Sorry for the non-posting. I’ve been taking advantage of unseasonably good weather and a break in deadlines to do a burst of late-summer projects.
During breaks in yardwork and painting, I’ve watched mindlessly entertaining videos like The Human Slinky and the Bed-Sheet Cat.
Occasionally even mind-activating videos like the ad for the new drug Complyacin. 🙂
Or getting my Bovard fix. He has a good take on the “effectiveness” of federal job-training programs.
(I can’t believe I have friends who write for the Wall Street Journal. So respectable! And speaking of respectable, I just learned today that an old acquaintance has a minor planet named after him. He calls it an asteroid, but that’s not what it says online. I don’t actually know the difference. Anyhow, you’ve got to admit that having your name on even an asteroid or a “minor” planet is a bigger deal than most of us will ever earn.)
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Commentor Old Printer swore off the blog today, calling my attitude “vile.” He was talking about the caption I put on that ghastly falling-man photo on 9-11.
I wasn’t surprised to see him go. He had interesting things to say and I’m sorry he left. But he was quick to anger, especially over any implication that the U.S. government might be anything but well-meaning and fundamentally decent — bumbling, perhaps, but always benevolent.
Whether I’m vile, you’ll have to judge. It’s possible. In any case, the photo was vile and I’m surprised somebody else didn’t object to it right away. I’d rather it had never been published anywhere. It seems indecent to capture the last seconds of a man’s life that way. Falling Man’s clothes are distinctive. Some wife, some mother, some child probably knows who he is and will live with that image forever. I’ll probably remove it as soon as it rolls off to page two; it feels wrong having it on the blog.
But the caption? It was only the truth. One of many.
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The photo doesn’t offend me. It shows me a man who took control of an unwinnable situation and made a decision to face it on his own terms. Head on. Yes, he died anyway, but he made it as much on his own terms as was possible under the circumstances. I wonder what I would do in the same situation. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but that picture inspires me.
We are all going to die. Will we die on our own terms, even if backed into a corner, or will we be led to the slaughter and be cooperative with Death?
Statists are twitchy. It makes them easily offended. “Offensensitivity*” is a terrible burden to bear.
(*A “Bloom County” word)
One of those times where words and opinions cancel each other out, and it’s not about who’s right or who wins but the fact we still get to…….
I’ve seen the picture before and I didn’t think the caption under it was vile….as for the photographer who took it, there’s many times people unexpectedly get one of those photos in those circumstances, too….
Never thought about it like Kent has, and he makes a good point……that gives it a stronger meaning…..
Forgive me if this sounds insensitive (whatever) but I would want my sons to have that photo of the last minutes of my life if possible. I would want them to know I made my choice.
Its a hard thing for people to get their minds around…folks eyes glaze over, get offended, ect…folks a lot smarter than me…the advantage (if you could call it that) is that I have first-hand experiance with just how evil these bastards are…they serve the beast…decent people cant/wont comprehend such atrocity (sometimes), and will fight.to maintain thier delusions…dee-nile not jusa river in egypt…or was it lybia…or maybe yemen…or syria…or….
The fact is that we have devolved into a rather vile culture and calling comments on a blog “vile” is childish.
I would refer to the antics of government gone bad as vile, in that they have in many ways desensitized the culture at large and made enemies of those who would speak truth
I should clarify that I consider the photo vile not because of anything the photographer did; if I were a photographer, I’d consider it the shot of a lifetime. I consider it vile because what Falling Man was forced into and because publishing the image so invades the last seconds of a life. I hadn’t thought of it the way Kent and EN put it. While I wouldn’t want a photo of me taken if I had to die like that, I can see why it looks different to you guys.
“But he was quick to anger, especially over any implication that the U.S. government might be anything but well-meaning and fundamentally decent — bumbling, perhaps, but always benevolent.”
and gunwalker was just about government bumbling…..okay and george bush isn’t evil, just a bumbler….sure. why not? and darth cheney? and butch napalitano?
The tragedy isn’t evil people in government. It attracts them and they have always been part of that landscape. It is about not being able to discern the truth. It is vile to come to a truth tellers blog and lie, even if your lies are an outgrowth of your stupidity.
That photo is horrific, but the horror captured comes as a result of our government’s actions. Actions our government keeps escalating. So I thinks it’s horrifying and important to display, and is well-captioned.
I hadn’t considered Kent McManigal’s take, but that makes sense too.
To blame the disaster of 9/11 on anyone other than those who perpetrated it is simply ridiculous. It is comparable to blaming the victim of a robbery for having something worth stealing, or the victim of a rape for “asking for it”.
The attack was vile, carried out by vile radicals, and the photo itself is merely a reminder of how vile it was.
