[meteorite-list] INTERVIEW WITH CARANCAS LOCALS

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 13:42:46 -0500
Message-ID: <0d9101c8127f$d8531810$b92ee146_at_ATARIENGINE>

Hi, All,

    First, I have a correction (or two) to make to my
interpretation of the interview.

    The interview was conducted, it turns out, on the
22nd of September, well before Mike Farmer or Bob
Haag and Carl Esparza came to Carancas, so the
"Big Scoundrel" is the meteorite itself.

    The second part of the interview, which starts at
the point where we don't have the questions translated,
with the description of being knocked down twice, is
with another individual, a 67-year-old who was apparently
much closer to the impact point.

    Secondly, why would the inhabitants of a tiny village
of herders immediately assume they were under attack,
being bombed with devastating weapons, and by Chile?

> Who the heck would invade Carancas?

    To understand that, you would have to know about
The War of The Pacific (1879-1883). To understand
how that works, I suggest a quick and easy read of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Pacific

    Why does isolated land-locked Bolivia not have access
to the Pacific coast just like its neighbor Peru? Who would
fight the biggest war in South America over the Atacama
Desert and why? Why would (at one time) Argentina have
a Pacific Coast strip when Bolivia did not? Why would
Patagonia be part of Argentina when it was settled by the
Chileans? Why would Peru bear the brunt of a war fought
between Bolivia and Chile?

    Hey, I'm not going to spoil the soap opera of history here,
with a very real and not-at-all comic war, with last stands and
legendary sea battles, amphibious invasions and diplomatic
complexity, but the last part of the peace treaty wasn't implemented
until 1999, and tensions are sometimes high in the region, so it's
NOT "unreasonable" to assume that it is war come again if you're
being "bombed."

    Wars, overall, are never about the richness of a spot; they're
about "the spot," the place on the planet. For example, whatever
the causes, it's obvious the US is not in Iraq because its houses
are so beautiful, nor the countryside so lush and green, nor because
we envy their great garbage collection. Yet... there we are.

    If the United States decides to destroy your mud-brick and
tin-roof home-sweet-home, the F-16's will be dropping 500 pound
bombs. It seems that bombed people are suitably impressed by
that event, so it's not surprising that a "bomb" TWENTY times
more powerful would --- what shall we say? -- make a strong
impression!

    It is clear the event was completely, even existentially, shocking
to a quiet enduring people in a harsh but very calm place. To me,
the most poignant part of the interview is where it becomes obvious
that the impact event has seriously upset their innate sense of how
the universe works: "Can another such thing suddenly fall down?
Another?"

    It's their cosmic "9-11."


Sterling K. Webb
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnote: It wouldn't hurt us to worry more about Apophis
and similar such rocks, spend a little more money on finding
and tracking them, yada, yada, before we become an example
of the shantytown planet taken by existential surprise.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Weir" <dgweir at earthlink.net>
To: "Sterling K. Webb" <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net>
Cc: "Meteorite List" <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Friday, October 19, 2007 4:58 AM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] INTERVIEW WITH CARANCAS LOCALS


quoted from Sterling's article:

"I did not think that a planet
piece has fallen down, or anything like that, but at that
moment, I thought that we have been attacked by an
enemy, from the air. Then, I thought that there was one
[plane] alone. I have looked at the air, to see where is
the plane that has bombed us this way, more or less
imagining it. [But] it had not been like that. Then I said
that it goes to finish off one more place, no more for us."

I find it mind-boggling that a a tiny rundown corrupt "village" (really
a squalor) would thing that someone was attacking those destitute people
to steal perhaps the garbage in the streets?, or maybe to steal the
human waste from the around their shacks?! Who the heck would invade
Carancas? That fear must be genetically ingrained in their brains
because it isn't a reasoned consideration.

David
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Received on Fri 19 Oct 2007 02:42:46 PM PDT