A day in the life of a 2nd year.

Study for hours on end.

Scream as we watch a video of a guy digging around in another man’s asshole demonstrating how to do a rectal exam.

Drink some bourbon.

It’s been a good day.

What 9/11 Means to Me.

Sorry, this is late and would have been more relevant earlier in the day, but I’ve been studying all day and unable to sit down and condense my thoughts till now.

9/11 is an event that stirs a lot of different emotions in a lot of different people around the globe, and similarly this day of days provokes several conflicting emotions in me as well.

Firstly, I do mourn the loss of the some 3,000 people’s lives on that day. The men and women whose lives were snuffed out suddenly was an immense tragedy for this country, and the world at large. It was a terrible and senseless act, one that left a scar on the psyche of most everyone who was old enough to remember that day (it certainly left a scar on me). It would be a grave mistake if we as a country ever forgot or neglected the significance of that day, or disregarded the brave people who ran into those burning buildings to save lives.

9/11 does represent something else for me that would probably earn me an “Anti-American” or a “America hater” label in many circles (probably even my own family if they knew I wrote this).

I use this quote with some caution, because I’m not 100% of its authenticity, but I’ve seen is quoted in several different places and I feel it’s been very accurate of the ensuing years after 9/11. It was spoken by Hermann Goering, the Nazi German founder of the Gestapo and leader of the infamous Luftwaffe. He had this to say at his trial in Nurmenburg after WWII:

“Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship…the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

After 9/11 our country fell into a nationalistic fever. The American people felt endeared to one and another, allied by a common wound and unified against a common enemy. And we stood behind our government, and regarded every other nation in the world with a “If you’re not with us, you’re against us” attitude. Anything the government did was justified, rationalized, and excused, no matter how insane it was. Go to war? Of course. Pass over reaching and unconstitutional laws stripping the American people of 1st amendment rights? Whatever keeps me safe. Go to war in a second country, even though the evidence to do so is weak at best? Yes, let’s get those terrorists.

And since then, what’s happened? Thousands of US troops have died and thousands more live with permanent injuries and debilitating PTSD fighting an unwinnable war in the desert. Untold, maybe millions, of innocent civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and beyond have been killed or displaced as refugees. Our national debt, because of outrageous spending on wars and national defense, has multiplied near exponentially in the past decade, and probably played at least some part in the 2008 economic crisis and our current recession. Sure, we’ve killed some terrorists and even got the mastermind behind 9/11 in the first place, but was it worth it?

I’m not one to buy into the “inside job” version of 9/11 conspiracy theories (I don’t believe the whole WTC being lined with explosives or any of that shit), but there’s a lot of evidence to at least hold up the idea that our government knew beforehand of an impending attack. There’s also evidence to support that an invasion of Iraq was on the hearts and minds of the Bush Administration before anything was known about who exactly perpetrated 9/11, or even before 9/11 itself (Watch the documentary “No Way Out”).

Is it possible our government let the attack happen so that they could have full support for whatever they wanted, including an invasion of the oil rich nation of Iraq? I couldn’t rule that out. Maybe they weren’t expecting what happened exactly, but I can believe that a few key policy makers in the administration, namely Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, could have turned a blind eye to the warnings and hoped an attack happened. These men are not stupid, and they maybe knew that after an attack on US soil, they’d be able to tug on the heart strings of a revenge seeking populace to achieve their ends.

And even if that theory is wrong, and our government had no such intentions initially, I’ve seen with my own eyes that after the fact, they used the horrible events of 9/11 in concert with scare-mongering and mocking opposition, to lead the public into whatever they wanted. And thus, they hurled the planet into a decade of further bloodshed, all for money and power.

And that is quite possibly a greater tragedy than even the day of 9/11/2001 itself.

Sigh….

So if there’s a natural phenomenon that destroys half a city, or an earthquake that kills numerous people, or there’s a mass shooting that leaves several dead, republican pundits and politicians alike will say it’s an angry God seeking retribution on the arrogant souls of errant sinners.

But now there’s a tropical storm/hurricane bearing down on the largest gathering of republicans (God’s party, mind you) in the country, and it’s just called bad weather.

Huh….

jtotheizzoe:

Printing a New Lease on Life

A 3D-printed exoskeleton gives a little girl use of her arms

Just in case landing on another planet wasn’t cool enough for you today: Emma is two years old, and she was born with a rare disease called arthrogryposis. It caused her to not be able to raise her arms above her head or move and play like a normal child. Thanks to a 3-D printed exoskeleton system called WREX, she can now do that.

The best part? If a piece breaks or needs adjustment as she grows, they can print a new one in no time at all. A heartwarming application of technology.

Previously: An amazing robotic exoskeleton that can help paraplegics walk.

(via KurzweilAI)

jtotheizzoe:

explore-blog:

The stuff of history: NASA’s definitive two-and-half-minute edit of Curiosity’s landing. Here’s what it took and how it happened.

It’s been a heck of a day, and a heck of a mission. Relive all of my posts from this mission, old and new, here. This video captures the end result of allowing human curiosity to push its boundaries, and then break through them.

You need a reminder of why we need to fund projects that go boldly into the future? Just watch this.

Source: explore-blog

{Billy}….turned on the television. He came slightly unstuck in time, saw the late movie backwards, then forwards again. It was a movie about American bombers in the Second World War and the gallant men who flew them. Seen backwards by Billy, the story went like this: American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation. The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans, though, and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France, though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new. When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody again. The American fliers turned in their uniforms, became high school kids. And Hitler turned into a baby, Billy Pilgrim supposed. That wasn’t in the movie. Billy was extrapolating. Everybody turned into a baby, and all humanity, without exception, conspired biologically to produce two perfect people named Adam and Eve, he supposed.

-Slaughterhouse Five, By Kurt Vonnegut

My favorite passage from this book.