9-11 box cutters 11 september utility knives

[kelber at mindspring.com]

I worked as a construction electrician for 18 years, and a knife was one of our required hand tools. At first, I bought a three-blade pocket knife, but really only used one of the blades, so I switched to a single-blade. But this become dull quickly, and, on a co-worker's advice, I switched to a utility knife, and stayed with it for the rest of my 18-year career. The retractable blade cut through heavy 500MCM wire insulation like butter, and because spare blades could be stored in the handle (held together with a set-screw), I always had a sharp blade. Sure, there were always assholes who'd Crocodile Dundee me about my pathetic little knife - some of them had switchblades, or the actual knives they used to gut VC in Nam (they said). I'd joke that I didn't need a big phallic knife when I had my small clitoral triangular blade (always shocked some of the conservative Catholic family men with that kind of talk: "I thought you were a nice girl!").

But it occurs to me, after reading Joseph's post, that this belittlement of the knife used (just a tiny box cutter) went hand in hand with the belittlement of the attackers collective manhood. These guys who commandeered giant planes and crashed them into buildings were "cowards." Bill Maher was actually fired from his Politically Incorrect show for saying that one thing these guys were not, was cowardly. Then there were the initial descriptions of Mohammed Atta as a wimpy little momma's boy who didn't/couldn't have girl friends. One really has to wonder why this sort of thing was dished out and happily swallowed by the gullible public. What part of our brash Western-influenced culture says that it's more honorable to be set-upon by a wimpy, cowardly girly-boy with a tiny knife? Isn't that called pussy-whipping. Why wouldn't we want to be brought down by the biggest, baddest bravest mo-fo out there? It's an odd public relations dilemma: if you refuse to imbue the enemy with any positive traits (strength, bravery, intelligence), then what are you left with? What 4th grader wants to admit they were beat up by a 1st grader?

I agree with John Bailey that official stories aren't necessarily false by conspiracy, and that it was a tangle of competing interests - literary, political, psychological and economic that put together the Official Story. Actually, I found the Official Story of the first attack on the trade center much more troubling. It took them days to recover the four bodies from the wreckage, yet the very first thing they found was the rental-van's license, lying atop the wreckage like a gift card, which led them immediately to the perpetrators. Sounded a little too much like fore-knowledge in that case. Give us this day our daily conspiracy, I guess.

Laura


-----Original Message-----
>From: Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>

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>I will offer an alternate phrase that despite its seeming insignificance has troubled me. Box cutters. Before 11 september  I rarely heard  utility knives refereed to as box cutters and thought of that phrase as a kind of term used by people who don't regularly use hand tools and got a plastic knife to break down shipping boxes from Office Depot.. So I have wondered why have I never once heard them called what I and anyone I know who actually regularly uses these knives for utilitarian purposes calls them- which is utility knives. I have asked about 4-5 people what they think of when they hear the phrase box cutter and people describe either a standard utility knife or a small  plastic handled utility knife with break away blades, or a fold out steel knife. If you google the phrase those are the things you get. Hardware stores have always called them utility knives, but they are now sold on the internet as box cutters too.  
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>You don't kill passengers and flight attendants , then walk to the front of a plane  open the cockpit door and kill a pilot and copilot with a 1/2 inch break-away blade.  A standard utility knife which is called by some a box-cutter is a powerful, sharp, strong and potentially deadly tool, (much more that  a swiss army knife which I always kept in my backpack  when traveling before 9-11), because it has a large grip and close to 2 inches of razor sharp steel blade. 
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>So as far as I can tell the use of the term box -cutter originated from calls of a stewardess but she and others also said knives. What bothers me is the standardization of the description of weapons which aren't really known in detail to the term box-cutters.  It feels indicative of mindless repetition rather than a journalistic curiosity and  an attempt to get a real, detailed and plausible picture of one of the most disturbing events in many decades. 
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>This is a tiny detail in a big picture that Is still very disputed and unclear. Does P really accept the mainstream account? Why does P throw in the rooftop story so weirdly reminiscent of Kennedy's assassination or the underground goings on at Montauk  if he does not give some credence to alternate explanations? Why does everyone in BE chump-out and quit their research if not sheer dread about very powerful and unscrupulous forces? What is the role of the murder in the story? Is it referring to something real?
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>Because something real changed on 11 September 2001. We all know that.  But what actually happened? 
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>Why was Kissinger, the master of murderous coups and secret bombings, Bush's first choice for the inquiry.  Why did Building 7 collapse? Where was the Air Force? Is there really thermite recovered from the site? Where are the engines of the plane that hit the Pentagon?Here is a huge event which remains shrouded in real questions , but  which to look at skeptically is journalistic and media death. Yet many loved ones of victims are profoundly dissatisfied with the official inquiry. Why should we trust known liars and news organizations which reported incredibly spurious crap about WMD's to care deeply enough to truly answer the questions of the many sincere and personally involved, knowledgeable and credible skeptics including victims and first responders. Why not make the utmost effort to put to rest conspiracy theories that can only lead to bitterness and estrangement. And since when did America start thinking the thing to do after apprehending the  unarmed subject of a world-wide manhunt and center of a terrorist conspiracy,  is to shoot him and throw his  body into the Mediterranean?  
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> Our lives go on.  We go to whatever we call work, live with friends and family, have our own worries and dreams. But now it is one war after another and we  are told it is criminal to question  the "right " of our government to monitor everyone's communication even though they have no interest in hearing what we say to them openly. The constitution evaporates as quickly under one party as the other and the reason is  always 9-11, the biggest emergency call in human history just keeps ringing away  our taxes and rights..   We want to go back to normal, back to the Jack Benny story, back to home made take-out and Ben and Jerrys.  Am I so alone  in being troubled by these nagging questions?  I too am a neighbor of those killed. 
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>I am not convinced as a truther but am even less convinced by the official story. 
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