anyway, where were we? Oh, yeah, right, the idiot 9/11 conspiracy claims . . .
B-25s and 767s, and why the Empire State Building didn't collapse and the WTC towers did. Let's see. The Empire State Building, constructed of steel girder "boxes," reinforced concrete columns and a thick, masonry exterior, has a structural density of 38 pounds per cubic foot. The WTC towers, constructed of an interior core of steel and concrete - where the elevator shafts and stairwells were located - an exterior skin of 14" box columns fabricated from steel plate, and tied together by the floor trusses and a "hat truss" on the roof that tied the exerior skin and the central core together, had a structural density of eight pounds per cubic foot. Which is, by the way, less than the density of balsa wood, at ten pounds per cubic foot.
Do the math, kiddies. A B-25, which at maximum load weighed 41,800 pounds, traveling at 200 miles per hour and striking a building with a density of 38 pounds per cubic foot, isn't going to do the same kind of damage as a 767 weighing 395,000 pounds at full load, traveling between 450 and 500 miles an hour and striking a building with a density of eight pounds per square foot.
The truth is, no modern skyscraper would have survived an impact such as the one the WTC towers experienced. Not only would any contemporary skyscraper have collapsed, it most likely would have done so immediately. The wonder isn't that the towers collapsed, its that they lasted as long as they did.
Cl.. The planes simply caused too much damage to the towers when they hit. After all, the buildings had been designed to withstand the impact of a jetliner. The aircraft that hit the North Tower impacted in the area of the 93rd to 99th floors. The one that hit the south tower did so in the area of the 77th to 85th floors. Yet those impacts and the fires subsequently disrupted elevator service and caused damage to the lobbies of both buildings. Given the distances involved, there is just no way such widespread damage could have been caused by those impacts unless other explosive devices, previously planted in the buildings, had been detonated simultaneously.
It's really a pity that we apparently don't teach simple physics in this country any more. You see, there's this thing that scientists like to call "gravity," and . . .
The damage patterns caused by the impacts really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. The debris caused by those impacts - the wreckage of the aircraft themselves and everything generated by them hitting the buildings - would have and did continue in the direction those planes were moving. At the same time, gravity would have been pulling all that debris down and, when the debris encountered something that would have allowed it to do so, it would head for the ground.
The debris, including the fuel loads of the aircraft which by this point would have been on fire, continued through the towers and cut the stairwells, elevator shafts, air shafts and utility shafts in the central cores. The burning jet fuel, and even some of the debris, would thus have an unimpeded means of reaching the lower floors of the towers, which is exactly what happened. Especially in regard to the fuel, those shafts acted as funnels, and the liquid did what liquids do when they are flowing: it sought the path of least resistance.
The same phenomenon occured in 1945 when the B-25 hit the Empire State Building. The aircraft's fuel load sprayed into the building, and some of it flowed down the elevator shafts, causing fires in the lobby. So in 1945, so in 2001, and why would it be any different?
Ah, but the conspiracy theororists, on this claim, point to their ace in the hole. The testimony of an NYFD firefighter who, they like to quote, said that "We think there was [sic] bombs set in the building." The problem with that is, as that firefighter is the first to point out, that isn't what he said. What he did say, describing the impacts, was that "It sounded like a bomb."
Cl.. This one, actually, is one of my favourites, and another reason why I lament the fact that we don't seem to teach physics in this country any more. The claim is that the fires caused by the impacts of the airliners were not sufficient to cause the collapse of the towers. Unless you are using a blast furnace, you simply can not generate enough heat in a fire to melt steel and thus cause structural failure. The theororists point to the fact that no modern, fire-protected steel frame building has ever collapsed solely due to fire. The argument is that since that is impossible, demolition charges had to have been used in order to melt the steel and bring the buildings down.
Except that it doesn't work that way . . . Jet fuel burns at a temperature somewhere between 2,012 and 2,190 degrees Fahrenheit, which is admittedly less than the 2,750 degrees F needed to melt steel. The thing is, you don't have to melt steel in order for its structural integrity to fail, you just have to heat it for a long enough period of time. As an example, take a knife and try to snap the blade. That's a very difficult thing to do. Now, take that same knife, fire up your barbeque, and stick the knife into the fire for a while. When you then try to snap the blade, you'll find that it's pretty easy to do. Why? Because you've removed the temper of the steel and softened it.
The exact same phenomenon happened in the WTC towers. When the planes hit, many of the exterior load-bearing columns on the impact face were cut, as well as the associated floor trusses and the load-bearing columns in the central core. Those loads then had to shift to the surviving structural components. And, while it is true that those components were "fire-proofed," that insulating foam certainly didn't survive the impacts. A spray-on foam dating from the 1960s, there were known issues with that fireproofing material. A lightweight, fluffy material, it was known to crumble if touched, and there were many areas in the towers where, over the years, it had flaked off simply due to age. Prior to 9/11, there was an effort underway to replace that foam in the areas where it was missing.
Under the impact of the airliners, most of that fireproofing material would have been stripped away from both the severed structural components and the surviving components by the shock and the debris, leaving those components vulnerable to fire. In addition, surviving pockets of the material would have acted as heat sinks, which is, after all, the function of fireproofing. That would have functioned to transfer even more heat to an already compromised structural member.
Moreover, after the impacts, it wasn't just the fuel from the aircraft that was burning. Everything else that was combustible was burning, too: fixtures, furniture, carpeting, papers, desks, plastics . . . The jet fuel was merely the ignition source, and would have burned off within the first ten minutes or so. But the fires the fuel ignited would have kept burning until they ran out of air or of combustion sources.
The NIST estimates that the fires in the towers, after the jet fuel burned off, were burning at an average temperature of 1,832 degrees Fahrenheit. Steel begins to lose its structural integrity at about 750 degrees F and, at temperatures of about 1,100 degrees F, loses roughly 50% of its integrity. At about 1,800 degrees F, steel retains only about 10% of its structural integrity.
Again, do the math, kiddies. A normal building fire radiates out from its ignition point, consuming flammables as it goes. By the time it spreads to more distant parts of the building, the combustibles at that ignition point have been largely consumed, and temperatures drop as the fire there begins to die out. But the fires in the towers involved multiple floors, with the burning jet fuel igniting everything it came into contact with. Those kind of fires are known as conflagrations, and they spread rapidly from their origin points.
Those fires were also, by and large, confined within the towers, allowing them to generate even more heat, since there was nowhere for that heat to go. The severed structural connections would have transferred their loads to the surviving connections which, exposed to the prolonged, intense heat, would have begun to soften. When those connections then reached the point where they failed, they in turn would have transferred their loads to the next surviving connections, and so on. As the steel of the core columns softened and failed, they would have transferred their loads to the surviving exterior columns, through the floor and hat trusses. At the same time, those floor trusses, as they softened and failed, would have caused the floors to sag and pull the surviving exterior columns inward as they transferred their loads. When enough of those structural members lost their integrity, the buildings collapsed. And, yes, it's as simple as that.
In a sense, though, the conspiracy theororists are right. Fire alone did not bring down the towers. It is entirely possible that if they had merely suffered from fire, they would not have collapsed. But they didn't just suffer from fire, they suffered from impacts that severed many of the connections that gave the buildings their integrity, and the resulting load transfers from the impacts, combined with the load transfers induced by the fires compromising the steel's structural integrity, were more than the buildings could bear. At that point, gravity took over.
One more thing, in regard to the "demolition charges." Those things don't work by melting steel, either. A demolition charge goes off with a velocity of approximately 28,000 feet per second, much too fast to melt steel. It cuts the steel using brute force.
Cl.. This one, too, is related to the idea that demolition charges were used to bring down the WTC towers. As the buildings came down, clearly visible "puffs" of dust and other material were seen being ejected from the sides of the towers, below the "collapse shroud" itself. The argument is that those clouds of dust and debris could only have been produced by demolition charges.
Once again, however, our old nemesis physics rears its ugly head. The towers collapsed because the surviving structural components in the damage zones could no longer support those loads, or the loads of the floor above them. When the collapse initiated, the weight of everything above the highest undamaged floor below the impact zone came crashing down on that floor, causing it to immediately fail. The collapse then continued down to the next floor, and so on, in a cascading effect that moved faster with each failure. Structural engineers call this process "pancaking."
As each floor failed and collapsed under the wieghts bearing down on it, everything on that floor would have been compressed - including the air. And, just as the fuel from the airliners had done earlier, the resulting "shock wave" of compressed material would have sought the path of least resistance out of the building. Through the windows, through the stairwells, and through the elevator, air and utility shafts. Wherever it could find a way out of the building, it would have done so, at the weakest points it could find. If you had a perfectly sealed building, it is entirely possible that a collapse could initiate on the top floor, and expell a cloud of dust and debris from the bottom floor.
Furthermore, in a controlled demolition using explosive charges, you don't plant those charges high up in the building. The whole idea is to use the potential energy stored in the building to do most of the demolition work, so you plant the charges on the first floor and, if there is one, the basement. You take out the key structural members as low down as possible, and let the weight of the building do the rest.
The conspiracy theororist love to state that the collapse of the WTC towers "bear all the classic signs of a controlled demolition." And that statement is utter nonsense. First of all, since and intentional and an unintentional collapse both depend on removing the key structural members holding the building up, it is impossible to visually tell the difference between the two. Second, if you look at a building that is brought down by demolition charges, the collapse is always initiated on the ground floor. On the other hand, if you look at the collapse of the towers, you will see that it is initiated on the floors where the aircraft hit.
Finally, the technology to initiate the kind if controlled demolition that the conspiracy theororists insist happened to the towers simply does not exist. It is impossible to either configure the charges needed, or wire them, to get the desired result. Each charge would weigh thousands of pounds apiece, and you would need forklifts to move them. Moreover, in order to achieve the desired result, those charges would have to go off simultaneously in widely separated parts of 110-story buildings; but, no matter how you wired them, you could never achieve that simultanaity.
Cl.. Approximately eight hours after the WTC towers collapsed, the 47-story WTC 7 building also collapsed. WTC 7, in addition to housing New York City's emergency response office, also housed offices belonging to the CIA and the Secret Service. Therefore, since sinister, outside forces were directly behind 9/11, that building also had to be destroyed, because that is where the evidence of the conspiracy was to be found. Once again, the theororists point to a "controlled demolition" being responsible for the collapse.
And, once again, they are not just wrong, but blindly wrong. They proceed from the assumption that WTC 7, other than fire, was not otherwise damaged, and that is simply not the case. The building was, in fact, compromised severely, first by falling debris generated by the impact of the aircraft on the North Tower, and then by the debris generated later by the collapse of the tower. Contrary to the claims, photographs and eyewitness testimony exist confirming widespread damage to the roof, southwest corner, and upper stories of the south fact of WTC 7. That damage, combined with the large fires that had been burning unchecked in the building for almost eight hours, led to another case of progressive collapse as the structure lost its integrity. Again, this should not surprise anyone who has a basic understanding of physics. As a damaged support fails, it transfers its load to another damaged support, which will then fail as a result; once there are enough structural failures, the load-bearing capacities of undamaged supports will be exceeded, and they will then fail. Once more, gravity then takes over.
But the conspiracy theororists make much hay out of the "Pull it" comment attributed to Larry Silverstein, who leased WTC 7 from the NY/NJ Port Authority. They assert that "pull it" is the phrase used to initiate a controlled demolition.
The problem being that, according to those people who actually use demolitions to bring down buildings for a living all say that is not the case. No one in that business, it seems, uses the words "pull it" to initiate the demolition. Moreover, Silverstein himself says that what he was talking about was pulling out the firefighters who were in WTC 7 trying to control the fires. According to him, the NYFD had informed him it was a lost cause, and his "pull it" comment was an agreement to withdraw those firefighters. But, as they say, if you're going to jump to a conclusion, make it an extreme one.
The final nail in the controlled demolition theory is that there have been plenty of investigators, not connected to the Government, who have examined the debris from the World Trade Centre. Not one of them has ever found any evidence that demolition charges were used.
The reality of the situation is that not everything is consumed in a controlled demolition. Explosive residue remains behind on the structural members cut by the charges. Some of the wiring and primacord used to set the explosives off remains. And yet, no one has ever found any of that in the debris. Nothing. Unless, of course, we are to believe that everyone who has examined the debris is also in on the conspiracy . . .
Next time: the Pentagon.
