Phil Eil
Apr 19, 2021 8:05 PM ET
The word happiness, of course, appears in one of the most famous sentences in U.S. history: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. But at some point, that crucial bit of hedging contained in the words pursuit of seemed to dissolve, and left us with a culture that views abiding happiness as a birthright.
It s hard to pinpoint exactly when this happened. Though it was certainly visible to the British social theorist Harriet Martineau, who in her 1838 book Retrospect of Western Travel, described the inexhaustible American mirth and noted of Americans that, One of the rarest characters among them, and a great treasure to all his sportive neighbours, is a man who cannot take a joke.
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report? does it make it in your view from your investigative background more likely that there was some sort of human-caused problem here? yes. a human hand turned the plane and did this series of events. we know that from the evidence that s been released by the malaysian government and the reporting on it. but i would bracket what we know now, the radio call from the co-pilot, the transponder two minutes later, the manual press in of the new direction and western travel, and then the acars system is disabled. and then japanese air pilot makes contact with the cockpit by radio and says he only hears murmuring. the japanese pilot believes it s the co-pilot. and that s sort of left out of the discussion. this thing is bracketed by two radio calls. the last one sort of unintelligible. if there s a tape of that on the surface vessel or plane, it should be retrieved and enhanced.
from your investigative background more likely that there was some sort of human-caused problem here? yes. a human hand turned the plane and did this series of events. we know that from the evidence that s been released by the malaysian government and the reporting on it. but i would bracket what we know now, the radio call from the co-pilot, the transponder two minutes later, the manual press in of the new direction and western travel, and then the acars system is disabled. and then japanese air pilot makes contact with the cockpit by radio and says he only hears murmuring. the japanese pilot believes it s the co-pilot. and that s sort of left out of the discussion. this thing is bracketed by two radio calls. the last one sort of unintelligible. if there s a tape of that on the surface vessel or plane, it should be retrieved and enhanced. but anyway, turned by a human