According to the News Hounds, Fox News is still insinuating that the plane that crashed into the Bank of America (nee Barnett) building in downtown Tampa back in 2002 is linked to terrorism. In truth, it was a 15 year old boy who stole a plane and used it to commit suicide.
The Carl
2 years ago
This is one of those stories that’s unforgettably bizarre. This would have been little more than a kid going Beavis with a stolen airplane but for the fact that he left behind a note praising Osama bin Ladin. Fox News calling this a terrorist act is a stretch, but then it is the channel of Bill O’Reilly, who stretches truth as far as his turkey neck will allow. (Bill go spend some money to get that fixed!)
Anonymous
2 years ago
The kid was a suburbanite from North Pinellas. last thing North Pinellas breeds is terrorists. The kid was on a certain acne medicine — a pill, not a wipe — and it made him derranged. There’s a lawsuit – or was? – against the manufacturer.
If this kid committed a terrorist act, why don’t we treat every suicide or ever assault as a terrorist act?
Dave
2 years ago
I remember this.
Personally, I was fascinated, not over the question of whether he was a terrorist or not, but because of the seemingly capricious conclusion everyone reached that he *wasn’t*.
There are young men and women blowing themselves up all over the world after leaving pointed references to larger political motivations and/or sympathies with militant groups for doing so behind, that are instantly reported as terrorists within a single news cycle. We read about them all the time on page 10A or as a blip on some RSS news feed.
So, at the time, I was like, wow, if we can give this kid the benefit of emotional and psychological doubt, why don’t we do the same for people who try to bring down jetliners with shoe bombs? I mean, which is it? Do “terrorists” with the villainous characterizations so adamantly applied beforehand in situations very similar exist, or don’t they? For instance, should we have started looking at the medications of all the 9/11 hijackers to see if any might explain their irrational logic?
The Bishop incident made one thing clear. When pressed by the reality of familiarity, the local media and many support groups take someone who the FBI, frankly, would have no problem otherwise classifying as a lone wolf actor in any distant prosecution, as a sensitive young man with emotional and psychological problems instead. Make no mistake, that compassion and understanding are great. But that’s the very problem for the bigger question involving countless others. To some degree they’re ALL probably just sensitive young people with emotional and mental problems, or at least there’s always some gray area of note. But you would never figure that in the propaganda used to support the framework of the declared war on terror that demands that people “like” Charlie Bishop know exactly what they’re doing if no one close enough to the situation is there to speak for them like you and I might for Bishop. The second tragedy, the one of war propaganda on our perception of the world, is inadvertently exposed by the first one – and yeah, I for one found that a little jolting at the time.
-D
Chris
1 year ago
I just happened upon your page accidentally. We’re producing a play about Charlie Bishop. “On the Wings of Sparrows” opens October 10, 2008. If you are in the area, we hope you can visit. http://www.southcamdentheatre.org