Conspiracy theory

It happens every anniversary of 9/11, and this one is no exception.

Every year, these idiots in their tin foil hats take a break from their vaccine conspiracies - microchips tracking you, vaccines don't work, they make you magnetic (they might be confusing that with my magnetic personality), they cause autism, they alter your DNA - to resurface and decide to scream the same ludicrous 9/11 conspiracy questions that have been answered and proven false for the last twenty-two years.

Now don’t get me wrong: I’m all in favor of questioning authority and government watchdogs. But conspiracy theorists, like their Republican and MAGA soulmates, all work under the same motto: don’t confuse me with the facts.

There’s a video online, sadly one of many, of a woman who has a conspiracy theory page on Instagram. I’m not going to name her, and I’m certainly not going to give out the name of her site. The reason I know about it at all is because a friend, who until now I considered fairly intelligent, reasonable and whatever the opposite of paranoid is, posted it today on their IG.

It is totally ridiculous, not to mention disrespectful and hurtful to the many who lost loved ones that day. But again, conspiracy theorists, like their Republican and the MAGA brethren, don’t really give a shit who they hurt.

I’m not going to answer all the questions this moron asks in her video, but I’ll tackle a few.

How does jet fuel burn steel beams?
The answer is it doesn't burn them, it compromises their integrity, something you'd think these asshats would be familiar with. From an article in the October 2001 Scientific American written by structural engineers from M.I.T. - not the YouTube University this conspiracy theorist went to::

” The main culprits in bringing the famously lofty buildings down, they concluded, were the two intensely hot infernos that erupted when tens of thousands of gallons of aviation fuel spilled from the doomed airliners. Once high temperatures weakened the towers' supporting steel structures, it was only a matter of time until the mass of the stories above initiated a rapid-sequence "pancaking" phenomena in which floor after floor was instantly crushed and then sent into near free fall to the ground below. Significantly, the panel stated that any mitigating reinforcements and redundancies added to these buildings could have only delayed the inevitable failure, though they would have bought more time for the evacuation of the occupants. “

How did two planes make three buildings fall?
Actually, two planes made two buildings fall. The fire from the falling debri set fire to the third building and brought it down by compromising the steel beams (see above answer). From the September 23, 2022 issue of USA Today: Official investigations show there is no truth to the claim the Building 7 collapse was pre-planned. World Trade Center Building 7 collapsed at 5:20 p.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, after burning for seven hours, according to a Federal Emergency Management Agency report. It said the collapse of the building was a direct result of fires stimulated by debris from the collapse of World Trade Center Tower 1. The National Institute of Standards and Technology also says on its website that “heat from the uncontrolled fires caused steel floor beams and girders to thermally expand," causing a key structural column to fail and initiating the collapse of the entire building. The site also says investigators "found no evidence supporting the existence of a blast event."

How many people actually saw the airplanes hit the buildings?
In a litany of monumentally stupid questions, this may be the winner. No one has an exact head count, but literally thousands of people in Manhattan and millions watching around the world saw the planes hit. There are eyewitness videos of it all over the internet.

There are also a plethora ($5 word - thanks Rich Siegel) of false claims regarding United 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania. Most all of those are debunked here. And the perennial claim that no airplane debri was found at the Pentagon is answered here.

The truth is the facts that prove the reality are all readily available and easily accessible. Of course, none of this will matter to the tin foil hat crowd. They will take refuge, as they always do, in lame defenses like "that's what they want you to think." or "They made it look that way." or "Follow the money." even if there's no actual money to follow.

Do I think that evidence-based events require further investigation? Of course. JFK's assassination and Jeffrey Epstein's "suicide" have a set of factual circumstances surrounding them that go beyond coincidence and need further examination. But really, let's stop the insane conspiracies - JFK Jr. is alive, the election was rigged, the moon landing, Paul McCartney's death - and put our energies on solving our real problems.

Want to hear my theory? All these conspiracy theorists want to sound smart, like they've uncovered some big secret the rest of us don't know about and are too ignorant to see. And if they haven't, which they haven't, they just make it up. And then they sound like sad, babbling idiots without an ounce of ability for reason or critical thinking.

Oh wait, that's not a theory. Turns out that's a fact.

9/11

The Elvis factor

There's a phenomenon called The Elvis Factor. It's the fact that at any given time, 10% of the population believe Elvis is still alive. And of that 10%, 8% believe if you send him a letter he'll answer it.

