2002-12-21 - 11:42 p.m.
A Bad Idea to Begin with
Today my dad told me about Ryan Hartley, a guy who climbed up the side of Houston's 900-foot Williams Tower, made it half-way, then jumped or fell to his death. He had left a note in his wallet saying the U.S. was headed for war. The fucked up thing about all this is that the news stations were filming this man as he was ascending the glass structure, using only a pick device and some rosin ... like it was "Jackass" or something.
The news stations say Hartley committed suicide, but here's this from Houston's Indymedia site. I can't imagine someone working in a Houston highrise reads subversive IMC journalism, so take it for what it's worth:
CC � Friday December 20, 2002 at 02:03 PM
[email protected]
"I want everyone to know he did not go up to kill himself. He had notes on him just in case, but he did nto do this to kill himself.
"I was in the building that morning. I watched him below from my window. He was only two floors down.
"I must tell everyone that he had every intention of climbing to the top that morning. He didn't go up to kill himself. He was dressed to impress when as expected to make it up to the top and get arrested, and probably make his statement to the press.
What happened is he slipped while trying to adjust himself. When he did, he cut his hand. This put a big damper on the whole thing. I saw the fear in his eyes when he slipped. His hand was bleeding. He was tired from expending too much energy on the first half of the climb. He sat there for about 10 minutes. He regained his composure and tried to move up again. As he did, he started to slip again. As I am told , rock climbers are taught to push away from the rocks and aim for something soft if they slip or fall. That is what he did. He couldn't procede any more and instead of falling straight down, he pushed off. I know from what I saw, he did not intentionally jump to kill himself. He was a very good climber. I am sorry he didn't make it. "
I find it interesting that the fellow's parents and friends say Hartley had been behaving "erratically" during the past year. Could it be possible that their son was simply turning anti-war? A lot of Texans look down upon people who don't believe dying for oil is a noble cause.
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Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse. � Lily Tomlin |