But your attempt to blame on our nation was the vilest of all. I thought you were more intelligent than that.
I join Old Printer in leaving you to your misdirected fantasies.
Quite frankly, I think the caption for the photo is just about right. Just realize that the government is that vile, and will likely do something even worse sometime in the future.
Some might even say that the photo doesn’t show how bad government can and will be.
Of course, that’s just my opinion.
I’m sorry to see you go, Kentucky Kid. But your analogy is 100 percent off. In no way did I blame the victim. The victim in the photo was the man falling to his death — and by extension the full 3,000 who died at the hands of the murderous hijackers. Show me where I wrote one word of blame about them. Never happened.
Indeed the attack was vile. And perpetrated by vile people. There was, is, no excuse for it.
But anyone who thinks those murderers chose to attack Washington, DC, and New York because “they hate us for our freedom” — or thinks that the U.S. government isn’t committing aggression around the globe — isn’t very aware of U.S. government policies in the Middle East or elsewhere.
Follow the money, look at the facts…whole thing is rotten, thru and thru…but with a little perserverance (and name calling), people can maintain their illusions…look what these fools put in the white house…its.sad…hey, but they can vote for rick perry now…gawd…
It’s such a shame when folks can’t have their dogmatic thinking challenged without taking their toys and going home. But it strikes me that those folks probably didn’t belong here to begin with. They weren’t up to the invitation to think.
I believe that if I were that man’s family, I’d much rather live with that image than with the horrible unanswered questions of whether he had been crushed to death or burned to death or suffered some unknown agonizing demise. It’s simplistic and Pollyanna, but I see his action as a flight to freedom. As others have said, he met the fates on his own terms.
The picture is poignant and provocative and should lead us down innumerable paths of thought. Are any of us that free? Are any of us that prepared spiritually and morally? Is this the sort of life choices in all of our futures due to the interference, or lack of it, by others? Can any of us ever believe again that our well being is exclusively in someone else’s hands?
I don’t know if I agree or disagree with the caption because I prefer not to think about it in the specific terms of the caption. I’m just not up to investing the energy at the moment. Either way, namecalling and running away adds nothing to any future prospects for our joint or individual growth, success or mere survival.
I just keep thinking about this, and have come to the conclusion that: Truth scares away the statists.
Please leave it on the blog.
It is fact not emotion or opinion. A man’s final statement.
Dick
R.L., dead on. A final statement.
I, too, have had this rattling around in my brain since it came up…..
Maybe that picture is of the truest freedom…..
Maybe that freedom scares some of the other people in the world….and they miss many points because of that….it’s hard for some to accept the responsibility of having a choice, to take action on that choice – without someone else making it for them or having someone else to blame if it doesn’t work out…..
Maybe that man had taken as much control as he could (with the limited choices)…..
But I am assuming he jumped, I don’t know that for a fact….I don’t know if he was pushed, or if he got blown out or if someone accidentally bumped into him or if he fell somehow – because I don’t think I’ve seen the video of this act….there could be chunks of the story we all have missed – kind of like the history leading up to the event itself…..there’s always deeper parts to a story than just one glimpse, and always many facets as well….
Pictures like this should make us realize that there is more going on than what is in front of our eyes….
The photo is truth. Some people would like to sanitize it, put it in a memory hole, build a monument to it…anything but look at it.
That action, an innocent man losing his life, is the final consequence of empire, militarism, statism, and hubris. It is the most honest statement that can be made about our government’s policies. It IS the government’s policy to sacrifice innocent people to pursue the ‘great game.’
I say leave it up.
We (in the US) kill 3500 +/- people by surgical abortion every single day. 9-11-01 was bad, the policies enabled since are worse and it ain’t over yet. But no nation that sanctions human sacrifice will hang on for long. Not one of us got here without being a “clump of cells” or a fetus in our mothers’ wombs. We’re busily slicing up and burning to death helpless human beings – without benefit of anesthesia – and we’re worried about 9-11??
That’s what I thought about on the anniversary. Where are the photos of the babies recoiling from the curette?
Islam’s “ring of fire” has nothing to do with the victims, boys and girls. It has everything to do with the psychotic derangement syndrome that is islam.
The “blame” some try to put on the victims in this case is of “meddling with the affairs of others”. Meanwhile- Islam’s jihad is murdering and raping and destruction of the “other”.
Get some perspective, folks; and stop hating the US. The US is certainly flawed- But Islam is pure evil. The US is only the closest anyone has come in several hundred years. It could get better or worse. But in it’s worst possible “mad max” scenario- It will be much better than the reality of Islam. Live in an islamic society for a while, and then re-consider your self-loathing of western imperfections.