His identity is not a secret. He's a gay activist named Brandon Bostian.
Posted on 05/13/2015 10:26:10 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
A consequence of America growing more secularist, by which I mean more materialistic, is clear in public reactions by secular sophisticates after the crash of Amtrak 188 in Philadelphia.
The dead had yet to be confirmed, the injured were still trapped in smashed train cars, but partisans steering the news narrative griped about “infrastructure” and lectured about “funding.” They blamed Tuesday night's calamity on Republicans, though investigators said speeding into a curve at 106 m.p.h. likely caused the crash. (Maybe the engineer is a Republican.)
Two hours after the crash, as aerial shots of the tangled disaster scrolled on social media, the Atlantic — mental mecca for materialistic eggheads — posted an article via the National Journal, titled “Where Did Amtrak Go Wrong?” The long-winded piece posed a question: “Why can't America have great trains?”
Against wrenching scenes of bloodied and dazed passengers, high-minded readers of the Atlantic engaged in bloodless, academic argument about “lack of infrastructure investments,” blaming “capitalism … selfishness … greed …" and expressed disgust about America's lack of “high-speed rail.”
It didn't matter that somewhere within the train wreckage lay the body of Jim Gaines, 47, of the Associated Press news service, who leaves behind a son, 16, and a daughter, 11. Also killed was Justin Zemser, 20, a Navy midshipman, who was riding the New York-bound train home to see his family.
Some of us non-secularists saw the twisted metal and overturned cars and were saddened and heartsick at the certain suffering of the families of those killed. Others saw what we saw, but seized it as an opportunity to mount their favorite political hobby horse — America’s “crumbling infrastructure.”
Philadelphia magazine, after briefly acknowledging that people had died, quickly got to the meat of its post: “Still, (Tuesday) night’s crash has ignited a debate on social media and elsewhere about America’s crumbling infrastructure.”
The Washington Post weighed in: “Although the cause of Tuesday’s derailment was still undetermined, the answer has a lot to do with the United States’ crumbling transportation infrastructure … ”
The New York Times: “The Northeast Corridor, which runs between Boston and Washington, is one of the railroad’s busiest and most profitable lines. But officials have long complained that the agency needs more subsidies from Congress to improve the railroad’s deteriorating infrastructure and replace aging equipment.”
A headline at the progressive social media web site ThinkProgress: “Why You Can’t talk About the Amtrak Derailment Without Talking About Our Infrastructure Crisis.”
Politico, helmed by policy geniuses in D.C.: “The fatal accident is likely to heavily influence an ongoing safety and funding debate in Washington that has been influenced by two major factors — a recent flurry of major passenger rail accidents and a push by fiscal conservatives to further trim spending.”
That U.S. rail accidents have been declining since 2006 as safety has improved doesn't seem to matter.
What matters is policy and regulation. When disasters strike, we Americans must seek answers in the technocratic and the administrative. “Never let a serious crisis go to waste,” is the creed of the materialistic. Train wrecks, tornadoes, hurricanes, "super storms," plane crashes — in every crisis, our first instinct should be to appeal to the state for help.
Tuesday night, amid the hand-wringing over inadequate government funding for Amtrak and breathy denunciations of Republicans, one Tweet from the crash site stood out. It came from former Democratic Bucks County Congressman Patrick Murphy, who was aboard the train when it wrecked.
After tweeting several nightmarish pics from inside the smashed and slanting café car, he tapped out, “Pray for the injured.”
Discussions of hapless government policy can wait.
This has nothing to do with infrastructure. It was operator error. Going into a curve at twice the maximum speed limit for that curve, regardless of the mode of transportation, will spell disaster.
They did spend $40 billion of the $900 billion on infrastructure, they just forgot where the other money went.
DK
> The engineer fled the crash. The train was going 106 mph into a 50 mph curve. What was he doing at the time? The fact that he is gay shouldn’t mean anything: conservatives need to leave that aside.
Unless he was have sex in the engine car and got punched too hard from behind while leaning against the throttle control.../s
Unless, of course, he was an AA hire, specifically because he was homosexual. And otherwise unqualified for that position.
We don't know that yet, but the odds favor it based on his employment history.
One of those so called shovel ready jobs.
Either way, going 106 into a 50 mph rule book curve spells disaster. The rule book for an operating division gives the speed restriction for each stretch of track according to mile marker. The engineer has to be qualified for each operating division. That is the way every major railroad operates, including freight.
Like the Costa Concordia?
Actually not true. If this engineers advancement through the union system was accelerated due to his sexual orientation it has everything to do with his being “gay”. Engineers used to be the most qualified person and it took a great deal of experience to become qualified, that no longer may be the case.
The engineer is the Captain of his ship, so to speak. He fled while people bled. What kind of animal watches and hears people in agonizing pain and runs. The first article I read about it included a tweet from a democrat senator who asked for prayers and says he was helping people. That should have been the engineer too, but he was more concerned about himself.
The engineer probably fled because he was drunk or high, and wanted to reappear when he would test negative.
Speed has to be purposeful...even drunk or high wouldn’t lead to such speed. Why is the engineer ID a secret?
Muslim?
His identity is not a secret. He's a gay activist named Brandon Bostian.
AMTRAK's "diversity" initiative makes his gayness VERY relevant, as in "was an unqualified person made engineer just to fulfill a diversity goal?"
no man leaves an accident.
no homo activist is a man.
“The dead had yet to be confirmed, the injured were still trapped in smashed train cars, but partisans steering the news narrative griped about “infrastructure” and lectured about “funding.””
Unreal, but keep in mind that they NEED to keep the discussion off of High Speed Rail, as those projects are just starting up and are easy to scuttle at this phase. Kind of like how they got the media to ignore the fact that early generation air bags were decapitating dozens of kids per year...at least until the debate over whether cars should even have air bags did down.
But this quote reminds me of a black dude I once worked with. Really nice guy, but he once got pulled over and got a ticket, and he told us that he knows why he was profiled...I asked him how fast - 82 in a 65. I explained to him that even whites get profiled when they do that.
"My darling Brandon. I love you with every inch of my _________ . I went into a swoon with your offer of marriage. But, my dearest, I am crying my heart out now because I am in love with Bill, and I told him YES YES YES when he proposed to me on his knees. And the ROCK he gave me was fabulous! I am distraught over having to tell you this at such a beautiful but sensitive time in your life. For now though I need space my love. I hope you'll understand."
John
The question should be, was the gay engineer stable, mature and usually of good judgement? He should not be exempt from these questions just because he is gay.
Maybe he was despondent because his boyfriend left him for another woman.
Is a dead AP reporter truly a loss worth discussing?
He’s somebody’s son, husband, father & brother. Every human life means something.
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