More Signs of the Failure of our System of Higher Education

A writer for the student newspaper at the University of Minnesota, in what is supposed to be the first of a series, writes about his exposure to the 9/11 "truth" movement, by comparing it to... wait for it... Jenga.

Jenga is a popular Hasbro game from the 1980s.

It's a game of skill in which small hardwood blocks are stacked in a tower formation - 54 blocks arranged in 18 stories - and players remove one lower block at a time from the body of the building and place it on the top of the tower. The player who causes the tower to collapse loses the game.

The idea of the structural integrity of tall buildings is well represented.

But even if a Jenga tower does indeed fall, it will topple over and to the side - it will NOT neatly collapse straight down without resistance into its own placement, and in a beautifully symmetrical fashion, like a certain cluster of humanity's finest feats of structural engineering in Lower Manhattan were somehow wont to do on a crisp, clear morning nearly five and a half years ago.

Then to make it worse, he continues this silly metaphor to to completely misrepresent the events of 9/11.

It was clear that mere moments before their respective virtual implosions - nine to 10 seconds before in each case, actually - the 110-story steel structures had shown no signs of imminent collapse, such as characteristic sagging or tilting.

There were relatively sequestered fires visible in the crash impact zones - between the 78th and 84th floors of the South Tower, and between the 93rd and 98th floors of the North Tower, according to USA Today - but the towers stood stalwart as ever, with no worrisome leaning or shaking.

Uhh, excuse me?

No sagging or tilting?

To quote the NIST report summary:

At 10:06 AM, an NYPD aviation unit advised that WTC1 would come down and that all emergency vehicles should be moved away from it. At 10:20 a.m. observers in NYPD helicopters said that the top of the building was leaning; and at 10:21 a.m. they said that WTC1 was buckling on the southwest corner and leaning to the south.

Maybe he should spend more time reading the scientific study of the collapse, and less time playing children''s games?

The author writes about his reaction to the events of that day:

September 11 was my second Tuesday in college, and I can remember standing with at least a hundred fellow students in front of a hastily arranged TV projection in a classroom in Murphy Hall, completely disoriented by the nauseating pictures I was seeing.

Hmm, maybe we should read something into the fact that he still has not graduated, nearly 5 and a half years later....

Update: Since some people were asking what his major was after my admittedly snarky "5 1/2 years" comment, according to his myspace page, it is theater arts. I am not going to say anything...