B-25s and 767s, and why the Empire State Building didn't collapse and the WTC towers did. Let's see. The Empire State Building, constructed of steel girder "boxes," reinforced concrete columns and a thick, masonry exterior, has a structural density of 38 pounds per cubic foot. The WTC towers, constructed of an interior core of steel and concrete - where the elevator shafts and stairwells were located - an exterior skin of 14" box columns fabricated from steel plate, and tied together by the floor trusses and a "hat truss" on the roof that tied the exerior skin and the central core together, had a structural density of eight pounds per cubic foot. Which is, by the way, less than the density of balsa wood, at ten pounds per cubic foot.
Do the math, kiddies. A B-25, which at maximum load weighed 41,800 pounds, traveling at 200 miles per hour and striking a building with a density of 38 pounds per cubic foot, isn't going to do the same kind of damage as a 767 weighing 395,000 pounds at full load, traveling between 450 and 500 miles an hour and striking a building with a density of eight pounds per square foot.
The truth is, no modern skyscraper would have survived an impact such as the one the WTC towers experienced. Not only would any contemporary skyscraper have collapsed, it most likely would have done so immediately. The wonder isn't that the towers collapsed, its that they lasted as long as they did.
Cl.. The planes simply caused too much damage to the towers when they hit. After all, the buildings had been designed to withstand the impact of a jetliner. The aircraft that hit the North Tower impacted in the area of the 93rd to 99th floors. The one that hit the south tower did so in the area of the 77th to 85th floors. Yet those impacts and the fires subsequently disrupted elevator service and caused damage to the lobbies of both buildings. Given the distances involved, there is just no way such widespread damage could have been caused by those impacts unless other explosive devices, previously planted in the buildings, had been detonated simultaneously.
It's really a pity that we apparently don't teach simple physics in this country any more. You see, there's this thing that scientists like to call "gravity," and . . .
The damage patterns caused by the impacts really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. The debris caused by those impacts - the wreckage of the aircraft themselves and everything generated by them hitting the buildings - would have and did continue in the direction those planes were moving. At the same time, gravity would have been pulling all that debris down and, when the debris encountered something that would have allowed it to do so, it would head for the ground.
The debris, including the fuel loads of the aircraft which by this point would have been on fire, continued through the towers and cut the stairwells, elevator shafts, air shafts and utility shafts in the central cores. The burning jet fuel, and even some of the debris, would thus have an unimpeded means of reaching the lower floors of the towers, which is exactly what happened. Especially in regard to the fuel, those shafts acted as funnels, and the liquid did what liquids do when they are flowing: it sought the path of least resistance.
The same phenomenon occured in 1945 when the B-25 hit the Empire State Building. The aircraft's fuel load sprayed into the building, and some of it flowed down the elevator shafts, causing fires in the lobby. So in 1945, so in 2001, and why would it be any different?
Ah, but the conspiracy theororists, on this claim, point to their ace in the hole. The testimony of an NYFD firefighter who, they like to quote, said that "We think there was [sic] bombs set in the building." The problem with that is, as that firefighter is the first to point out, that isn't what he said. What he did say, describing the impacts, was that "It sounded like a bomb."
Cl.. This one, actually, is one of my favourites, and another reason why I lament the fact that we don't seem to teach physics in this country any more. The claim is that the fires caused by the impacts of the airliners were not sufficient to cause the collapse of the towers. Unless you are using a blast furnace, you simply can not generate enough heat in a fire to melt steel and thus cause structural failure. The theororists point to the fact that no modern, fire-protected steel frame building has ever collapsed solely due to fire. The argument is that since that is impossible, demolition charges had to have been used in order to melt the steel and bring the buildings down.
Except that it doesn't work that way . . . Jet fuel burns at a temperature somewhere between 2,012 and 2,190 degrees Fahrenheit, which is admittedly less than the 2,750 degrees F needed to melt steel. The thing is, you don't have to melt steel in order for its structural integrity to fail, you just have to heat it for a long enough period of time. As an example, take a knife and try to snap the blade. That's a very difficult thing to do. Now, take that same knife, fire up your barbeque, and stick the knife into the fire for a while. When you then try to snap the blade, you'll find that it's pretty easy to do. Why? Because you've removed the temper of the steel and softened it.
The exact same phenomenon happened in the WTC towers. When the planes hit, many of the exterior load-bearing columns on the impact face were cut, as well as the associated floor trusses and the load-bearing columns in the central core. Those loads then had to shift to the surviving structural components. And, while it is true that those components were "fire-proofed," that insulating foam certainly didn't survive the impacts. A spray-on foam dating from the 1960s, there were known issues with that fireproofing material. A lightweight, fluffy material, it was known to crumble if touched, and there were many areas in the towers where, over the years, it had flaked off simply due to age. Prior to 9/11, there was an effort underway to replace that foam in the areas where it was missing.
Under the impact of the airliners, most of that fireproofing material would have been stripped away from both the severed structural components and the surviving components by the shock and the debris, leaving those components vulnerable to fire. In addition, surviving pockets of the material would have acted as heat sinks, which is, after all, the function of fireproofing. That would have functioned to transfer even more heat to an already compromised structural member.
Moreover, after the impacts, it wasn't just the fuel from the aircraft that was burning. Everything else that was combustible was burning, too: fixtures, furniture, carpeting, papers, desks, plastics . . . The jet fuel was merely the ignition source, and would have burned off within the first ten minutes or so. But the fires the fuel ignited would have kept burning until they ran out of air or of combustion sources.
The NIST estimates that the fires in the towers, after the jet fuel burned off, were burning at an average temperature of 1,832 degrees Fahrenheit. Steel begins to lose its structural integrity at about 750 degrees F and, at temperatures of about 1,100 degrees F, loses roughly 50% of its integrity. At about 1,800 degrees F, steel retains only about 10% of its structural integrity.
Again, do the math, kiddies. A normal building fire radiates out from its ignition point, consuming flammables as it goes. By the time it spreads to more distant parts of the building, the combustibles at that ignition point have been largely consumed, and temperatures drop as the fire there begins to die out. But the fires in the towers involved multiple floors, with the burning jet fuel igniting everything it came into contact with. Those kind of fires are known as conflagrations, and they spread rapidly from their origin points.
Those fires were also, by and large, confined within the towers, allowing them to generate even more heat, since there was nowhere for that heat to go. The severed structural connections would have transferred their loads to the surviving connections which, exposed to the prolonged, intense heat, would have begun to soften. When those connections then reached the point where they failed, they in turn would have transferred their loads to the next surviving connections, and so on. As the steel of the core columns softened and failed, they would have transferred their loads to the surviving exterior columns, through the floor and hat trusses. At the same time, those floor trusses, as they softened and failed, would have caused the floors to sag and pull the surviving exterior columns inward as they transferred their loads. When enough of those structural members lost their integrity, the buildings collapsed. And, yes, it's as simple as that.
In a sense, though, the conspiracy theororists are right. Fire alone did not bring down the towers. It is entirely possible that if they had merely suffered from fire, they would not have collapsed. But they didn't just suffer from fire, they suffered from impacts that severed many of the connections that gave the buildings their integrity, and the resulting load transfers from the impacts, combined with the load transfers induced by the fires compromising the steel's structural integrity, were more than the buildings could bear. At that point, gravity took over.
One more thing, in regard to the "demolition charges." Those things don't work by melting steel, either. A demolition charge goes off with a velocity of approximately 28,000 feet per second, much too fast to melt steel. It cuts the steel using brute force.
Cl.. This one, too, is related to the idea that demolition charges were used to bring down the WTC towers. As the buildings came down, clearly visible "puffs" of dust and other material were seen being ejected from the sides of the towers, below the "collapse shroud" itself. The argument is that those clouds of dust and debris could only have been produced by demolition charges.
Once again, however, our old nemesis physics rears its ugly head. The towers collapsed because the surviving structural components in the damage zones could no longer support those loads, or the loads of the floor above them. When the collapse initiated, the weight of everything above the highest undamaged floor below the impact zone came crashing down on that floor, causing it to immediately fail. The collapse then continued down to the next floor, and so on, in a cascading effect that moved faster with each failure. Structural engineers call this process "pancaking."
As each floor failed and collapsed under the wieghts bearing down on it, everything on that floor would have been compressed - including the air. And, just as the fuel from the airliners had done earlier, the resulting "shock wave" of compressed material would have sought the path of least resistance out of the building. Through the windows, through the stairwells, and through the elevator, air and utility shafts. Wherever it could find a way out of the building, it would have done so, at the weakest points it could find. If you had a perfectly sealed building, it is entirely possible that a collapse could initiate on the top floor, and expell a cloud of dust and debris from the bottom floor.
Furthermore, in a controlled demolition using explosive charges, you don't plant those charges high up in the building. The whole idea is to use the potential energy stored in the building to do most of the demolition work, so you plant the charges on the first floor and, if there is one, the basement. You take out the key structural members as low down as possible, and let the weight of the building do the rest.
The conspiracy theororist love to state that the collapse of the WTC towers "bear all the classic signs of a controlled demolition." And that statement is utter nonsense. First of all, since and intentional and an unintentional collapse both depend on removing the key structural members holding the building up, it is impossible to visually tell the difference between the two. Second, if you look at a building that is brought down by demolition charges, the collapse is always initiated on the ground floor. On the other hand, if you look at the collapse of the towers, you will see that it is initiated on the floors where the aircraft hit.
Finally, the technology to initiate the kind if controlled demolition that the conspiracy theororists insist happened to the towers simply does not exist. It is impossible to either configure the charges needed, or wire them, to get the desired result. Each charge would weigh thousands of pounds apiece, and you would need forklifts to move them. Moreover, in order to achieve the desired result, those charges would have to go off simultaneously in widely separated parts of 110-story buildings; but, no matter how you wired them, you could never achieve that simultanaity.
Cl.. Approximately eight hours after the WTC towers collapsed, the 47-story WTC 7 building also collapsed. WTC 7, in addition to housing New York City's emergency response office, also housed offices belonging to the CIA and the Secret Service. Therefore, since sinister, outside forces were directly behind 9/11, that building also had to be destroyed, because that is where the evidence of the conspiracy was to be found. Once again, the theororists point to a "controlled demolition" being responsible for the collapse.
And, once again, they are not just wrong, but blindly wrong. They proceed from the assumption that WTC 7, other than fire, was not otherwise damaged, and that is simply not the case. The building was, in fact, compromised severely, first by falling debris generated by the impact of the aircraft on the North Tower, and then by the debris generated later by the collapse of the tower. Contrary to the claims, photographs and eyewitness testimony exist confirming widespread damage to the roof, southwest corner, and upper stories of the south fact of WTC 7. That damage, combined with the large fires that had been burning unchecked in the building for almost eight hours, led to another case of progressive collapse as the structure lost its integrity. Again, this should not surprise anyone who has a basic understanding of physics. As a damaged support fails, it transfers its load to another damaged support, which will then fail as a result; once there are enough structural failures, the load-bearing capacities of undamaged supports will be exceeded, and they will then fail. Once more, gravity then takes over.
But the conspiracy theororists make much hay out of the "Pull it" comment attributed to Larry Silverstein, who leased WTC 7 from the NY/NJ Port Authority. They assert that "pull it" is the phrase used to initiate a controlled demolition.
The problem being that, according to those people who actually use demolitions to bring down buildings for a living all say that is not the case. No one in that business, it seems, uses the words "pull it" to initiate the demolition. Moreover, Silverstein himself says that what he was talking about was pulling out the firefighters who were in WTC 7 trying to control the fires. According to him, the NYFD had informed him it was a lost cause, and his "pull it" comment was an agreement to withdraw those firefighters. But, as they say, if you're going to jump to a conclusion, make it an extreme one.
The final nail in the controlled demolition theory is that there have been plenty of investigators, not connected to the Government, who have examined the debris from the World Trade Centre. Not one of them has ever found any evidence that demolition charges were used.
The reality of the situation is that not everything is consumed in a controlled demolition. Explosive residue remains behind on the structural members cut by the charges. Some of the wiring and primacord used to set the explosives off remains. And yet, no one has ever found any of that in the debris. Nothing. Unless, of course, we are to believe that everyone who has examined the debris is also in on the conspiracy . . .
Next time: the Pentagon.
Deconstructing the Decontructionists, Part I
Okay, this one is just for you, and you know who you are. Since I've been on a conspiracy theory kick lately, you're right. Why not go after the biggest one of them all? Really, though, there needs to be a category for "Outrageous Stupidity," because this topic just doesn't fit anywhere else.
