<html>
<font size=3>This is a but a small detail, however, it is something I can
share.<br>
<br>
Kerim Friedman asked about:<br>
"... the Twin Towers were presumably built to withstand airplane
<br>
>collisions, and the third building (which housed the Fire Department
<br>
>emergency control room) was presumably built to withstand fires. Why
were <br>
>they so vulnerable?"<br>
<br>
I asked an engineer about this yesterday. He too thought that the
buildings would not utterly collapse, but after discussing it with a few
other engineers with more fire expertise, the super-heated jet fuel not
only burned on the floors around which the planes crashed, but the 2000
degree temperatures would have been conducted through the steel facing
and structure throughout the building very rapidly. The towers
didn't stand a chance and the structural failure was throughout.
The other buildings had structures rated to withstand fire for about 4
hours, under the assumption that any fire to break out would be highly
localized and that firefighters would be able to put it out
rapidly.<br>
<br>
Not the happiest notions, and in fact, my friend said it is only concrete
structures like the new AT & T building in Chicago (i.e. no steel)
that will not be entirely vulnerable to airplane crashes like this.<br>
<br>
Rachel Reynolds<br>
Dept. English and Linguistics<br>
University of Illinois at Chicago<br>
<br>
<br>
At 08:17 AM 9/13/2001 -0400, Kerim Friedman wrote:<br>
>I thank Richard for allowing us to discuss this on this forum. I feel
that <br>
>we, as intellectuals, must do something to combat the discourse on
the news. <br>
>This thoughts are just meant to raise a few issues I feel need to be
<br>
>discussed, as well as expressing my initial reactions to the
violence. - Kerim<br>
><br>
>Violence, and the News:<br>
><br>
>Violence<br>
><br>
>First of all - it is necessary to admit *shock*. I grew up in Hoboken
NJ, <br>
>from where I could see the New York City skyline across the river
every <br>
>single day. The World Trade Centers were like a mountain - a part of
the <br>
>urban landscape that may have changed in many little ways but was
always <br>
>dominated by the twin towers at the South and the Empire State
Building to <br>
>the North. I can not quite comprehend what I see when I look at the
skyline <br>
>from the 7 train in Queens. It will be even stranger when the smoke
clears <br>
>and there is no sign of the violence that brought this about. <br>
><br>
>The violence also must be mentioned - but how can one comprehend? It
is hard <br>
>to feel something for thousands and thousands of people. I understand
that <br>
>each of the towers holds over 10,000 people. Not to mention the crew
and <br>
>passengers on the planes. We have no idea how many survived. For
people who <br>
>knew people at work in those buildings, it must be truly painful.
<br>
><br>
>The News<br>
><br>
>What has disturbed me most this week is the reporting about the
incident. I <br>
>feel compelled to vent a little bit about this, so please bear with
me:<br>
><br>
>(1) Questions. There are still many questions that need to be
answered. For <br>
>instance, the Twin Towers were presumably built to withstand airplane
<br>
>collisions, and the third building (which housed the Fire Department
<br>
>emergency control room) was presumably built to withstand fires. Why
were <br>
>they so vulnerable? Even more important, it raises the question of
the <br>
>effectiveness and usefulness of increasing military spending. We
spend <br>
>nearly one third of our budget on the military, and it was unable to
prevent <br>
>this catastrophe. Already there are people talking about the need to
spend <br>
>*even more* on the military in the wake of the bombings. Nobody is
saying <br>
>that we should do more to improve the living conditions of people who
see <br>
>suicide bombing as a better alternative to staying at home. And there
even <br>
>some reporters who went as far as to say that "we might need to
rethink some <br>
>of our civil liberties that we take so for granted." An
interesting way to <br>
>put it when $2 million of that !<br>
>military budget was spent to erect a fence to keep protesters away
from the <br>
>IMF and World Bank meetings in Washington. And a host of commentators
have <br>
>already remarked on how lacking airport security just is, despite
vast <br>
>increases in spending over the past few years. <br>
><br>
><<a href="http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0137/ridgeway3.php" eudora="autourl">http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0137/ridgeway3.php
</a>><br>
><<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/12/opinion/12SAFI.html" eudora="autourl">http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/12/opinion/12SAFI.html</a>><br>
><http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=63059&group=webcast><br>
><<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Boston-Airport.html" eudora="autourl">http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Boston-Airport.html</a>><br>
><br>
>(2) Harboring Terrorists. Because they know so little, and feel
compelled to <br>
>talk a lot, the reporters have been saying a lot of inane things. In
<br>
>addition to constantly showing the same footage of a few Palestinian
kids <br>
>who were cheering, they also have already decided that the whole
thing was <br>
>done by "Arab Terrorists," specifically Bin Laden. Now,
this is a very <br>
>likely scenario - but even Bush department officials and General
<br>
>Shwartzkopff (sp?) have been mindful of similar rushes to judgement
at the <br>
>time of the Oklahoma bombing. The case of Bin Laden is important to
remember <br>
>as the US prepares to go to war with "countries who assist and
harbor <br>
>terrorists" (or whatever the exact phrasing of Bush's speech
was). In fact, <br>
>Bin Laden is an example of one of the many ways that the US has
itself <br>
>trained, funded, and otherwise supported terrorists. This, together
with <br>
>examples in Latin America (The infamous "School of the
Americas"), the <br>
>Middle East and elsewhere, are not talked abo!<br>
>ut when the news proclaims this attack as an attack on
"democracy, freedom, <br>
>and the US way of life." No act of violence and terror is
justified, but <br>
>certainly it would be more useful to understand the role of the US in
<br>
>creating an international culture of violence than it would be to use
this <br>
>incident to justify even more violence in the name of
"freedom"?<br>
><br>
><<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/12/national/12INQU.html?pagewanted=all" eudora="autourl">http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/12/national/12INQU.html?pagewanted=all</a>>
<br>
><<a href="http://alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11473" eudora="autourl">http://alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11473</a>><br>
><<a href="http://www.msnbc.com/news/190144.asp#BODY" eudora="autourl">http://www.msnbc.com/news/190144.asp#BODY</a>><br>
><http://www.soaw.org/><br>
><<a href="http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=63020&group=webcast" eudora="autourl">http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=63020&group=webcast</a>><br>
>________________________________________________________<br>
>P. KERIM FRIEDMAN <br>
><x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab>Anthropology,
Temple University <br>
><x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><<a href="mailto:kerim.friedman@oxus.net" eudora="autourl">mailto:kerim.friedman@oxus.net</a>><br>
><x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><<a href="http://kerim.oxus.net/" eudora="autourl">http://kerim.oxus.net</a>><br>
>________________________________________________________<br>
</font><br>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>Rachel R. Reynolds<br>
Language, Literacy and Rhetoric<br>
Department of English<br>
University of Illinois at Chicago<br>
601 S. Morgan, m/c 162 <br>
Chicago, IL 60607-7120<br>
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