look! up in the sky, is that a plane?

This weekend there's an airshow in Kansas City and since the World Wide Anthill Headquarters of Warrior Ant Press are just a few miles from the downtown airport where the airshow is located, there are many historic planes that fly over the neighborhood. Planes such as these Japanese Zeros which are the same type of aircraft used by the Imperial Japanese Navy Airforce to invoke the Day of Infamy and usher the recalcitrant U.S. into the Second World War. I like airplanes and I like old airplanes. I like the sound that they make when they fly low overhead. I also like jet planes and they sound that they make even when they fly low but it's better when they fly a little higher in the sky. But I do think it's weird that there is an organized recreation of the Japanese bombing of Wheeler Air Field complete with massive explosives and fireballs, for this and other airshows. The attack, code named Tora!Tora!Tora! is the grand finale, after the precision paratroupers, and the race between the 300-mph, jet powered, tractor trailer-truck and the bi-plane, and sky-writing, and well, you can see for yourself with all those explosions, it would have to be the finale. Short of actually crashing a jet on the infield, or lighting a paratrooper on fire I don't know how it could be anything but the end of the show.

Ok, yes, full disclosure and although I did grow up blowing stuff up whenever I got the chance (this wasn't very often and mostly involved legal fireworks) and have even been known to concoct a homemade version of napalm and strafe little plastic army men with it just to see if they would burn like humans and yes, for the record napalm is very easy to make and very difficult to extinguish so don't try it at home. That said, once grown, I've never once had the desire to re-enact a battle, such as Gettysburg, or Antietam, or even Pearl Harbor. Also, I've never had the desire to go see others re-enact these battles but then again I also don't read the number selling magazine* or watch the number one rated tv show* in the country either so what do I know?

But it does raise the spector of just how long will it be before we can witness simulations of planes being driven into very large skyscrapers and then watch as the the upper floors (and shortly thereafter the world) erupt into a fireball and many, many people leap, or are pushed, or or are blown to their death? How long should we wait for this happen and would you pay money to see it?

Or will driving a banana into the side of a building have to suffice for now?

*note: I don't know what the number one selling magazine nor the top-rated tv show is in the US so maybe I have read or watched!