I can already hear some groaning going on, while there are others asking "Umm . . . what the hell is he ranting about now?" Okay, kiddies, hang on to your shorts because I'm about to dive into the shallow end of the gene pool and take on the 9/11 conspiracy. And, no, a self-respecting curmudgeon never takes a day off.
When I wrote about the conspiracy theory surrounding the loss of USS Scorpion the other day, I mentioned how incredibly insensitive, unfair and painful it was for the families of that lost crew. The same thing applies to 9/11 conspiracy theories, except on a truly epic scale.
Let's not make any mistakes about it: 9/11 happened because an unstable man with delusions of grandeur thought God was whispering in his ear and told him to do it. I'm sure that Osama bin Laden likes puppy dogs, long walks on the beach in a gentle rain, and sipping hot cocoa on a chilly night. He also happens to believe that he has a divine mandate to exterminate anyone who doesn't share his peculiar view of Islam, but that is a subject for another time.
Once again, conspiracies depend on everyone involved keeping their mouths shut about it in order to succeed. The more people you involve in the conspiracy, the less likely it becomes to remain a secret. After a certain critical mass is reached, it is virtually guaranteed that the conspiracy will no longer remain a secret. In the case of 9/11, those who are pushing the conspiracy theories are talking about it involving a cast in the tens of thousands. They would have us believe that the virtually the entire US Government was behind it. The very same Government who's individual departments can't keep a secret for any length of time is now capable of keeping its collective mouth shut for eight years?
Do you really believe that if someone who was politically opposed to George Bush had credible information that the US Government was behind 9/11, they'd just sit on it?
Anyway, let's take a look at the conspiracy claims themselves, and see what we discover.
Cl.. That a group of amateurs with no professional flight experience, armed with box cutters, could not possibly take over four commercial aircraft, navigate them across several hundred miles of unfamiliar terrain and then accurately fly three out of the four into buildings. Such an operation could only be accomplished by highly-trained, skilled and experienced pilots. Obviously, then, any evidence implicating the 19 accused hijackers is an obvious plant.
Well, no. None of the men flying those aircraft had to accomplish the three most difficult tasks any pilot faces: taking off, flying in inclement weather, and landing. It really doesn't take all that much skill to maintain level flight and, as far as navigation, all they had to do was be able to read a compass and programme a GPS receiver.
Commercial pilots don't actually "fly" the aircraft. Once it reaches its cruising altitude, that mundane task is turned over to the autopilot; the crew just monitors the flight controls and instruments, ready to step in if there is a problem. The only time the flight crew is guaranteed to have control of the aircraft is during take off and landing.
So with the hijackers. Thanks to GPS, the aircraft would have already known where it was. All they had to do, in order to reach their targets, was enter the GPS coordinates of those targets into the aircraft's navigation system, and it would then proceed to those coordinates. The only time they had to be in manual control of the aircraft was during the terminal run.
Furthermore, the men who flow those aircraft after they were hijacked were, indeed, certified pilots. They had all acquired pilots' licenses, which is a matter of record at the flight schools they attended. Nor were there targets either hiding or moving; they were, after all, rather large buildings. In point of fact, the black box recovered from Flight 77 shows that the hijacker flying the aircraft programmed the GPS coordinates for Reagan International Airport and then, once there, manually flew the aircraft into the Pentagon, five miles away. Also, ATC records and even witness statements from the doomed souls on board the aircraft testify to the lack of flying skill displayed by the hijackers. They speak of erratic maneuvering in the last minutes of those flights, of sharp turns and of people getting air-sick from the violent maneuvers.
Cl.. The aircraft that hit the South Tower of the World Trade Centre - Flight 175 - was not a Boeing 767-200ER as claimed. Photographs of the aircraft just before impact show a "pod" underneath the fuselage, at the base of the starboard wing. Since no such object is found on a stock 767-200ER, the aircraft that hit the building was either a military aircraft - a tanker, is the claim - or a 767 that had been modified to carry some sort of ordnance. Therefore, 9/11 was a "false flag" operation sanctioned by President Bush and carried out by the US Government.
Again, no, and the explanation for the mysterious "pod" lies in simple physics. When it impacted the building, the aircraft was in a sharp bank. Had it been in level flight, it would have only hit approximately four floors of the building, but we know it was banking because it took out approximately nine floors. As a result, photographs of the aircraft taken from below and to the side are distorted. The starboard wing would appear to be longer and differently proprotioned than the port wing. You can accomplish the same effect by standing under a windmill and taking a photo of the arms as they turn above you.
That said, there is, indeed, something there. What the photo the conspiracy theororists claim shows some sort of weapon is, in fact, the fairing for the starboard landing gear, a pronounced "bulge" on the skin of the aircraft. Furthermore, thousands of people at the WTC that day watched, horrified, as the aircraft flew over them and into the building. Not one of those people has ever come forward to say that they saw a "weapon" on it.
Finally, it would be obvious even to a blind man if a civilian aircraft had been modified to carry ordnance, either externally or internally. First of all, especially if it were externally-mounted, you would need some way to carry it. Second, you would need some way of arming it once you reached the target. Third, in order to cause the damage pattern that was seen, you would need some way of releasing it. All of that involves a lot of wiring and metalwork, not to mention the fact that no one at the airport the flight originated from has ever come forward to say that they saw a weapon attached to the aircraft.
Cl.. This one is related to the one above, and also involves Flight 175. According to the theory, a "witness" called in to FoxNews shortly after the aircraft hit the building and said that he did not see any windows on the sides of the aircraft. Therefore, that aircraft could not have possibly been a commercial airliner, and must have been a military aircraft. Again, we are thus back to a "false flag" operation carried out by the US Government.
Really, there are only two things to say about this claim. First, the "witness" was more than two miles southeast of the WTC when he saw the aircraft, and he also goes on to state that he never saw the plane hit the tower, only heard the explosion. It is true that he told the producers of a 9/11 conspiracy film that he didn't see any windows on the aircraft - which he wouldn't have, he was too far away - but he also told them that he doesn't believe that the aircraft was anything other than a civilian airliner.
Second, aircraft wreckage recovered from the site of the South Tower include sections that have - surprise - windows in them. Furthermore, we know those window sections came from the aircraft that hit the South Tower because investigators, while reviewing ABC footage of the impact, where able to visually track some of those sections as they tore through the building and then fell from the sky.
Cl.. That the US military was ordered to "stand down" on 9/11, and that the Air Force failed to scramble any fighters from any bases within range of the hijacked aircraft. Specifically, the conspiracy theororists point to Andrews Air Force Base, where they claim that there are two squadrons of fighters. The conclusion is thus that the military was ordered to do nothing on 9/11.
Okay, I'll be the first to admit that I'm no fan of the Air Farce. But the reality was, 2001 was not the height of the Cold War. After 1991 and the end of the Cold War, the number of Air Force squadrons dedicated to continental air defence was sharply reduced - the so-called "peace dividend." On 9/11, there were exactly fourteen fighters on alert in the continental United States.
Military aircraft were, in fact, scrambled in response to the hijackings, but it wouldn't have made any difference if the entire USAF had taken to the skies. At that time, the air defence system wasn't set up to track or deal with threats from inside the United States, but threats from outside the nation. If the FAA wanted military assistance in dealing with a hijacking, the process literally consisted of someone having to pick up a phone and calling, and then only after the issue had ascended through the multiple layers of the FAA bureaucracy.
Furthermore, what, exactly, would a military aircraft have done in order to prevent 9/11? There would have only been two options for a fighter pilot: escort the hijacked aircraft, or shoot it down. There isn't anything else that could or can be done, and only the President can order the shooting down of a civilian aircraft. The horror of a jetliner hitting the WTC was bad enough; how much more damage and death would there have been had a fighter shot down an airliner over Manhattan? Aircraft just don't disappear when you fire a missile into them or pepper them with cannon shots. The wreckage has to come down somewhere, you know.
Oh, and by the way . . . there aren't any fighters based at Andrews Air Force Base.
Cl.. In 1945, the Empire State Building was hit by a USAAF B-25 bomber that had gotten lost in the fog, yet the building did not collapse. Therefore, the WTC should not have collapsed in 2001 when hit by a 767, especially since the towers were designed to withstand the impact of being hit by a jetliner.
First of all, the WTC towers were not built the same way as the Empire State Building. The latter is a traditional steel-girder and masonry "box." In other words, if you look at the construction of the Empire State Building, it is essentially a series of small steel boxes stacked together to form one large box. The WTC towers were not built the same way. Whereas the Empire State Building could be described as a "box," the WTC towers could be described as a "tube." In the former, all the little boxes combined to give the building its structural integrity and strength. In the WTC towers, you had a central "core," then the open floor plan, and then the skin of the buildings. That skin was connected to the core by the floor trusses, and that's what gave the towers their structural integrity. Compromise those connections, and the towers lose their integrity, which is exactly what happened on 9/11.
In a traditional "box" building, if you compromise any individual "box," the loads will shift relatively harmlessly to the surrounding, uncompromised "boxes." In effect, every structural member is connected to every other structural member. That allows the building to shrug off, as it were, a significant amount of damage. But in a building where that doesn't exist, such as the WTC towers, that can't happen. The skin of the towers provided structural support and integrity to the buildings because it was tied to the central core through the truss floors. If you severe those truss connections, the structural loads that were being borne by that section of the building have to shift to the adjacent, uncompromised sections. If enough of those connections are compromised, structural integrity will fail and gravity takes over.
Architects and the people who pay for large construction projects love trusses because they are relatively light and cheap when compared to the traditional steel-girder box. But is is no accident that firemen have a saying: "Never trust a truss."
Second, a B-25 is not a 767. The former is far smaller and lighter than the latter, and will thus cause far less damage when it impacts something. Further, while it is true that the WTC towers were designed to withstand the impact of a commercial airliner, what the engineers had in mind was a 707, the largest commercial aircraft in existence when the WTC was built. Again, a 707 is a smaller aircraft than a 767. Nor were the engineers envisioning an aircraft that would be deliberately flown into the buildings at high speed with a full fuel load. A firecracker is going to make less of a "Bang!" than a hand grenade.
I can already hear some groaning going on, while there are others asking "Umm . . . what the hell is he ranting about now?" Okay, kiddies, hang on to your shorts because I'm about to dive into the shallow end of the gene pool and take on the 9/11 conspiracy. And, no, a self-respecting curmudgeon never takes a day off.
When I wrote about the conspiracy theory surrounding the loss of USS Scorpion the other day, I mentioned how incredibly insensitive, unfair and painful it was for the families of that lost crew. The same thing applies to 9/11 conspiracy theories, except on a truly epic scale.
Let's not make any mistakes about it: 9/11 happened because an unstable man with delusions of grandeur thought God was whispering in his ear and told him to do it. I'm sure that Osama bin Laden likes puppy dogs, long walks on the beach in a gentle rain, and sipping hot cocoa on a chilly night. He also happens to believe that he has a divine mandate to exterminate anyone who doesn't share his peculiar view of Islam, but that is a subject for another time.
Once again, conspiracies depend on everyone involved keeping their mouths shut about it in order to succeed. The more people you involve in the conspiracy, the less likely it becomes to remain a secret. After a certain critical mass is reached, it is virtually guaranteed that the conspiracy will no longer remain a secret. In the case of 9/11, those who are pushing the conspiracy theories are talking about it involving a cast in the tens of thousands. They would have us believe that the virtually the entire US Government was behind it. The very same Government who's individual departments can't keep a secret for any length of time is now capable of keeping its collective mouth shut for eight years?
Do you really believe that if someone who was politically opposed to George Bush had credible information that the US Government was behind 9/11, they'd just sit on it?
Anyway, let's take a look at the conspiracy claims themselves, and see what we discover.
Cl.. That a group of amateurs with no professional flight experience, armed with box cutters, could not possibly take over four commercial aircraft, navigate them across several hundred miles of unfamiliar terrain and then accurately fly three out of the four into buildings. Such an operation could only be accomplished by highly-trained, skilled and experienced pilots. Obviously, then, any evidence implicating the 19 accused hijackers is an obvious plant.
Well, no. None of the men flying those aircraft had to accomplish the three most difficult tasks any pilot faces: taking off, flying in inclement weather, and landing. It really doesn't take all that much skill to maintain level flight and, as far as navigation, all they had to do was be able to read a compass and programme a GPS receiver.
