<p><a href=“http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/stick-of-dynamite-found-in-checked/20060825134309990003?ncid=NWS00010000000001[/url]”>http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/stick-of-dynamite-found-in-checked/20060825134309990003?ncid=NWS00010000000001</a></p>
<p>Okay kids, dynamite is not an okay summer souvenir. Doesn’t sound like the kid meant any harm, but they are really lucky that plane didn’t go down on it’s way to Houston.</p>
<p>I really want to start a fan club for this guy. T-shirts, buttons, whole bit.</p>
<p>The story is proof that having education doesn’t mean one has common sense.</p>
<p>As for his father’s comments, a 21-year-old person is not a “kid.” Also, it seems his “kid” wasn’t paying a lot of attention to lots of things including the fact that planes can explode.</p>
<p>"The student, 21-year-old Howard McFarland Fish, was charged with carrying an explosive aboard an aircraft and was in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.</p>
<p>Houston Fire Department Assistant Chief Omero Longoria said Fish told authorities he works in mining and often handles explosives.</p>
<p>Fish’s father, Howard, said he is certain his son, who bought the dynamite while visiting a silver mine while traveling in South America, intended no harm.</p>
<p>“It’s a 21-year-old kid not paying careful attention to the press and thinking it would be cool to have a piece of dynamite,” Howard Fish, of Old Lyme, Conn., said Friday night."</p>
<p>I know NSM. Isn’t he great? “Fish told authorities he works in mining and often handles explosives.”</p>
<p>Under that kind of pressure and still, to be able to come up with THAT for an excuse. I mean, who can think that quickly? Totally explains everything in just that one sentence.</p>
<p>It’s a shame his nimble mind wasn’t working quite as efficiently while he was packing his luggage. I fly a lot; if fellow passengers decide to pack explosives in their luggage it could really mess up my day.</p>
<p>But at least this guy had his lip balm confiscated before he got the plane,. Zowie.</p>
<p>We are at War.
He has flown before and knows the rules.
Where has he been for the last 5 years?
He old enough to know better.
Stupidity is not an excuse</p>
<p>Gitmo, Forever!</p>
<p>You know…my husband has a petroleum engineering degree from a ‘specialty engineering school with doctoral programs’ (US News-speak to see if anyone can figure it out). The mining and mineral engineering students do have required summer internships and do handle explosives. I can’t imagine one of them being so dumb as to pack a stick of dynamite in checked luggage. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t like to see this student jailed, but I’m not so sure he is deserving of a college degree yet. Seems like he has a lot to learn.</p>
<p>
After re-reading this part I see young fish’s ability to comprehend , his stupid-Q if you will, has a genetic basis. "Gee, Don’t blame me. So what? I missed a couple of newspapers and Ted Koppell makes me hurl. The frat was down with some serious homebrew last semester and have you seen Amanda? Wowzer. At war? With whom? No s%$#? Are we winning? "</p>
<p>We flew out of Dublin this morning into Newark. Never have we been so carefully scrutinized before flying. Questioned, passports examined at length, every carry on thoroughly hand searched immediately before boarding. I’ve never felt safer getting on a plane. The last few days have been quite unsettling. I hated catching newscasts!</p>
<p>The dynamite packer is a student at Lafayette student from Old Lyme, Conn.</p>
<p>According to one web site, the median family income at Old Lyme is $78,000 +. Median family income for US is $44,800.</p>
<p>The young man seems none too bright. Could he be a wealthy kid who got his summer job through contacts and had his way bought into a decent college?</p>
<p>I too would not like to see him receive a jail sentence. A few weeks of community service should be sufficient - perhaps in Kabul, or Baghdad.</p>
<p>“The young man seems none too bright. Could he be a wealthy kid who got his summer job through contacts and had his way bought into a decent college?”</p>
<p>Why do we assume he didn’t know exactly what he was doing? Because he was white? wealthy? comes from Old Lyme? has previous experience with explosives?</p>
<p>Try a thought experiment: make him Black (or Arab-American), poor, and from Detroit, with previous experience in explosives - do you now feel the same?</p>
<p>His fate is in the hands of GWB. The Military Courts/Tribunal will be fair. Anything less would make me and alot of Citizens feel less safe.</p>
<p>Forever Gitmo!</p>
<p>I also seem to remember in all the cowboy shows of yesteryear, dyamite is also unstable-maybe wrong, but would it matter?
