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That love is all and love is everyone...

9/11 has shown the defenselessness of the world in the face of terrorism. Though developed countries spend enormous funds on intelligence services (emerging countries also do, but as they are less attractive targets for terrorists, their intelligence services are less aware of terrorism), the attacks have illustrated how easy it is to break down the most powerful and well fixed intelligence service in the world. According to the 9/11 commission's report, the cost of the attacks to their authors was in range of $400000-600000, less than a million dollars! (total US intelligence budget for fiscal year 1998 was $26.7 billion).

The investigations show that the hijackers did not fit into the "general model" of suicide terrorists, being fully-formed well-educated adults. Probably that was one of the key reasons for the CIA to miss them on the attack preparation stage.

The official timeline of the day shows total lack of coordination between aircraft crews, dispatchers and air defense force. Neither party was ready to react to the threat adequately.

Has something changed since then? I am sure that yes. I am sure that it is absolutely impossible to replicate 9/11 attack today. If you do, you will be caught yet at the airport on the boarding stage. If not, the pilot will do his best to prevent you from directing the aircraft to the critical locations. If you come out to kill the pilot, the air force will shoot the aircraft down in minutes.

However, I am also sure that the terrorists will never resort to such kind of attacks again. They are not idiots, and they understand that intelligence services do learn from their mistakes. Instead, they will search for another hole in the defense system and try to exploit that one. And I am not sure that the CIA (or any other intelligence service) will be there to handle that newly discovered hole at once.

Photo: Recently built World Trade Center, 1976

A major difference between USSR and western rock music of 60-80's is that most of the Russian bands never really cared about the music (yes, I know that USSR != Russia, but as the majority of the bands sang songs in Russian, I will use that term). There were many reasons for that. There were no money, there were no good instruments, there were no good recording equipment. There were no sponsors. There were no local musical heritage, and getting discs with western music was a challenge.

However, even though the music was recorded on handicraft hardware built from spare parts of three different machines, even though the guitars and processors sounded as a mix of Nirvana, Chuck Berry and Bach, even though a drum machine beat the same boring 4/4 far-from-reality rhythm through entire song, even though guitar solos were as simple as in guitar beginner's guide, even though the rehearsals were performed at someone's apartments or (in better case) in underground studios, even though in many cases there were no official discs available, so the listeners had to use their tape recorders to spread records, even though... Despite all of that, Russian bands played the rockest rock I've ever listened to. Every single song was an inexhaustible source of energy, love, truth and wisdom. It may sound oddly, but probably the poor quality of the music was one of the compartments of the inspiration made by the songs... Good enough music would just have prevented the listener from feeling the spirit they carried.

When opportunities choose us

On August 20, 2008 an MD-82 airplane performing a JK5022 (Madrid-Las Palmas) flight has failed to take off from Madrid-Barajas airport, fell down and exploded. 154 of 172 passengers and crew members were killed. The further investigation has shown that the accident has been caused by a sequence of pilots’ and technicians’ mistakes. The fatal mistake, the one that actually was an immediate reason for the crash, was an attempt to take off with slats and flaps closed.

A very similar case (and happily, not a “very similar accident”) has happened in that very Spain a year before the Barajas crash. On June 5, 2007 an MD-83 airplane performing Lanzarote-Barcelona flight had been a subject for exactly the same bunch of staff mistakes, and also attempted to take off with closed flaps. Fortunately, there was a strong headwind; besides, the aircraft was slightly underloaded. Because of these two factors the machine succeeded in reaching the necessary lift that let it have avoided the JK5022 fate. The crew and the passengers had to experience several seconds of drastic 60 degrees right and left rolls though.


Generally, an aircraft taking off with its flaps closed does not have a chance to climb. That is, the passengers of MD-83 have been sentenced to death when they checked in to the flight in Lanzarote (or when they were booking the tickets, or ... who knows when exactly they’ve been, never mind). But the environment -- someone might wish to call it fortune, destiny, God, weather, closed system, whatever -- just has given them a minute opportunity to survive.

A good case to recall when you will be blaming the piercing wind that has blown your hat away.

Happy Birthday Paul!

Today is Paul McCartney’s 68th birthday.

Sir Paul’s performance in Kyiv on June 14, 2008 was probably the most exciting musical event I have attended for all my life. To say that it was wonderful, impressive, awesome, cool, great, unforgettable -- is to say nothing. There are no words to describe my feelings that summer night -- I just stood open-mouthed and stared at the scene, listening to the songs I loved since my very childhood, the songs which caused me to rend my fingers down to pieces, helplessly trying to play them accurately with my old guitar when I was about 12. Probably, that was the day of pure, absolute happiness.

And what a night it was! A powerful shower was pouring down from the sky for the whole day, so the streets in the city centre looked exactly like channels in Venice; umbrellas were pretty useless -- what one can do with a paper shield against a dozen of steel arrows? :) But the rain was nothing for 350’000 gathered at Independence Square to listen to a live legend, a legend whom many of the spectators have been awaiting for more than 40 years. It was an unique atmosphere of pervasive happiness around.



So, happy birthday Paul -- be just as young as you were there in Kyiv two years ago, and... just thank you for your songs and the joy that you bring with them to our hearts.

Photos: Korrespondent.net, Viktor Pinchuk's fund.

24th

Today is the 24th anniversary of the Chornobyl disaster. The accident was a monstrous result of irresponsibility and incompetence (those features were typical for any soviet institution), and a cruel illustration of the damage that improper handling of nuclear power can cause.

At the same time, Chornobyl disaster was one of the most affecting black swans in my life. At the moment of the accident I was living together with my parents and a sister in Obninsk, Russia. My parents worked in local scientific research institute. Right after the explosion my father, as an expert in radiobiology, along with a group of other scientists was directed to Kyiv in order to investigate the damage and develop the plans on minimizing the consequences of the accident. He then have been proposed to stay in Kyiv on a permanent basis. A year later we have also moved to Kyiv, opening new page of our life in our new homeland.

We live with the history we’ve inherited. There is no too much sense in thinking about what history we’d had if something that happened in the past did not happen, or, vice versa, something that did not happen actually did. At the same time, some of the past events are so shocking that it is really pity that we cannot go back and observe the alternative branches of the history. The fatal crash that has taken the lives of political elite of Poland reminded me about another tragic accident happened more than 50 years ago (there are very little common between those cases; perhaps, the only common aspect of both ones is airplane crash).

On February 3, 1959 a small Beechcraft Bonanza aircraft carrying 3 passengers on board took off from the Mason City local airport, Iowa. In several minutes after take-off, forced to fly in extremely poor weather conditions, it crashed in about five miles northwest from the airport. All the passengers and the pilot were killed. The passengers were young rock and roll musicians, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson.

Who knows, what kind of music would we have listened today if the Bonanza landed successfully at the destination point of Moorhead, Minnesota? Buddy Holly was truly one of the most talented and creative musicians of his times. Musician from the very childhood, having created such well-known rock and roll masterpieces as 'Words of Love', 'Peggy Sue' and 'That’ll be the Day' by the age of 22, Holly had every single chance to have a huge impact on the music of 50ths and 60ths. Actually, he did have it - his songs significantly influenced the creativity of such artists as the Beatles (who performed a number of his works at miscellaneous live shows; 'Words of Love' has even been officially released on their Beatles for Sale album), the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and many others. However, that was only the beginning of Holly’s career, and it is hard to imagine the value he could contribute to the popular music if he survived.

Despite the relatively small number of songs released, Buddy Holly is still one of my favorite performers. I propose you to get back to 1958 and enjoy Holly’s never-dying rock and roll hit. The grand piano solo is incredible!