Commercial pilots don't actually "fly" the aircraft. Once it reaches its cruising altitude, that mundane task is turned over to the autopilot; the crew just monitors the flight controls and instruments, ready to step in if there is a problem. The only time the flight crew is guaranteed to have control of the aircraft is during take off and landing.
So with the hijackers. Thanks to GPS, the aircraft would have already known where it was. All they had to do, in order to reach their targets, was enter the GPS coordinates of those targets into the aircraft's navigation system, and it would then proceed to those coordinates. The only time they had to be in manual control of the aircraft was during the terminal run.
Furthermore, the men who flow those aircraft after they were hijacked were, indeed, certified pilots. They had all acquired pilots' licenses, which is a matter of record at the flight schools they attended. Nor were there targets either hiding or moving; they were, after all, rather large buildings. In point of fact, the black box recovered from Flight 77 shows that the hijacker flying the aircraft programmed the GPS coordinates for Reagan International Airport and then, once there, manually flew the aircraft into the Pentagon, five miles away. Also, ATC records and even witness statements from the doomed souls on board the aircraft testify to the lack of flying skill displayed by the hijackers. They speak of erratic maneuvering in the last minutes of those flights, of sharp turns and of people getting air-sick from the violent maneuvers.
Cl.. The aircraft that hit the South Tower of the World Trade Centre - Flight 175 - was not a Boeing 767-200ER as claimed. Photographs of the aircraft just before impact show a "pod" underneath the fuselage, at the base of the starboard wing. Since no such object is found on a stock 767-200ER, the aircraft that hit the building was either a military aircraft - a tanker, is the claim - or a 767 that had been modified to carry some sort of ordnance. Therefore, 9/11 was a "false flag" operation sanctioned by President Bush and carried out by the US Government.
Again, no, and the explanation for the mysterious "pod" lies in simple physics. When it impacted the building, the aircraft was in a sharp bank. Had it been in level flight, it would have only hit approximately four floors of the building, but we know it was banking because it took out approximately nine floors. As a result, photographs of the aircraft taken from below and to the side are distorted. The starboard wing would appear to be longer and differently proprotioned than the port wing. You can accomplish the same effect by standing under a windmill and taking a photo of the arms as they turn above you.
That said, there is, indeed, something there. What the photo the conspiracy theororists claim shows some sort of weapon is, in fact, the fairing for the starboard landing gear, a pronounced "bulge" on the skin of the aircraft. Furthermore, thousands of people at the WTC that day watched, horrified, as the aircraft flew over them and into the building. Not one of those people has ever come forward to say that they saw a "weapon" on it.
Finally, it would be obvious even to a blind man if a civilian aircraft had been modified to carry ordnance, either externally or internally. First of all, especially if it were externally-mounted, you would need some way to carry it. Second, you would need some way of arming it once you reached the target. Third, in order to cause the damage pattern that was seen, you would need some way of releasing it. All of that involves a lot of wiring and metalwork, not to mention the fact that no one at the airport the flight originated from has ever come forward to say that they saw a weapon attached to the aircraft.
Cl.. This one is related to the one above, and also involves Flight 175. According to the theory, a "witness" called in to FoxNews shortly after the aircraft hit the building and said that he did not see any windows on the sides of the aircraft. Therefore, that aircraft could not have possibly been a commercial airliner, and must have been a military aircraft. Again, we are thus back to a "false flag" operation carried out by the US Government.
Really, there are only two things to say about this claim. First, the "witness" was more than two miles southeast of the WTC when he saw the aircraft, and he also goes on to state that he never saw the plane hit the tower, only heard the explosion. It is true that he told the producers of a 9/11 conspiracy film that he didn't see any windows on the aircraft - which he wouldn't have, he was too far away - but he also told them that he doesn't believe that the aircraft was anything other than a civilian airliner.
Second, aircraft wreckage recovered from the site of the South Tower include sections that have - surprise - windows in them. Furthermore, we know those window sections came from the aircraft that hit the South Tower because investigators, while reviewing ABC footage of the impact, where able to visually track some of those sections as they tore through the building and then fell from the sky.
Cl.. That the US military was ordered to "stand down" on 9/11, and that the Air Force failed to scramble any fighters from any bases within range of the hijacked aircraft. Specifically, the conspiracy theororists point to Andrews Air Force Base, where they claim that there are two squadrons of fighters. The conclusion is thus that the military was ordered to do nothing on 9/11.
Okay, I'll be the first to admit that I'm no fan of the Air Farce. But the reality was, 2001 was not the height of the Cold War. After 1991 and the end of the Cold War, the number of Air Force squadrons dedicated to continental air defence was sharply reduced - the so-called "peace dividend." On 9/11, there were exactly fourteen fighters on alert in the continental United States.
Military aircraft were, in fact, scrambled in response to the hijackings, but it wouldn't have made any difference if the entire USAF had taken to the skies. At that time, the air defence system wasn't set up to track or deal with threats from inside the United States, but threats from outside the nation. If the FAA wanted military assistance in dealing with a hijacking, the process literally consisted of someone having to pick up a phone and calling, and then only after the issue had ascended through the multiple layers of the FAA bureaucracy.
Furthermore, what, exactly, would a military aircraft have done in order to prevent 9/11? There would have only been two options for a fighter pilot: escort the hijacked aircraft, or shoot it down. There isn't anything else that could or can be done, and only the President can order the shooting down of a civilian aircraft. The horror of a jetliner hitting the WTC was bad enough; how much more damage and death would there have been had a fighter shot down an airliner over Manhattan? Aircraft just don't disappear when you fire a missile into them or pepper them with cannon shots. The wreckage has to come down somewhere, you know.
Oh, and by the way . . . there aren't any fighters based at Andrews Air Force Base.
Cl.. In 1945, the Empire State Building was hit by a USAAF B-25 bomber that had gotten lost in the fog, yet the building did not collapse. Therefore, the WTC should not have collapsed in 2001 when hit by a 767, especially since the towers were designed to withstand the impact of being hit by a jetliner.
First of all, the WTC towers were not built the same way as the Empire State Building. The latter is a traditional steel-girder and masonry "box." In other words, if you look at the construction of the Empire State Building, it is essentially a series of small steel boxes stacked together to form one large box. The WTC towers were not built the same way. Whereas the Empire State Building could be described as a "box," the WTC towers could be described as a "tube." In the former, all the little boxes combined to give the building its structural integrity and strength. In the WTC towers, you had a central "core," then the open floor plan, and then the skin of the buildings. That skin was connected to the core by the floor trusses, and that's what gave the towers their structural integrity. Compromise those connections, and the towers lose their integrity, which is exactly what happened on 9/11.
In a traditional "box" building, if you compromise any individual "box," the loads will shift relatively harmlessly to the surrounding, uncompromised "boxes." In effect, every structural member is connected to every other structural member. That allows the building to shrug off, as it were, a significant amount of damage. But in a building where that doesn't exist, such as the WTC towers, that can't happen. The skin of the towers provided structural support and integrity to the buildings because it was tied to the central core through the truss floors. If you severe those truss connections, the structural loads that were being borne by that section of the building have to shift to the adjacent, uncompromised sections. If enough of those connections are compromised, structural integrity will fail and gravity takes over.
Architects and the people who pay for large construction projects love trusses because they are relatively light and cheap when compared to the traditional steel-girder box. But is is no accident that firemen have a saying: "Never trust a truss."
Second, a B-25 is not a 767. The former is far smaller and lighter than the latter, and will thus cause far less damage when it impacts something. Further, while it is true that the WTC towers were designed to withstand the impact of a commercial airliner, what the engineers had in mind was a 707, the largest commercial aircraft in existence when the WTC was built. Again, a 707 is a smaller aircraft than a 767. Nor were the engineers envisioning an aircraft that would be deliberately flown into the buildings at high speed with a full fuel load. A firecracker is going to make less of a "Bang!" than a hand grenade.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Excuse Me, Is That Your Gun or Are You Just Happy to See Me?
Right, to borrow a phrase, here we go again. Having watched part of a piece on 60 Minutes yesterday which basically stated how evil guns are and how stupidly obsessed and foolish gun-owners are, I somehow find that yes, once again, I am unable to hold my tongue. Now, I'll be the first to admit that I didn't watch the entire segment, but on the other hand, it was 60 Minutes. If you really believe that it was anything other than an op/ed piece masquerading as "objective reporting," then I've got a nice bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.
Whenever I see, or get involved in a debate on guns and gun-control laws, I can't help feeling that it's a pity we no longer teach History in this country. Oh, sure, high schools and universities offer courses in what they call History, but that's generally not what's going on in those classes. It seems that teachers and professors are more interested in "deconstructing" historical figures and proving that they were incredible douchebags who were just as venal as the rest of us, if not more so. Very little critical thinking or analysis occurs, or is even encouraged; rather, it is an exercise in the professor indoctrinating the students in his own personal agenda, which is expected to be regurgitated back verbatim if the student wants a passing grade. That, of course, might be okay if you happen to be Uncle Joe Stalin, but in a society that values freedom of thought, can be just a bit problematic.
If we are going to understand why the Second Amendment to the Constitution exists, and why it is worded the way it is, we have to first understand the history involved and behind it. If we can't do that, then it is impossible to really discuss the issue of guns in this country and what, if anything, we should do about it. If neither side of the debate is able or willing to do that, then, really, they just need to shut up for a while.
First of all, for those who advocate banning firearms entirely: the Second Amendment exists and, like everything else in the Constitution, is the supreme "law of the land." If you don't like it, there exists a method to change that law: it's called the Amendment process. Get two-thirds of the States to agree with you, and the law will change. But a word of caution: trying to go through the back door, as it were, with local laws and regulations that, in the end, conflict with the Second Amendment, is a dangerous thing. If you succeed, not only do you subvert the Constitution, you set a precedent that allows others to use that same method against rights and issues you support. And for those who support the right to own guns: the Second Amendment guarantees you that right. It does not, however, guarantee you the right to own a howitzer. Get over it.
But back to the issue at hand, there were very specific reasons why the framers of the Constitution included the Second Amendment, and this is where we have to understand History.
The Founding Fathers of this nation held a very strong bias against the concept of a standing, professional army. That bias was so strong, in fact, that the Constitution only provides for one permanent military establishment, the Navy. The Constitution states that the Congress must maintain a navy, but only provide for an army, and then only for a limited period of time, two years. Translated into everyday English, that means Congress has to vote every two years to authorize the existence of the United States Army. If that body wanted to, it could disband the Army simply by voting not to reauthorize it. The Navy is exempt from that, and was authorized by the framers of the Constitution as a permanent organization, because they viewed a navy as a far less threatening entity. An organization dedicated to the exercise of sea power, after all, isn't quite as dangerous as an organization dedicated to the exercise of land power.
Given their experience with British troops prior to the Revolution - which, by the way, is why the Amendment prohibiting the quartering of troops in civilian homes exists - and the Revolution itself, that wasn't a completely unreasonable bias to hold. The framers of the Constitution also held the belief that standing armies, along with the dynastic tradition, was a primary cause of the wars and other troubles of Europe, and they were determined to avoid making what they viewed as the same mistake. Again, given their experiences, not completely unreasonable.
In that light, the Second Amendment is an expression of the 18th Century concept of the levee en masse. In other words, the framers of the Constitution, rather than relying on a standing army to defend the nation, were relying directly on the citizens of the nation to do that. Their thinking was that if and when the nation was threatened, the citizens would "flock to the colours" and form an army of their own accord. In effect, they took the idea of the Minuteman and made it a fundamental law. It thus follows that that citizenry must be armed, and so we get "the right of the citizens to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
Now, one can argue that the Government can rely, if it so chooses, on a levee en masse, but that it doesn't necessarily follow that private citizens need to own the weapons. The Government could keep and stockpile the weapons, only handing them out at need. But to do that actually defeats the concept of the levee en masse. If the Government is going to "own" the weapons, it might as well also have the people on hand to use them - in other words, a standing army - in which case it really doesn't need the citizens. Which also brings us to the other reason the framers included the Second Amendment.
The Second Amendment also exists as a check on the power of the Government. The Founding Fathers were concerned about the Government being too powerful, and that it might be tempted to act in ways contrary to the interests of the people. An armed populace functioned as a counterweight to the power of the Government. The belief was that, faced with a population that had access to firearms, the Government would be less likely to become oppressive.
