9-11 box cutters 11 september utility knives

Tue Nov 19 18:11:16 CST 2013

I guess I never doubted that it was this type of box cutter
http://goo.gl/rwtMO5

The fancier ones we always called 'utility knifes'

I think the point of the media story was to create a belief that all the
hijackers could smuggle on the plane was the simplest sort of knife since,
apparently, no one would have believed a more elaborate weapon and,
supposedly, using guns on a plane only works for sky marshalls.

Of course, you and I know that, especially at that time but most likely
this week as well, if they had wanted to bring bazookas on board, they
could have figured out a way to do it

Box cutter as the weapon in a planned operation sounds like something an
elementary student would make up, assuming that the restrictions of
security effectively limited what could be smuggled onto the plane.

They say that there was a karate champion on the plane shot down over PA
and he apparently made short work of the terrorists only to have the air
force make short work of the liberated plane.

-Allan in WV, where we heard the farmer on TV tell a television interviewer
about watching US planes shoot down the airline, as story that got on the
air one time only

On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 6:53 PM, Matt Ryan <matthew.ryan at gmail.com> wrote:

> For what it's worth, I have worked various jobs involving regular use of
> these blades and the terms "box cutters" and "utility knives" were always
> used interchangeably. Maybe it's a regional thing, I dunno.  As far as the
> media glomming onto the term box cutters, I'm guessing it has to do with
> the narrative they were trying to shape, i.e. "something as mundane as this
> ubiquitous little tool was used to carry out this hugely significant
> attack, oh the irony, etc."
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 5:21 PM, <malignd at aol.com> wrote:
>
>> I may be misremembering, but didn't Popular Science or Popular Mechanics
>> fully explain the collapse of WTC 7?
>>
>> The boxcutter was just an example of one small thing I thought about that
>> troubled me and an attempt to clarify to myself and anyone interested why.  The
>> Other issues are quite large and have in no way been adequately addressed. Why
>> did building seven, unstruck  except by minor debris and the fire that started,
>> collapse. There has never been a steel frame building that collapsed even from
>> intense fires leaving twisted framework.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
>> To: P-list List <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>> Sent: Tue, Nov 19, 2013 12:59 am
>> Subject: Re: 9-11 box cutters 11 september utility knives
>>
>>  The boxcutter was just an example of one small thing I thought about that
>> troubled me and an attempt to clarify to myself and anyone interested why.  The
>> Other issues are quite large and have in no way been adequately addressed. Why
>> did building seven, unstruck  except by minor debris and the fire that started,
>> collapse. There has never been a steel frame building that collapsed even from
>> intense fires leaving twisted framework.  Whatever hit the pentagon followed a
>> path that no pilot could accomplish in a747. This is the fucking Pentagpn and
>> there are no photos or film of a non scheduled flight entering their airspace
>> which has a large perimeter warning system. The hole in the Pentagon is too
>> small. The 2 engines never turned up.   Thermite. Explain some of this or point
>> to a detailed explanation that is not a denial based on the idea that it
>> couldn't be done covertly..  Which leaves us with the explanation that a covert
>> plan by the most powerful secretive forces could not do this but 12 alcohol
>> abusing foreigners who showed no aptitude for flight and some of whom were on
>> FBI lists could.
>>
>> I have a real hard time with that.  As for perfect narratives, that is not the
>> question. Credible physics concerning what is known is the question.  Did Allah
>> suspend the conservation of mass?
>>
>> Slate magazine is a pathetic joke.
>>
>> On Nov 18, 2013, at 11:38 AM, Monte Davis wrote:
>>
>> > RR> Life measured in such a detailed way will always bring to the surface much
>> that doesnt make sense
>> >
>> > I vehemently agree. What makes people believe that it must be possible to
>> reconstruct a 100% accurate, closed, consistent narrative of any but the
>> simplest historical moment? (And in "historical" I include last week.)
>> >
>> > In practice, the effort to do so *always* requires the selective -- or
>> tendentious -- exclusion of some dots that someone else will always insist
>> *must* be connected. See, e.g., Fred Kaplan on JFK assassination theories:
>> >
>> > http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history/2013/11/john_f_kennedy_conspiracy_theories_debunked_why_the_magic_bullet_and_grassy.html
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 9:22 AM, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > 9/11 in essence in my mind is a massive intelligence failure. conspiracies
>> abound because people cant believe we didnt connect the dots or when we did we
>> didnt share info or didn't deem it important enough. these bozos should have
>> been caught but they weren't.
>> > I dont understand this 'I question the official narrative'--what narrative?
>> all those endless taps into each and every discrepancy or nuance of that day and
>> the days leading up to it. Life measured in such a detailed way will always
>> bring to the surface much that doesnt make sense or others imbued with a
>> significance important to the observer. an horrific event heightens this to
>> unimaginable levels.
>> > I also just have to laugh about talk of knives and cowards. sure it takes
>> courage to do alot of things but maybe you will think twice when someone cuts a
>> loved one's throat in your presence and then ask yourself wow that was
>> courageous. is that how we are defining courage, now? guess that means William
>> Calley and Paul Blobel had lots of courage, too.
>> >
>> > y'all (as is Pynchon) reacting to the media response and have forgotten the
>> event itself.
>> > where the important questioning of narrative is Iraq not 9/11. you should
>> focus your moral outrage there.
>> >
>> > rich
>> >
>> >
>> > On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 1:12 PM, Markekohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> > Maybe only the ringleaders on each plane knew they were suicide missions.
>> Yeah, self-righteous murderous self-redemptive courage....
>> >
>> > Sent from my iPad
>> >
>> > On Nov 17, 2013, at 12:17 PM, <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > > 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>
>> > >
>> > >>
>> > >> 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.
>> > >>
>> > >> 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.
>> > >>
>> > >> 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.
>> > >>
>> > >> 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?
>> > >>
>> > >> Because something real changed on 11 September 2001. We all know that.  But
>> what actually happened?
>> > >>
>> > >> 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?
>> > >>
>> > >> 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.
>> > >>
>> > >> I am not convinced as a truther but am even less convinced by the official
>> story.
>> > >>
>> > >>
>> > >>
>> > >>
>> > >>
>> > >> -
>> > >> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>> > >
>> > > -
>> > > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>> > -
>> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>
>> >
>> >
>>
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>
>>
>
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