MIT students place fire truck on dome to honor Sept. 11
Evidence to be optimistic about the coming generation in spite of the idiots teaching them.
Students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology looked to a long-standing tradition to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorists attacks Monday. They put a fire truck on top of the schools 150-foot high Great Dome, a central feature on the campus that has been a stage for student and alumni pranks -- known as "hacks" -- since at least the 1920s.
A student Web site referenced by the MIT Museum describes Mondays tribute as a 25-foot-long fire truck with the phrase "memininum," Latin for "we remember," painted on the trucks side.
School officials are not offering any comment. MIT spokeswoman Patricia Foley said she can only say the "hacks" are put up safely, and they are taken down safely. While students set up the pranks, the school picks up the responsibility of taking them down, although the perpetrators -- who are rarely identified -- often leave instructions about how the prank was done, and how to best dismantle it.
In 1996, after the dome had been dressed up as a red-and-white beanie with a blue propeller, MIT police received a 15-page report describing how to remove it.
How Clintonian
In 2003, students put a replica of the Wright brothers plane on the dome to commemorate the 100th anniversary of flight.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-09-13 |