ell him that he is wrong about engineers. send e-mail

huangyhg

tell him that he is wrong about engineers. send e-mail.
please, read this and send him e-mail.
i agree......using the "engineer" analogy does our profession a great diservice.  
the term "engineer" is inappropriatly used in this instance. a better and more accurtate term should be "fanatic", a term not used by john hall simply because it hits too close to home. fanatics are not all found in the middle east.  some of them mascarade as journallists!
indeed, john hall does the honorable and age old profession of of engineer a great disservice.
always on guard for extremists, no matter what their pashion or profession.   
rod
somebody beat him to the punch... by a few hundred years!
"... and like the engineer, hoisted with his own petard..." -w.shakespeare
i couldn't let the article go without a response.  i sent the following email to mr. hall (i signed the email to mr. hall, but have not included my signature here in keeping with the anonimity of the forum)...
"mr. hall,
i take great exception to your characterization of those murderous bastards as "engineers".  while i clearly understand your point, in its presentation you have managed to malign an honorable profession that is duty bound to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public.
those you mention did not "engineer" anything....they plotted and connived to maim and kill innocent people in the interest of their own zealotry.
you, sir, owe all engineers an apology.  perhaps you can conceive one as you sit safely in your office within a structure that was carefully designed by an engineer or perhaps while driving to your office on a roadway that was designed by an engineer, in a vehicle that was also designed by engineers."
ron, you're quite the diplomat, and have answered this journalistic moron with a response that is head and shoulders above what he is deserving of.
qshake
v2 (visitor)14 sep 01 0:08
engineers are behind the lifestyle as we know it today.
cdl (visitor)14 sep 01 7:57
just a small factiod, i picked up from a newspaper article.
osama bin laden studied civil engineering with management at a saudi university.
wow, i live in richmond, so this is my hometown paper. i can't believe what this guy wrote! i don't think he intended to harm the entire engineering profession, but he has. everyone has been talking about not discriminating against american muslims or arab-americans, so this guy is instead discriminating against engineers! never thought i would see the day.
i sent him an email - i suspect he'll be getting quite a few in the next couple of days.
i too have joined the list of "well wishers".......
i suggested he look up the word "engineer" next ime he is to use it so that it's used correctly !!
think he'll send us a reply ????
cva1993
here is his response to our e-mails : (he sent it to all of us)
the important thing about bin laden, or whoever did this, is that he is
warped but brilliant. we need to know this to outsmart him. he is not some
ignorant cleric (my pardon to all members of the cloth).  here's my response
i am sending to everyone who wrote me.
as the brother of a chemical engineer, i surely meant no offense to
engineers, but i have received several e-mails protesting my reference to
the mastermind of destruction of the world trade center twin towers as ``the
well, you must know that distaste for engineers (and in general of men of knowledge) is quite prevalent in those not enthralled by these things. today even socrates and shakespeare are derided by the idiots in the media.
the thing is old, when they structured the roman legions, engineers fell in the unclasssifiable residuum of one last corps having a bit of everything.
and of course, engineers and architects are actively opposed by people that don't want do nor difficult things, nor the correct ones. you will find at councils lots and lots of lobbyists for remaking again pavements, but far less to build a new facility...that is because such people does not know very well how to lift their face of the ground level, it is simply difficult for them to build what designed and far cozier earn the bucks by laying layers of stuff. as well they avoid meeting them, that give them shrills.
then they can show how smart they are with the bucks they have such way earned. and this included julius caesar.
just as cva1993 did, i sent my own email to john hall and got the same response from him.
i looked up the definition of "engineer" in my dictionary, and it did indeed include his above definition.  i do not believe that he meant harm in his statements, but i do believe that he caused such.  we can hope that he replies in print to his statements.
here was my email to him:
while i understand the point which mr. hall is making, i take strong
exception to the use of "engineer" to describe this madman.
just as the term "doctor" should not be applied to the nazi medical
experimenters in the holocaust camps, neither should the engineering
profession be smeared by calling such monsters as those involved in
theseattacks "engineers".
i quote from the national society of professional engineers code of
ethicsfor engineers:
    "engineers, in the fulfillment of their professional duties,shall:
    1. hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public."
that is merely the first canon; there are many others which were
similarly violated by these terrorists.
this person was most definitely smart, and very well may have been
trained as an engineer.  he is not, however, an engineer.
here was his response to me (the same as above, with a personal addition):
"   the horror of it was that they were doctors.
   
as the brother of a chemical engineer, i surely meant no offense to
engineers, but i have received several e-mails protesting my reference to . . ."
i wouldn't view him as an enemy of our profession; rather as somebody who possibly did not consider the effect of his words on us (but apparently now is very aware of that effect).
brad