I'm going to generalize here, but as a rule these people are very sensitive and don't respond well at all to being asked about their questionable beliefs. They don't like being cornered, and when they are usually lash out with personal insults or comments that have nothing to do with the issue at hand.

Imagine, a group of petty, thin-skinned, hard-headed people believing what they want despite verifiable facts to the contrary. Wonder who they're voting for?

When you ask them about it, why all the papers reported him dead, why there's a grave at Graceland, why he's laying in his casket in that famous National Enquirer photo, they all give the same, extremely predictable answer: conspiracy.

It'd be funny if it wasn't so sad.

Almost every major event that's happened in the last century has a conspiracy theory attached to it. And a group of people willing and ready to blindly support those theories with their ignorance. When you disagree with them, they act like Americans in Europe for the first time. They just keep talking louder and louder until you. get. it.

You can tell I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist. I have my suspicions about the JFK assassination, I think something may have landed at Roswell and it does seem interesting to me there was one news story about the discovery of over two hundred years' worth of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, and then nothing. But that's about it.

I believe we landed on the moon. I believe Challenger exploded because of a faulty "O" ring.

A healthy dose of skepticism and questioning authority is a good thing. But the reality is, for the most part, things are exactly what they appear to be. And the big events, the catastrophic disasters, the "I'll always remember where I was when I heard it" tragedies happen because they happen.

There isn't any giant conspiracy. There's nothing hiding under the bed.

Although I keep telling my kids there is. It never gets old.

The London Telegraph has a great article on the 30 Greatest Conspiracy Theories. Definitely worth reading, if only for comic relief.

For the most part, these theories are harmless rantings. But one more than the others has a deep cruelty to it. The one about 9/11. The victims families have enough pain for the rest of their lives without these "theorists" continually trying to explain what REALLY happened.

By the way, good luck trying to figure out who put me up to writing this.

Closure. When will it end?

I'm going to tell you something and you're not going to like it.

But it's the truth.

And sometimes, like flu shots and Ryan Reynolds movies, the truth hurts.

Here it is: there's no such thing as closure. Not in the truest sense of the word.

Pardon my French, but it's a bullshit, new age-y word imposed on you by people who'd be more comfortable if you just "moved past" whatever pain it is you're in.

The tenth anniversary of 9/11 is upon us, and all around are talking heads reminding us about everything that should give us closure about it. The rebuilding at ground zero. The killing of Bin Laden. The resilience of survivors. The bravery of first responders in the way they've carried on since.

I can't tell if they want us to forget the images of that day or just feel better about them. Either way it seems obscene.

Apparently, back in the day, the word closure had value. That's why all the pundits, journalists, shrinks and new age authors bought boxes of it at the height of the closure market. But it's easy to see the word's lost it's value, and now they want to unload it as fast as they can.

Truth is it hasn't been worth anything since the Kennedy assassination (by the way, still waiting for closure on that).

It seems cynical to say, but we don't really get over anything. Anything that matters.

Which is okay in my book (well, more of an outline really), because there are some things we shouldn't get over.

Collective tragedies like 9/11, the shuttle explosion, Katrina and the murder of (pick a name). To apply the word closure to these events, to say we've come to terms with them, is absurd. To even imply it means we've diminished our capacity to be shocked and moved by them.

Here's another example. On a more personal note, both my parents are dead. They've been dead a long time. In fact, I just checked a few minutes ago - still dead. They're going to be dead for the rest of the time I'm alive. If you've ever lost a loved one, and I hope you haven't because it just sucks, you know the idea of closure is fiction in its purest form. It never goes away. It gets better, more bearable over time, but it's never really gone.

Remember that boy or girl who broke your heart? Your pet you had to put down? Losing your grandmother's wedding ring? Failing your final? Crashing the car? Still stings doesn't it. It should. That's the point.

Just because you finish a chapter in your life doesn't mean you can't hold or revisit the book every once in awhile.

This whole concept of closure betrays a society that places an unreasonable amount of importance on "getting past it" and "getting on with it." You hear phrases like "get over it" and "put it behind you" an awful lot, always from people who aren't looking out for your well-being, but who are uncomfortable around your sadness.

No matter how small the incident or how long the time, we don't handle displays of grief well. We're uncomfortable around it. It makes us feel weak.

What it really should make us feel is human.