A Bewildering Crash. Philip Gourevitch at The New Yorker.
Just as the brevity of the flight, and the apparent spontaneity of the captain’s decision to leave the cockpit—to stretch a leg? or take a piss? or have a chat? We do not know—tells us that Lubitz could not have planned before he flew that day to crash the plane that way; and just as the locking of the door, and the pushing of the button that brought the plane down, tell us that he acted consciously and deliberately, so Lubitz’s breathing, unbroken by any attempt at speech, tells us that he chose not to explain himself. He knew that he was on the record. What did he think he was doing? What came over him? What possessed him? And why?
Is It Premature to Blame the Co-Pilot for the Germanwings Crash? William Langwiesche thinks so. Interview by Kia Makarechi at Vanity Fair.
There’s the Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses (B.E.A.), which is the technical investigators—the equivalent of our N.T.S.B. They’re very cautious, when it comes to releasing information—too much so. But there’s also always, in France, a parallel criminal investigation, because deaths are involved, and a Napoleonic mindset requires this.
That’s who this prosecutor in Marseille is. These are not people who are experienced with airplane accidents. The quality of these criminal investigations varies, depending on the quality of the consultants they bring in. Sometimes they’re quite good, even better than the B.E.A. In this case, I don’t know.
Were this an N.T.S.B. investigation, we would see a very different kind of information release. I would expect that we would see a neutral release of what we found in the recorder, and not pointing the finger at the co-pilot. You can include that we heard breathing, and the pilot hammering on the door, and that the cruising altitude was reselected, but leave it at that at for a few days. Let others point fingers, I say.
Maybe the dark side of Mad Men is the bright side. By James Meek at London Review of Books.
Betty is on her second marriage. She broke with her previous husband, the Madison Avenue advertising executive Don Draper, when she found out he was lying about who he was, and was sleeping with another man’s wife; we saw him cheat on Betty with at least five other women: a commercial artist, a wealthy client, a 21-year-old Euro-drifter he met in Los Angeles, a flight attendant, and his young daughter Sally’s teacher. Betty suffers from chronic depression at a time when neither the diagnosis nor the pills to smother it are easy to come by. But what, here, is undermining what? What if, with or against our will, we aren’t shocked by the darkness beneath the surface, but childishly delighted by the prettiness of the surface shimmering over the darkness? What if the vintage fashion-shoot perfection of the Christmas scene leaves a more powerful impression on us than our awareness of the suffering of Betty and her children?
Real War: Yemenis Share Reports, Rumors and Wry Commentary Online as Bombs Drop. Robert Mackey at The New York Times.
"“there’s no electricity, we’re hiding in the hallway, can you tell me who’s bombing us?”
Play War: Homemade Recreational Battlefields. What you didn’t know about paintball’s landscapes. By Ruth Dusseault and Michael Shanks at Places.
Homemade recreational battlefields also draw heavily on the visual and spatial conventions of video games. Since Operation Desert Storm, 25 years ago, simulated war has evolved from the arcade into a vast subculture that comprises massive multiplayer online games as well as paintball and live-action role-play. Leagues and scenario championships have proliferated. Some organizers hold online “casting calls” where players sign up for roles ahead of an event. Myths and legends are sourced for designing missions and storylines. A war historian may be hired to stage the field.