Where was his momma to do the packing for him?</p>
<p>Good point Mini. It made me rethink my initial reaction. Same issue with the Lehigh student, head of his class, that was arrested for an armed robbery last year to cover an on-line gambling dept. ITs hard not to feel sympathetic but we would feel less so had the dynamite gone off and brought down an airplane. Lafayette is a good school with above average students. Its hard to imagine any college student would think carrying dynamite on a plane is OK.</p>
<p>"Why do we assume he didn’t know exactly what he was doing? Because he was white? wealthy? comes from Old Lyme? has previous experience with explosives?</p>
<p>Try a thought experiment: make him Black (or Arab-American), poor, and from Detroit, with previous experience in explosives - do you now feel the same?"</p>
<p>If the student were poor, I’d think that there’s a good chance that he didn’t know any better – came from an environment in which people didn’t keep up with the news, didn’t know enough about chemistry to realize how dangers it could be to carry dynamite on a plane. I would have big questions about how such an incompetent person could attend Lafayette and get an international internship: These are the same questions that I have about the young man who actually did the actions we’re discussing.</p>
<p>The young man, however, who did this stupid act goes to a LAC with an excellent engineering program and also had a job in S. America in which he was working with explosives. He also comes from a very well off city, which indicates that he probably had a very good education.</p>
<p>It is very hard for me to imagine that a person who was able to gain admission to Lafayette and obtain an international internship working with explosives is stupid enough to try to bring dynamite on a plane unless he lacks the intelligence to have gotten to Lafayette via his own academic achievements or to have gotten his internship without some help from someone, presumably his family since I’d doubt that any professor would send a student to an international internship if there was a good chance that the student was so lacking in intelligence or common sense as to embarass the college or endanger others.</p>
<p>If the student were poor, from the inner city, etc., and did what this student did, I still would wonder what was wrong with the college to have sent to an international internship someone who seemed so lacking in intelligence and common sense. If the person were black, I’d wonder if the colllege had missed the point of AA, which is NOT to put incompetent blacks into positions that they can’t handle. AA means that if there are 2 equal candidates and one is a URM, the URM should get the tip. It does NOT mean that incompetent, unqualified minorities should get jobs and opportunities.</p>
<p>WHen we read about pranks kids pull, firecrackers, stealing stop signs, etc, that cause lots of harm, it wouldn’t be surprising if this MAN thoiught he would show off his dynomite to his buddies…</p>
<p>We are cutting this kid lot of slack because he is upper-middle class white, which says alot about us…mini’s points are right on</p>
<p>That, plus there’s nothing in the media to indicate he plays football, lacrosse, etc.</p>
<p>The other thing that struck me as odd is that he ‘bought’ the dynamite after visiting a silver mine. What…you can just buy a stick of dynamite? Where… at the mine gift shop? According to the Connecticut Post: “Operators
of the mine that he visited directed Fish, a student at Lafayette College in Easton, Pa., to buy presents for the miners. He bought a stick of dynamite and ended up keeping it. ‘He threw it in his suitcase,’ his father said.”</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.connpost.com/news/ci_4239899[/url]”>http://www.connpost.com/news/ci_4239899</a></p>
<p>Doesn’t this seem like weird explanation?</p>
<p>“WHen we read about pranks kids pull, firecrackers, stealing stop signs, etc, that cause lots of harm, it wouldn’t be surprising if this MAN thoiught he would show off his dynomite to his buddies…”</p>
<p>Lots of the pranks that people pull are when they are drunk and also are very young. Hard for me to imagine that he was drunk when catching a plane. Also hard for me to imagine that a person who managed to get some kind of job in S. America handling explosives and to also attend Lafayette, which is known for its engineering school, has no idea that carrying dynamite in his suitcase on a plane could be dangerous or get him arrested.</p>
<p>If he honestly doesn’t know that, then I start looking for reasons how someone so lacking in smarts and common sense could go to a good LAC that’s known for its engineering programs, and also could get an international job handling explosives of all things. </p>
<p>Carrying dynamite in one’s suitcase on a plane is a much work “prank” than are some of the other things that you mentioned, which also are stupid and dangerous, but to a much lesser degree.</p>