Again, History comes into play here. Not only was the nation still essentially a frontier society at the time the Constitution was written, it was easier and cheaper to allow the citizens to defend that frontier, and themselves, than it was to maintian a standing army to do that for them. More importantly, there was no difference between the firearms available to a professional soldier and those available to a private citizen, save that the private citizen often had access to firearms that were superior.
Remember, the Second Amendment was written in the Gunpowder Era. Cavalry still fought from horseback, and their primary weapon was the sabre, not a firearm. Cannon, muskets, pistols and rifles were all muzzle-loading weapons using black powder, and an expert rifleman could get off perhaps two shots a minute. Early rifles, which were far more accurate and lethal than smooth-bore muskets, were relatively prevalent on the frontier, while the US Army, such as it was, didn't start using rifles until the middle of the Civil War, and didn't adopt repeating rifles in large numbers until after that conflict. The interrupted breech-block for artillery wasn't invented until the late 1800s, and semi-automatic weapons were an invention of the 1930s.
So, in point of fact, the weapons available to civilians were often superior to those available to professional soldiers. Thus, the function of the Second Amendment as a check on the power of the Government. Technology changes, of course, and now we have automatic weapons, but that doesn't matter. It doesn't change that function of the Second Amendment. Nor were the framers of the Constitution idiots; they didn't expect that technology would remain stagnant. Yet, they still wrote the Amendment in the way they did.
A firearm is a tool, just like any other tool, no more and no less. It can be used properly, or it can be misused. But, in terms of the debate on gun control, there has never been a gun that just up and killed someone all on its own. That generally requires some moron pulling the trigger.
The mistake that gun control proponents make, aside from ignoring History, is that they view the gun as cause and not tool. There isn't anything that you can do with a gun that you can't do with an ice pick. It just takes longer to do it with the ice pick, and tends to be messier. But if someone wants to kill themself or someone else, they're going to do it whether they have access to a gun or not. You will be just as dead whether I shoot you in the head with a Glock, or just cave your skull in with a 60-oz Louisville Slugger. Should we then have baseball bat control laws?
Statistics can be misleading, and a haven for bias. I have seen it argued that having a gun in a house makes it statistically more likely that a suicidal individual will use that weapon to kill themself. Well, yes; if I were suicidal, and the choice was between hanging myself and shooting myself, I'd choose the one which is quickest and guaranteed to work.
If you want to "control" guns, if the objective is to "control" the accidental shootings of people, then what you really need to do is "control" how people use guns, not ban the guns. During "basic training" in the military, they train people how to properly handle firearms before they ever think about giving them any ammunition. There is no reason why it shouldn't be the same for civilians. Right now, that part of the system is flawed in that if you pass the background checks, you can walk right out of the store with your weapon of choice and all the bullets you want . . . or, at least, an amount that won't attract the attention of the ATF. But there is no reason why a civilian who wants to own a firearm should not be required to attend a mandatory firearms safety course as a part of that process.
Whenever I see, or get involved in a debate on guns and gun-control laws, I can't help feeling that it's a pity we no longer teach History in this country. Oh, sure, high schools and universities offer courses in what they call History, but that's generally not what's going on in those classes. It seems that teachers and professors are more interested in "deconstructing" historical figures and proving that they were incredible douchebags who were just as venal as the rest of us, if not more so. Very little critical thinking or analysis occurs, or is even encouraged; rather, it is an exercise in the professor indoctrinating the students in his own personal agenda, which is expected to be regurgitated back verbatim if the student wants a passing grade. That, of course, might be okay if you happen to be Uncle Joe Stalin, but in a society that values freedom of thought, can be just a bit problematic.
If we are going to understand why the Second Amendment to the Constitution exists, and why it is worded the way it is, we have to first understand the history involved and behind it. If we can't do that, then it is impossible to really discuss the issue of guns in this country and what, if anything, we should do about it. If neither side of the debate is able or willing to do that, then, really, they just need to shut up for a while.
First of all, for those who advocate banning firearms entirely: the Second Amendment exists and, like everything else in the Constitution, is the supreme "law of the land." If you don't like it, there exists a method to change that law: it's called the Amendment process. Get two-thirds of the States to agree with you, and the law will change. But a word of caution: trying to go through the back door, as it were, with local laws and regulations that, in the end, conflict with the Second Amendment, is a dangerous thing. If you succeed, not only do you subvert the Constitution, you set a precedent that allows others to use that same method against rights and issues you support. And for those who support the right to own guns: the Second Amendment guarantees you that right. It does not, however, guarantee you the right to own a howitzer. Get over it.
But back to the issue at hand, there were very specific reasons why the framers of the Constitution included the Second Amendment, and this is where we have to understand History.
The Founding Fathers of this nation held a very strong bias against the concept of a standing, professional army. That bias was so strong, in fact, that the Constitution only provides for one permanent military establishment, the Navy. The Constitution states that the Congress must maintain a navy, but only provide for an army, and then only for a limited period of time, two years. Translated into everyday English, that means Congress has to vote every two years to authorize the existence of the United States Army. If that body wanted to, it could disband the Army simply by voting not to reauthorize it. The Navy is exempt from that, and was authorized by the framers of the Constitution as a permanent organization, because they viewed a navy as a far less threatening entity. An organization dedicated to the exercise of sea power, after all, isn't quite as dangerous as an organization dedicated to the exercise of land power.
Given their experience with British troops prior to the Revolution - which, by the way, is why the Amendment prohibiting the quartering of troops in civilian homes exists - and the Revolution itself, that wasn't a completely unreasonable bias to hold. The framers of the Constitution also held the belief that standing armies, along with the dynastic tradition, was a primary cause of the wars and other troubles of Europe, and they were determined to avoid making what they viewed as the same mistake. Again, given their experiences, not completely unreasonable.
In that light, the Second Amendment is an expression of the 18th Century concept of the levee en masse. In other words, the framers of the Constitution, rather than relying on a standing army to defend the nation, were relying directly on the citizens of the nation to do that. Their thinking was that if and when the nation was threatened, the citizens would "flock to the colours" and form an army of their own accord. In effect, they took the idea of the Minuteman and made it a fundamental law. It thus follows that that citizenry must be armed, and so we get "the right of the citizens to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
Now, one can argue that the Government can rely, if it so chooses, on a levee en masse, but that it doesn't necessarily follow that private citizens need to own the weapons. The Government could keep and stockpile the weapons, only handing them out at need. But to do that actually defeats the concept of the levee en masse. If the Government is going to "own" the weapons, it might as well also have the people on hand to use them - in other words, a standing army - in which case it really doesn't need the citizens. Which also brings us to the other reason the framers included the Second Amendment.
The Second Amendment also exists as a check on the power of the Government. The Founding Fathers were concerned about the Government being too powerful, and that it might be tempted to act in ways contrary to the interests of the people. An armed populace functioned as a counterweight to the power of the Government. The belief was that, faced with a population that had access to firearms, the Government would be less likely to become oppressive.
Again, History comes into play here. Not only was the nation still essentially a frontier society at the time the Constitution was written, it was easier and cheaper to allow the citizens to defend that frontier, and themselves, than it was to maintian a standing army to do that for them. More importantly, there was no difference between the firearms available to a professional soldier and those available to a private citizen, save that the private citizen often had access to firearms that were superior.
Remember, the Second Amendment was written in the Gunpowder Era. Cavalry still fought from horseback, and their primary weapon was the sabre, not a firearm. Cannon, muskets, pistols and rifles were all muzzle-loading weapons using black powder, and an expert rifleman could get off perhaps two shots a minute. Early rifles, which were far more accurate and lethal than smooth-bore muskets, were relatively prevalent on the frontier, while the US Army, such as it was, didn't start using rifles until the middle of the Civil War, and didn't adopt repeating rifles in large numbers until after that conflict. The interrupted breech-block for artillery wasn't invented until the late 1800s, and semi-automatic weapons were an invention of the 1930s.
So, in point of fact, the weapons available to civilians were often superior to those available to professional soldiers. Thus, the function of the Second Amendment as a check on the power of the Government. Technology changes, of course, and now we have automatic weapons, but that doesn't matter. It doesn't change that function of the Second Amendment. Nor were the framers of the Constitution idiots; they didn't expect that technology would remain stagnant. Yet, they still wrote the Amendment in the way they did.
A firearm is a tool, just like any other tool, no more and no less. It can be used properly, or it can be misused. But, in terms of the debate on gun control, there has never been a gun that just up and killed someone all on its own. That generally requires some moron pulling the trigger.
The mistake that gun control proponents make, aside from ignoring History, is that they view the gun as cause and not tool. There isn't anything that you can do with a gun that you can't do with an ice pick. It just takes longer to do it with the ice pick, and tends to be messier. But if someone wants to kill themself or someone else, they're going to do it whether they have access to a gun or not. You will be just as dead whether I shoot you in the head with a Glock, or just cave your skull in with a 60-oz Louisville Slugger. Should we then have baseball bat control laws?
Statistics can be misleading, and a haven for bias. I have seen it argued that having a gun in a house makes it statistically more likely that a suicidal individual will use that weapon to kill themself. Well, yes; if I were suicidal, and the choice was between hanging myself and shooting myself, I'd choose the one which is quickest and guaranteed to work.
If you want to "control" guns, if the objective is to "control" the accidental shootings of people, then what you really need to do is "control" how people use guns, not ban the guns. During "basic training" in the military, they train people how to properly handle firearms before they ever think about giving them any ammunition. There is no reason why it shouldn't be the same for civilians. Right now, that part of the system is flawed in that if you pass the background checks, you can walk right out of the store with your weapon of choice and all the bullets you want . . . or, at least, an amount that won't attract the attention of the ATF. But there is no reason why a civilian who wants to own a firearm should not be required to attend a mandatory firearms safety course as a part of that process.
Famous Last Words, Part I
"When's Christmas this year?" 
"She's a nice girl, but she doesn't have any breasts. It's got to be like making love to a twelve-year-old boy."
"You're driving too fast!"
"The speed limit is 35, and I'm doing 30."
"Look out for that stop sign!"
"It's two blocks away . . ."
"You're too close to the parked cars!"
"If I move any farther to the left, we'll be in the on-coming lane."
"A yellow light doesn't mean 'speed up!'"
"Perhaps Her Highness would care to drive herself?"
"Don't worry, men, they couldn't hit an elephant at this dist-"
"When I die, I want to be cremated, and have my ashes scattered on the peasants."
"Umm, okay . . . do they have to be full-time peasants, or can I rent them for the occasion?"
"Any cops around?"
"Just the one behind us, why?"
"No, your honour, I didn't steal the car. I found it before it was lost."
"Once we pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is no longer our friend."
"Icebergs ahead? What's the worst that could possibly happen?"
"Jesus Christ! Does he think we killed her?"
"Well . . . he does now."
"You can't say that Dallas hasn't been good to you today, Mr. President."
"Read my lips: no new taxes!"
"Your honour, I didn't make an illegal u-turn, I made a series of interconnected, ninety-degree left-hand turns."
"But, occifer, I'm not half as think as you drunk I am."
"You were in the military. I'm surprised you're not worried about Y2K."
"That's because you people are worrying about how you're going to staff the houses if it happens. Me, I'm going to grab my rifle and my kevlar and head for the hills . . ."
"This doesn't look so bad . . . this isn't so bad . . . umm . . . can't I just take the chairlift back down the hill?"
"Sir, do you know how fast you were going?"
"Yep."
"I will not send American boys ten thousand miles away from home to do a job that Vietnamese boys should be doing for themselves."
"Come on, baby, I swear I'll pull out . . ."
"What's that red light on the dashboard mean?"
"She's a nice girl, but she doesn't have any breasts. It's got to be like making love to a twelve-year-old boy."
"You're driving too fast!"
"The speed limit is 35, and I'm doing 30."
"Look out for that stop sign!"
"It's two blocks away . . ."
"You're too close to the parked cars!"
"If I move any farther to the left, we'll be in the on-coming lane."
"A yellow light doesn't mean 'speed up!'"
"Perhaps Her Highness would care to drive herself?"
"Don't worry, men, they couldn't hit an elephant at this dist-"
"When I die, I want to be cremated, and have my ashes scattered on the peasants."
"Umm, okay . . . do they have to be full-time peasants, or can I rent them for the occasion?"
"Any cops around?"
"Just the one behind us, why?"
"No, your honour, I didn't steal the car. I found it before it was lost."
"Once we pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is no longer our friend."
"Icebergs ahead? What's the worst that could possibly happen?"
"Jesus Christ! Does he think we killed her?"
"Well . . . he does now."
"You can't say that Dallas hasn't been good to you today, Mr. President."
"Read my lips: no new taxes!"
"Your honour, I didn't make an illegal u-turn, I made a series of interconnected, ninety-degree left-hand turns."
"But, occifer, I'm not half as think as you drunk I am."
"You were in the military. I'm surprised you're not worried about Y2K."
"That's because you people are worrying about how you're going to staff the houses if it happens. Me, I'm going to grab my rifle and my kevlar and head for the hills . . ."
"This doesn't look so bad . . . this isn't so bad . . . umm . . . can't I just take the chairlift back down the hill?"
"Sir, do you know how fast you were going?"
"Yep."
"I will not send American boys ten thousand miles away from home to do a job that Vietnamese boys should be doing for themselves."
"Come on, baby, I swear I'll pull out . . ."
"What's that red light on the dashboard mean?"
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Chasing Ghosts
You know, you just have to love a good conspiracy theory. Sure, most of them are ridiculous but, at their very best, they are also infinitely entertaining. Really, if we were all going to be honest with ourselves, a conspiracy theory is just as irresistible as a warm chocolate chip cookie, fresh from the oven. They persist because they explain something which is not readily explainable and, more importantly, assign responsibility and blame to someone or something for what, in reality, amounts to a random act of chance. Besides which, conspiracy theories empower people by allowing them to believe that they were smart enough to figure out a plot so nefarious and subtle, the rest of us missed it. Some people even manage to make comfortable livings out of milking a conspiracy theory for all it's worth . . . von Danaaken, I'm looking at you.
This, however, isn't about ancient astronauts, or even a good conspiracy theory. It's about a rather sad one, and one that really serves no other purpose than to keep old wounds from healing. I'm talking about the loss of USS Scorpion.
For those of you who don't, ahem, have the benefit of having quite as many miles on their odometers as others of us, perhaps some explanation is in order. Scorpion was a Skipjack-class fast attack submarine that was lost with all hands southwest of the Azore Islands at the end of May in 1968. She was the second nuclear-propelled boat that the US Navy lost, the first being Thresher five years earlier. Unlike Thresher, however, no one really knows why Scorpion sank. Thresher, after all, was on a post-overhaul shakedown when she was lost, and there were witnesses. Scorpion, on the other hand, was returning from an operational deployment to the Mediterranean and was alone. Well, almost alone, but we'll get to that in a minute.
While no one really knows why the boat was lost, that hasn't stopped the conspiracy theororists, of course. Mysteries, after all, tend to breed such theories. The favourite theory out there postulates that Scorpion was deliberately sunk by the Soviets. The question, naturally, then becomes exactly why the Soviets would do that. Really, short of starting a general war on a whim, there isn't much reason to run around sinking nuclear submarines at random.
Okay some more history is needed here in order to make sense of this theory, so hang on. In 1967, in the Pacific Ocean, the Soviets had lost a Golf-class missile submarine - off hand, I don't recall the project number (Soviet, and now Russian, submarines are known by "project" numbers, in addition to name), but I believe it was K-129. Anyway, that particular class of boats were conventionally-powered, and were armed with SLBMs. Now, no one knows exactly why that submarine sank, either, though there is, of course, a conspiracy theory for that one, too.
In short, the theory about the loss of K-129 holds that the crew had gone "rogue," and were attempting to launch their missiles at Pearl Harbour. Again, exactly why they would want to do that remains unexplained, but perhaps they were only trying to finish what the Japanese started, granted twenty-six years too late. Anyway, one idea holds that the boat suffered some sort of mechanical casualty while trying to launch her missiles (or should I say "he," since Russians refer to ships in the masculine?) which flooded one or more tubes, which then flooded the boat. A twist on that, and one actually favoured by many Russians, is that the boat was rammed and sunk by an American submarine in order to prevent the launch.
Right, couple of problems with that. First, the Golf-class boats were unable to fire their missiles while submerged. Those boats had to be on the surface in order to launch and, since the missile tubes were in the boat's sail, that automatically precludes flooding as the proximate cause of loss. You can't actually flood something when the thing you're trying to flood isn't in the water . . . That some sort of casualty occured is obvious; the boat did sink, after all. But, since there were no distress calls from K-129 and no survivors, the exact cause of her loss will never be known, Glomar Explorer notwithstanding.
Second, even if we were to accept the idea that the crew of K-129 had gone off the deep end and decided to start a nuclear war for shits and giggle, and that a US submarine then sank her to prevent that, why would the US boat ram her? Kiddies, we're not talking about the family sedan getting into a fender-bender here. Collisions at sea tend to be much more catastrophic than that and, really, the only flooding you want to have happen on a submarine is in the ballast tanks. Flooding inside the pressure hull can quickly get out of control and put the boat on the bottom for a permanent visit. And, in a collision, there is really no way you can predict what the resulting damage will be. Besides which, why ram when a torpedo will do the job?
Anyway, the theory goes that the Soviets were, shall we say, perturbed over the loss of K-129, and blamed the Americans. How does that relate to the loss of Scorpion? Simple, my young padawans . . .
At the time Scorpion left the Med to return to her homeport in Norfolk, about the 20th of May, the Soviets were holding a naval exercise near the Azores. As she was the only boat in the vicinity, Scorpion was diverted to go an monitor those exercises. As we now know, thanks to John Walker and his family of douchebags, the Soviets were reading the Navy's message traffic, and were aware of Scorpion's presence. Now, this is where it gets good. Still being ticked about K-129, the Soviets then decided to sink Scorpion in retaliation. The best part of this is that, following the sinking of the boat, there entailed a forty-one year mutual effort on the part of the US and the Soviet Union/Russia to suppress that information.
Yeah. And Santa Claus really does climb down every chimney in the world on December 24th to deliver presents to all the good boys and girls of the world.
A conspiracy, of course, in order to be successful, depends on everyone involved keeping their mouth shut. The problem being, the more people who are in on the conspiracy, the less likely it becomes to remain a secret. In this case, we're being asked to believe that not only the entire naval establishments of the United States and the Soviet Union/Russia have made a "gentleman's agreement" to sit on the true cause of Scorpion's loss, but the diplomatic and intelligence establishments of both nations are in on it as well. Oh, and throw our Congress in there as well, since an incident like that would have to be briefed to at least the ranking members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, the Intelligence Oversight Committees, and their staffs.
Right. Not very likely now, is it?
I recently read a book entitled Scorpion Down, in which that theory is laid out in its entirety. I have to say, it makes for good fiction, but . . . In order to have a sustainable theory, you've really got to get your facts straight. As an example, the book states that the Navy knew Scorpion was missing and started a search for her . . . at a time when she hadn't even left the Mediterannean yet. In point of fact, at the time the author of the book states that the Navy started searching for her, Scorpion was tied up to a tender at the submarine base in Rota, Spain. In that case, it seems the "search" would have been a simple matter of someone walking over to the rail and looking to see if she was still there . . .
Again, no one knows exactly why Scorpion sank. One theory advanced by the Board of Inquiry was that there was a failure of the TDU, the trash disposal unit. Think of it as a mini-torpedo tube. About the size of a trash can, a TDU does exactly what the name implies. When a boat is at or near periscope depth, garbage is stuffed into the TDU and then ejected overboard. This theory postulates that there was some sort of mechanical casualty to the unit, which resulted in uncontrolled flooding of the boat. Possible, since the unit pierces the hull and, if the inner and outer doors were somehow both open at the same time, or there was a catastrophic failure of the seals, the sea would be allowed to enter. There is also the fact that Scorpion was, by the Navy's own admission, in a poor material state. Due to operational tempos, she had missed a much-needed overhaul period, so a casualty like that can't be ruled out.
Another theory advanced by the Board of Inquiry was that Scorpion had suffered what's known as a "hot run" with one of her torpedoes. Simply put, a hot run is when a torpedo starts running while it is still in the torpedo tube or, worse, in its rack or loading tray. The only thing you can do is fire the thing as quickly as possible, and then make a one-hundred and eighty degree turn to get away from the thing.
Now, the type of torpedo carried by Scorpion, the Mk. 37, was notorious for suffering hot runs. It was fueled by two volatile chemicals, which were separated by a thin foil strip. That strip had a nasty habit of degrading unexpectedly, allowing those chemicals to mix and starting the weapon's motor. This was not news to anyone who handled those weapons.
There actually exists evidence to support the hot run theory. Scorpion's loss was recorded by the SOSUS net in the Atlantic, and that sound data proved key in locating the wreck. According to the recordings, there is the sound of a torpedo being launched from Scorpion, followed by the boat making a radical one-hundred and eighty degree turn . . . then the sound of an explosion and, approximately fifteen seconds later, the boat breaking up. Compelling but, in the absence of survivors or on-scene witnesses, not conclusive.
The conspiracy theororists, of course, latch on to those recordings as "proof" of their assertions. After all, there is the noise of a torpedo running in the ocean; therefore, it has to be a Soviet torpedo. The problem being that, if the SOSUS net had recorded a Soviet torpedo, then it would also have recorded the Soviet submarine that launched it, and the noise of a Soviet boat is conspicuosly lacking from the data. And, with all due apologies to the author of Scorpion Down, there is just no way that a SOSUS technician in Guam, in a different ocean on the other side of the world, heard Scorpion being sunk.
Okay, why have I wasted so much time on this? Simply because perpetuating this myth concerning Scorpion is incredibly cruel to the families of the lost crew. It is bad enough that they lost their husbands, sons and brothers in that tragedy. But continually hitting them over the head with a baseless theory that ascribes hostile intent not only to the alleged perpetrators, but to the Navy and the country those men served, does absolutely nothing but keep tearing that wound open. Leave it alone, already. Take off the tin-foil hats and just leave those people alone.
This, however, isn't about ancient astronauts, or even a good conspiracy theory. It's about a rather sad one, and one that really serves no other purpose than to keep old wounds from healing. I'm talking about the loss of USS Scorpion.
For those of you who don't, ahem, have the benefit of having quite as many miles on their odometers as others of us, perhaps some explanation is in order. Scorpion was a Skipjack-class fast attack submarine that was lost with all hands southwest of the Azore Islands at the end of May in 1968. She was the second nuclear-propelled boat that the US Navy lost, the first being Thresher five years earlier. Unlike Thresher, however, no one really knows why Scorpion sank. Thresher, after all, was on a post-overhaul shakedown when she was lost, and there were witnesses. Scorpion, on the other hand, was returning from an operational deployment to the Mediterranean and was alone. Well, almost alone, but we'll get to that in a minute.
While no one really knows why the boat was lost, that hasn't stopped the conspiracy theororists, of course. Mysteries, after all, tend to breed such theories. The favourite theory out there postulates that Scorpion was deliberately sunk by the Soviets. The question, naturally, then becomes exactly why the Soviets would do that. Really, short of starting a general war on a whim, there isn't much reason to run around sinking nuclear submarines at random.
Okay some more history is needed here in order to make sense of this theory, so hang on. In 1967, in the Pacific Ocean, the Soviets had lost a Golf-class missile submarine - off hand, I don't recall the project number (Soviet, and now Russian, submarines are known by "project" numbers, in addition to name), but I believe it was K-129. Anyway, that particular class of boats were conventionally-powered, and were armed with SLBMs. Now, no one knows exactly why that submarine sank, either, though there is, of course, a conspiracy theory for that one, too.
In short, the theory about the loss of K-129 holds that the crew had gone "rogue," and were attempting to launch their missiles at Pearl Harbour. Again, exactly why they would want to do that remains unexplained, but perhaps they were only trying to finish what the Japanese started, granted twenty-six years too late. Anyway, one idea holds that the boat suffered some sort of mechanical casualty while trying to launch her missiles (or should I say "he," since Russians refer to ships in the masculine?) which flooded one or more tubes, which then flooded the boat. A twist on that, and one actually favoured by many Russians, is that the boat was rammed and sunk by an American submarine in order to prevent the launch.
Right, couple of problems with that. First, the Golf-class boats were unable to fire their missiles while submerged. Those boats had to be on the surface in order to launch and, since the missile tubes were in the boat's sail, that automatically precludes flooding as the proximate cause of loss. You can't actually flood something when the thing you're trying to flood isn't in the water . . . That some sort of casualty occured is obvious; the boat did sink, after all. But, since there were no distress calls from K-129 and no survivors, the exact cause of her loss will never be known, Glomar Explorer notwithstanding.
Second, even if we were to accept the idea that the crew of K-129 had gone off the deep end and decided to start a nuclear war for shits and giggle, and that a US submarine then sank her to prevent that, why would the US boat ram her? Kiddies, we're not talking about the family sedan getting into a fender-bender here. Collisions at sea tend to be much more catastrophic than that and, really, the only flooding you want to have happen on a submarine is in the ballast tanks. Flooding inside the pressure hull can quickly get out of control and put the boat on the bottom for a permanent visit. And, in a collision, there is really no way you can predict what the resulting damage will be. Besides which, why ram when a torpedo will do the job?
Anyway, the theory goes that the Soviets were, shall we say, perturbed over the loss of K-129, and blamed the Americans. How does that relate to the loss of Scorpion? Simple, my young padawans . . .
At the time Scorpion left the Med to return to her homeport in Norfolk, about the 20th of May, the Soviets were holding a naval exercise near the Azores. As she was the only boat in the vicinity, Scorpion was diverted to go an monitor those exercises. As we now know, thanks to John Walker and his family of douchebags, the Soviets were reading the Navy's message traffic, and were aware of Scorpion's presence. Now, this is where it gets good. Still being ticked about K-129, the Soviets then decided to sink Scorpion in retaliation. The best part of this is that, following the sinking of the boat, there entailed a forty-one year mutual effort on the part of the US and the Soviet Union/Russia to suppress that information.
Yeah. And Santa Claus really does climb down every chimney in the world on December 24th to deliver presents to all the good boys and girls of the world.
A conspiracy, of course, in order to be successful, depends on everyone involved keeping their mouth shut. The problem being, the more people who are in on the conspiracy, the less likely it becomes to remain a secret. In this case, we're being asked to believe that not only the entire naval establishments of the United States and the Soviet Union/Russia have made a "gentleman's agreement" to sit on the true cause of Scorpion's loss, but the diplomatic and intelligence establishments of both nations are in on it as well. Oh, and throw our Congress in there as well, since an incident like that would have to be briefed to at least the ranking members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, the Intelligence Oversight Committees, and their staffs.
Right. Not very likely now, is it?
I recently read a book entitled Scorpion Down, in which that theory is laid out in its entirety. I have to say, it makes for good fiction, but . . . In order to have a sustainable theory, you've really got to get your facts straight. As an example, the book states that the Navy knew Scorpion was missing and started a search for her . . . at a time when she hadn't even left the Mediterannean yet. In point of fact, at the time the author of the book states that the Navy started searching for her, Scorpion was tied up to a tender at the submarine base in Rota, Spain. In that case, it seems the "search" would have been a simple matter of someone walking over to the rail and looking to see if she was still there . . .
Again, no one knows exactly why Scorpion sank. One theory advanced by the Board of Inquiry was that there was a failure of the TDU, the trash disposal unit. Think of it as a mini-torpedo tube. About the size of a trash can, a TDU does exactly what the name implies. When a boat is at or near periscope depth, garbage is stuffed into the TDU and then ejected overboard. This theory postulates that there was some sort of mechanical casualty to the unit, which resulted in uncontrolled flooding of the boat. Possible, since the unit pierces the hull and, if the inner and outer doors were somehow both open at the same time, or there was a catastrophic failure of the seals, the sea would be allowed to enter. There is also the fact that Scorpion was, by the Navy's own admission, in a poor material state. Due to operational tempos, she had missed a much-needed overhaul period, so a casualty like that can't be ruled out.
Another theory advanced by the Board of Inquiry was that Scorpion had suffered what's known as a "hot run" with one of her torpedoes. Simply put, a hot run is when a torpedo starts running while it is still in the torpedo tube or, worse, in its rack or loading tray. The only thing you can do is fire the thing as quickly as possible, and then make a one-hundred and eighty degree turn to get away from the thing.
Now, the type of torpedo carried by Scorpion, the Mk. 37, was notorious for suffering hot runs. It was fueled by two volatile chemicals, which were separated by a thin foil strip. That strip had a nasty habit of degrading unexpectedly, allowing those chemicals to mix and starting the weapon's motor. This was not news to anyone who handled those weapons.
There actually exists evidence to support the hot run theory. Scorpion's loss was recorded by the SOSUS net in the Atlantic, and that sound data proved key in locating the wreck. According to the recordings, there is the sound of a torpedo being launched from Scorpion, followed by the boat making a radical one-hundred and eighty degree turn . . . then the sound of an explosion and, approximately fifteen seconds later, the boat breaking up. Compelling but, in the absence of survivors or on-scene witnesses, not conclusive.
The conspiracy theororists, of course, latch on to those recordings as "proof" of their assertions. After all, there is the noise of a torpedo running in the ocean; therefore, it has to be a Soviet torpedo. The problem being that, if the SOSUS net had recorded a Soviet torpedo, then it would also have recorded the Soviet submarine that launched it, and the noise of a Soviet boat is conspicuosly lacking from the data. And, with all due apologies to the author of Scorpion Down, there is just no way that a SOSUS technician in Guam, in a different ocean on the other side of the world, heard Scorpion being sunk.
Okay, why have I wasted so much time on this? Simply because perpetuating this myth concerning Scorpion is incredibly cruel to the families of the lost crew. It is bad enough that they lost their husbands, sons and brothers in that tragedy. But continually hitting them over the head with a baseless theory that ascribes hostile intent not only to the alleged perpetrators, but to the Navy and the country those men served, does absolutely nothing but keep tearing that wound open. Leave it alone, already. Take off the tin-foil hats and just leave those people alone.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Storm Front
There's a storm coming. Clouds gather on the horizon, so grey as to be almost black, as lightning flashes just beyond sight, illuminating their bottoms with a fitful, cold blue-white light. Thunder rumbles just on the edge of hearing, softened by distance, while the gust front gathers in the heavy air, stirring it about as it builds itself, still but a ghost of the fury to come. The world itself grows strangely silent in a breathless anticipation, waiting for the inevitable, bracing itself.
Moments in time, each building on the one that came before, drawing energy from each other, feeding the tempest that growls and snarls, waiting to slip the leash. Louder now, the thunder rumbles like a freight train as Zeus hurls his bolts, a sound of profound emptiness and exquisite rage. Trees creak and groan in the growing wind, their shivering leaves rasping dryly one against the other in vain protest and denial of that which is almost here.
Go ahead and lie to me. Tell me you care, tell me I'll be missed, tell me whatever it is you need to say to make yourself feel better. Tell me I matter, and lie to the storm. Plead with that quiet moment before it breaks, offer a mistake, a momentary lapse of reason, but it doesn't care. Beyond truth or lies, it is a living thing existing only for itself, to give voice to what has remained voiceless for so long. The rage that it embodies, that gives it life is, in the end, the only truth that matters.
There's a storm coming, and it shall not be turned from its path, nor does it care if even the beautiful and the virtuous stand before it. A cleansing, a reckoning, the innocent and the guilty are equal before it.
Moments in time, each building on the one that came before, drawing energy from each other, feeding the tempest that growls and snarls, waiting to slip the leash. Louder now, the thunder rumbles like a freight train as Zeus hurls his bolts, a sound of profound emptiness and exquisite rage. Trees creak and groan in the growing wind, their shivering leaves rasping dryly one against the other in vain protest and denial of that which is almost here.
Go ahead and lie to me. Tell me you care, tell me I'll be missed, tell me whatever it is you need to say to make yourself feel better. Tell me I matter, and lie to the storm. Plead with that quiet moment before it breaks, offer a mistake, a momentary lapse of reason, but it doesn't care. Beyond truth or lies, it is a living thing existing only for itself, to give voice to what has remained voiceless for so long. The rage that it embodies, that gives it life is, in the end, the only truth that matters.
There's a storm coming, and it shall not be turned from its path, nor does it care if even the beautiful and the virtuous stand before it. A cleansing, a reckoning, the innocent and the guilty are equal before it.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Acts of Indifference
Some people are comfortable sharing their emotions, while there are others who take that to an extreme, wearing those emotions on their sleeves, daring and defying the world to deal with them. Despite the shocks and wounds a generally uncaring world tends to deliver to such people, they persist in that in a kind of ultimate validation of irresistible force meeting unmoveable object. For some, it's an act of confrontation, of facing down the demons and the ghosts, while for others it's a kind of validation, a platform on which to play out a psychodrama as it struts and frets its hour upon the stage.
He had never been one of those people. For better or worse, everyone is a prisoner of their own history, locked behind bars not entirely of their own making or choice, a cell from which there is no escape. The world had taught him, through harsh and bitter lessons, to be wary of exposing his emotions. Better to lock those things away, keep them carefully hidden, only allow the trusted few, and hold even them at a safe distance. If you expect nothing, then you can never be hurt, never be disappointed. Wittingly or not, everyone will betray you, will cross a line beyond which they should not go and, once crossed, can never turn back from.
Acts of indifference, acts of betrayal. In the end, they amount to the same thing, a Rubicon which Caeser should not pass. Trust is a funny thing, hard to earn, so easy to lose. A conversation that should never have been, perhaps a miscommunication or just an inability to communicate properly, recriminations, aspersions and confirmations. And, quietly, almost as an afterthought, trust evaporates like a morning mist, stealing softly away so as to not disturb the silence in the cathedral of the ego.
All good things must come to an end; so banal in its triteness, but nevertheless true. What is there left to say, to do, other than sack Rome? There are some events that, once set in motion, can not be stopped. It would be wise for people to remember to settle the disorder in their own homes before advising others on the chaos in theirs, but people are not wise, just prisoners of themselves. As that other truism goes, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
And so some things end, not with a bang, nor even with a whimper, but in a terrible vacuum of indifference. Just one more thing to be locked up, hidden carefully away, mourned in its passing. Better by far to be guarded, to maintain that wall, than be exposed and vulnerable to the caprices of others. It hurts less that way, and it only costs a small piece of your soul.
He had never been one of those people. For better or worse, everyone is a prisoner of their own history, locked behind bars not entirely of their own making or choice, a cell from which there is no escape. The world had taught him, through harsh and bitter lessons, to be wary of exposing his emotions. Better to lock those things away, keep them carefully hidden, only allow the trusted few, and hold even them at a safe distance. If you expect nothing, then you can never be hurt, never be disappointed. Wittingly or not, everyone will betray you, will cross a line beyond which they should not go and, once crossed, can never turn back from.
Acts of indifference, acts of betrayal. In the end, they amount to the same thing, a Rubicon which Caeser should not pass. Trust is a funny thing, hard to earn, so easy to lose. A conversation that should never have been, perhaps a miscommunication or just an inability to communicate properly, recriminations, aspersions and confirmations. And, quietly, almost as an afterthought, trust evaporates like a morning mist, stealing softly away so as to not disturb the silence in the cathedral of the ego.
All good things must come to an end; so banal in its triteness, but nevertheless true. What is there left to say, to do, other than sack Rome? There are some events that, once set in motion, can not be stopped. It would be wise for people to remember to settle the disorder in their own homes before advising others on the chaos in theirs, but people are not wise, just prisoners of themselves. As that other truism goes, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
And so some things end, not with a bang, nor even with a whimper, but in a terrible vacuum of indifference. Just one more thing to be locked up, hidden carefully away, mourned in its passing. Better by far to be guarded, to maintain that wall, than be exposed and vulnerable to the caprices of others. It hurts less that way, and it only costs a small piece of your soul.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Semper Fidelis
One of her people left one day.
That really wasn't anything new. Her people were always doing strange things, bustling about for no apparent reason, when a perfectly rational being would curl up on a pillow and bask in the sunshine pouring through the window. Naps, of course, were infinitely more preferable than pointless motion. Sometimes, one of her people would even remember that, and she could rejoice in snuggling up against one of them, comforted and enfolded by their warmth and breathing, passing the hours in a pleasant dream.
But sometimes her people left, in ones or twos, at times all at once, leaving her alone, and she didn't like that at all. The house would become silent, utterly still, and one could only nap for so long before the quiet became oppressive. She never knew for how long her people were gone; minutes, hours, days, they were all the same to her, an almost unendurable emptiness where there were no scratches behind the ear, no treats, no one to nap with. But her people always came back, and each time she was just as excited as the last. They would come back to her, and all would be right with the world.
Then, one day, one of her people left, and never came back.
That night, at the time that person always came home, she got up from where she was and went to sit by the front door, waiting. Her eyes were bright, her ears cocked up, her tail wagging in anticipation. The time came, then passed, but the door never opened, but still she sat there. Surely her person would be home any moment now.
After a while, her ears drooped, and her tail stopped wagging. She lay down on the floor, her muzzle resting on her paws, staring at the door. Every now and then, a breath of wind whispered at the door and her tail twitched, her eyes perked up, but it never opened. When morning's first light began to steal through the windows and creep across the floor, she was still there, still waiting.
Her other people began to stir about, embarking upon their incomprehensible tasks, and eventually some of them left for a while. One of them, though, stayed behind, hidden away in that place where she went to sleep, making those noises that people made when they were sad. She didn't know why the person was sad, but the immediacy of the emotion pulled at something in her heart, as if the other's raw emotion was hers. She didn't just experience emotions, her own or her peoples', she felt them on a level that was so basic that even if she could speak, she could never explain it. So perhaps she did understand, perhaps she possessed an empathy so exquisitely tuned that no one ever gave her credit for it. All she knew was that one of her people was sad, so she was sad, and she picked herself up and went to see what she could do about it. If nothing else, she could just be a warm, conforting presence.
That night, at the time her missing person always came home, she got up from where she was and went to sit by the front door. Once again, her eyes were bright, her ears perked up, her tail wagging as she patiently waited. But the door never opened. Confused, her eyes became sad, her ears drooped, and she lay donw on the floor, resting her muzzle on her paws, and stared. When morning came, she was still there, and there were dark tracks running down her fur from the corners of her eyes, almost as if she had been crying.
She returned the next night and, when the door still refused to open and her missing person didn't come home, she began to howl. It was a piteous noise, a desperate vocalization. Part defiance, part confusion, it was a sound of unfathomable loss and question and of demand, the ululating sound of a heart breaking for a reason it could only dimly grasp, if at all.
She went there every night, at the same time, getting up from wherever she was to go and wait at that door. Eventually, the howling stopped, but still she waited, ever faithful, until morning came, waiting for her person to come back. He always came back. And when he did, there would be scratches behind the ear, and treats, and long, dozing naps in the heat of the afternoon, dreaming pleasant dreams. So she waited, patiently, ever night, until there was no more time left in which to wait.
That really wasn't anything new. Her people were always doing strange things, bustling about for no apparent reason, when a perfectly rational being would curl up on a pillow and bask in the sunshine pouring through the window. Naps, of course, were infinitely more preferable than pointless motion. Sometimes, one of her people would even remember that, and she could rejoice in snuggling up against one of them, comforted and enfolded by their warmth and breathing, passing the hours in a pleasant dream.
But sometimes her people left, in ones or twos, at times all at once, leaving her alone, and she didn't like that at all. The house would become silent, utterly still, and one could only nap for so long before the quiet became oppressive. She never knew for how long her people were gone; minutes, hours, days, they were all the same to her, an almost unendurable emptiness where there were no scratches behind the ear, no treats, no one to nap with. But her people always came back, and each time she was just as excited as the last. They would come back to her, and all would be right with the world.
Then, one day, one of her people left, and never came back.
That night, at the time that person always came home, she got up from where she was and went to sit by the front door, waiting. Her eyes were bright, her ears cocked up, her tail wagging in anticipation. The time came, then passed, but the door never opened, but still she sat there. Surely her person would be home any moment now.
After a while, her ears drooped, and her tail stopped wagging. She lay down on the floor, her muzzle resting on her paws, staring at the door. Every now and then, a breath of wind whispered at the door and her tail twitched, her eyes perked up, but it never opened. When morning's first light began to steal through the windows and creep across the floor, she was still there, still waiting.
Her other people began to stir about, embarking upon their incomprehensible tasks, and eventually some of them left for a while. One of them, though, stayed behind, hidden away in that place where she went to sleep, making those noises that people made when they were sad. She didn't know why the person was sad, but the immediacy of the emotion pulled at something in her heart, as if the other's raw emotion was hers. She didn't just experience emotions, her own or her peoples', she felt them on a level that was so basic that even if she could speak, she could never explain it. So perhaps she did understand, perhaps she possessed an empathy so exquisitely tuned that no one ever gave her credit for it. All she knew was that one of her people was sad, so she was sad, and she picked herself up and went to see what she could do about it. If nothing else, she could just be a warm, conforting presence.
That night, at the time her missing person always came home, she got up from where she was and went to sit by the front door. Once again, her eyes were bright, her ears perked up, her tail wagging as she patiently waited. But the door never opened. Confused, her eyes became sad, her ears drooped, and she lay donw on the floor, resting her muzzle on her paws, and stared. When morning came, she was still there, and there were dark tracks running down her fur from the corners of her eyes, almost as if she had been crying.
She returned the next night and, when the door still refused to open and her missing person didn't come home, she began to howl. It was a piteous noise, a desperate vocalization. Part defiance, part confusion, it was a sound of unfathomable loss and question and of demand, the ululating sound of a heart breaking for a reason it could only dimly grasp, if at all.
She went there every night, at the same time, getting up from wherever she was to go and wait at that door. Eventually, the howling stopped, but still she waited, ever faithful, until morning came, waiting for her person to come back. He always came back. And when he did, there would be scratches behind the ear, and treats, and long, dozing naps in the heat of the afternoon, dreaming pleasant dreams. So she waited, patiently, ever night, until there was no more time left in which to wait.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Thursday's Child
Some journeys have no beginning, some have no end. The only thing that matters, really, is the journey itself and, while some are an adventure, others are more like a sentence. Endlessly plodding from one day to the next, one foot in front of the other, in an object lesson in entropy. Every journey begins in the high and the beautiful, full of hope, and passes through suffering and tragedy, to end in the darkness that consumes everything.
So far to go, but the only progress is the marking of time as the rest of the world seems to slip by in slow motion, forever just beyond your outstretched, grasping fingers. The reflection stares back at you from the mirror, the lines unnoticed as the gathering years etch them into your face, and the man trapped in the glass doesn't like what he sees. Memories gather in the gloom, silently, a parade of the unfulfilled, the lost and the mourned, on a journey of their own. In the cold, bitter hours of the night they confront you, accuse you, call to you like sirens, beckoning you seductively to dash yourself on the rocks. Exquisite emptiness, like diamonds on glass they hold out promises that can be nothing but broken, leaving behind cuts so fine the pain doesn't even register any more. All that is left is the horrible knowledge that the guardian is not allowed to possess that which he guards.
Caught in amber, with nowhere to go and no way to get there. You can lie to your family, you can lie to your friends, to strangers, but you can't lie to yourself. Like layers of scar tissue the lies build up, year after year, false images of piety and worth, and no matter how much distance you put between yourself and the events that shattered your soul, the lies only bring you right back to where you started from. Bearing the weight of the world on your shoulders, would it be so hard to just let it all slip away, like grains of sand running their inevitable course? Even Atlas shrugged.
Step by agonizing step, a terrible ennui with no beginning and no end, just an interminable stretching that blinds you to where your responsibilities end and acts of God begin. A terrible guilt stalks your fevered dreams, mocks you, taunts you with a mortality you can't accept and can't deny. You couldn't save the ones you loved, you can't even save yourself, and what could possibly matter beyond that? There is nowhere to go but to go, and God isn't listening as he dices with the cosmos.
So far to go, and never an end until it ends, a star fading in the darkness, a whispered memory until the memory itself falls silent, consumed in the night, a lost child wailing for the comfort of its mother's arms. No Heaven and no Hell, no gods or demons except those that we make, the bits of regret and loss that pursue you like the ancient Furies and that are just as relentless, just as implacable. Just to fade, unremembered and unmourned, a final end to a journey from nowhere to nowhere.
So far to go, but the only progress is the marking of time as the rest of the world seems to slip by in slow motion, forever just beyond your outstretched, grasping fingers. The reflection stares back at you from the mirror, the lines unnoticed as the gathering years etch them into your face, and the man trapped in the glass doesn't like what he sees. Memories gather in the gloom, silently, a parade of the unfulfilled, the lost and the mourned, on a journey of their own. In the cold, bitter hours of the night they confront you, accuse you, call to you like sirens, beckoning you seductively to dash yourself on the rocks. Exquisite emptiness, like diamonds on glass they hold out promises that can be nothing but broken, leaving behind cuts so fine the pain doesn't even register any more. All that is left is the horrible knowledge that the guardian is not allowed to possess that which he guards.
Caught in amber, with nowhere to go and no way to get there. You can lie to your family, you can lie to your friends, to strangers, but you can't lie to yourself. Like layers of scar tissue the lies build up, year after year, false images of piety and worth, and no matter how much distance you put between yourself and the events that shattered your soul, the lies only bring you right back to where you started from. Bearing the weight of the world on your shoulders, would it be so hard to just let it all slip away, like grains of sand running their inevitable course? Even Atlas shrugged.
Step by agonizing step, a terrible ennui with no beginning and no end, just an interminable stretching that blinds you to where your responsibilities end and acts of God begin. A terrible guilt stalks your fevered dreams, mocks you, taunts you with a mortality you can't accept and can't deny. You couldn't save the ones you loved, you can't even save yourself, and what could possibly matter beyond that? There is nowhere to go but to go, and God isn't listening as he dices with the cosmos.
So far to go, and never an end until it ends, a star fading in the darkness, a whispered memory until the memory itself falls silent, consumed in the night, a lost child wailing for the comfort of its mother's arms. No Heaven and no Hell, no gods or demons except those that we make, the bits of regret and loss that pursue you like the ancient Furies and that are just as relentless, just as implacable. Just to fade, unremembered and unmourned, a final end to a journey from nowhere to nowhere.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Bodies in Motion
Never slow down, never stop moving, you can't afford to. Motion is life, it keeps you busy, an end unto itself, forever keeping you in the here and now and away from the then and there. Running in quicksand, the miles pile up but you don't actually go anywhere, but that isn't what's important. Where you are isn't nearly as important as staying away from where you've been.
Running from the fire, but always seeming to wind up running towards it in a constant march to oblivion. Questionable deeds, broken promises and broken lives, just how many people can you disappoint, not counting yourself? Perpetual motion is better than perpetual reflection, searching for a meaning that always lies just beyond your grasp because, in truth, there is no meaning.
A rat in a cage, scurrying after that piece of cheese, racing blindly onwards from the choices you made that led to everything going so wrong. If you only run a little faster, maybe things will get better. Or they won't, but at least if you're moving you won't have to face what's behind you, that dark place where all your secrets dwell, that place you try to close off with the warning "Here be Monsters."
Don't stop, don't sleep, for that is the bad time, the dream time, the time when your hopes and fears, your secrets and your memories, haunt you, stalk you like some beast in the jungle of your past. They flash through your mind like an old newsreel, sepia-toned and jittery, moments lost in time and place, a stop-motion catalogue of your failures and betrayals.
Keep moving, cage those beasts, if you put enough distance between yourself and them then maybe you can actually believe that your whole life hasn't been a lie. Always running yet never far enough away, the monster is always just at your heels, whispering your own mortality into your ear, the darkness waiting to claim you, consume you, and all you can do is run.
Running from the fire, but always seeming to wind up running towards it in a constant march to oblivion. Questionable deeds, broken promises and broken lives, just how many people can you disappoint, not counting yourself? Perpetual motion is better than perpetual reflection, searching for a meaning that always lies just beyond your grasp because, in truth, there is no meaning.
A rat in a cage, scurrying after that piece of cheese, racing blindly onwards from the choices you made that led to everything going so wrong. If you only run a little faster, maybe things will get better. Or they won't, but at least if you're moving you won't have to face what's behind you, that dark place where all your secrets dwell, that place you try to close off with the warning "Here be Monsters."
Don't stop, don't sleep, for that is the bad time, the dream time, the time when your hopes and fears, your secrets and your memories, haunt you, stalk you like some beast in the jungle of your past. They flash through your mind like an old newsreel, sepia-toned and jittery, moments lost in time and place, a stop-motion catalogue of your failures and betrayals.
Keep moving, cage those beasts, if you put enough distance between yourself and them then maybe you can actually believe that your whole life hasn't been a lie. Always running yet never far enough away, the monster is always just at your heels, whispering your own mortality into your ear, the darkness waiting to claim you, consume you, and all you can do is run.
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