Going down!

I had been thinking about this subject for a while, wanting to write a blog about it because of the irony of the situation. Irony=funny. So I did a little research on the web. After reading the statistics I don't think this is so funny.

First I googled "fatalities airline US 2006". I found a couple articles referencing the fact that there had been no fatalities on large commercial domestic airline flights in the US for four and a half years as of mid 2006. None. Zero. Zilch. An amazing statistic considering the huge numbers of commercial flights in this country. I would like congratulate the FAA and the airlines for their work in reducing accidents.

Next I googled "fatalities motor vehicle us 2006". What do I find? "Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for U.S. teens". Forty-two thousand road deaths in the US in 2004. This country has got to get it's priorities straight!


The federal government which regulates air travel in the United States has done a fantastic job making air travel safer. The FAA, Federal Aviation Administration goes to great lengths to investigate every accident involving an aircraft and prevent its recurrence. If an airplane crashes the area is immediately cordoned off and no one, other than emergency personal aiding the injured or fighting fire is allow to touch anything. A team of experts with years of training is flown in and the crash site is gone over with a fine tooth comb. Every piece, no matter how small is collected and cataloged. If necessary the entire plane will be completely reconstructed in a hanger. Even "near misses" are thoroughly investigated and a pilot who inadvertently fails to follow correct procedure will have his licence suspended. A pilot who deliberately breaks the rules faces having his licence permanently revoked. If a mechanical defected is found to be the cause of an indecent all similar planes are grounded until they can be inspected and up graded. As a result airline travel in the US is statistically the safest way to go.


By contrast after an automobile accident tow trucks are immediately dispatched and the wreck cleared away ASAP. Often times the only investigation is done by a policeman, with little or no formal training in accident investigation, taking a statement from the driver. A driver whose negligence caused injury or death might be given a small fine to pay and have his insurance rate go up. The United States of America has one of the highest accident rates in the industrialized world!


Over the last ten years the number of deaths on airlines per one hundred million passenger miles, .002. In motor vehicles .08. You're forty times more likely to die in a car than in an airplane if you travel the same distance in each.


This is crazy! I and just about every American has to get into a car every day. To work, to go to school, to buy food, etc. It is a part of our daily existence. Can you remember the last time a day went by that you didn't have to go some where in a car. I can't. How often does the average American fly? Once or twice a year to go on holiday? So why hasn't this country made an effort to reduce auto accidents.


Sadly it seems that the less likely something is to kill you the more people get excited and want something done about it. Back in 1982 someone put cyanide into capsules of Tylenol, seven people died of cyanide poisoning. Almost over night tamper resistant or tamper evident packaging was introduced. Now virtually all over the counter medications and many other products are sold in "secure" packages. The way an entire industry markets its products was changed because of seven deaths. Product tampering was and still is very rare. West Nile virus which killed one person in California two years ago is on the front page of today's paper.



How many people were killed or maimed before seatbelts became standard in automobiles? And then only because they were required by the federal government. How many more fatalities happened before states made laws requiring their use. And how many people paid stiff fines before they started using them?

What can be done about the high numbers of traffic related deaths. While we may never make driving as safe as flying a mere one percent reduction in accidents would save four hundred lives per year. A twenty-five percent reduction would save ten thousand. First of all we need to change the perception that nothing can or should be done. Driving is an awesome responsibility and should be treated as such. Start with education, drivers education needs to be a part of the curriculum at all schools. A hundred hours on a high tech driving simulator, without a simulated infraction, should be required to get a licence.

Speed limits must be enforced! When everyone is going down the freeway at seventy-five miles an hour and the posted limit is sixty-five people get the impression that traffic laws are some kind of game and the rules are made to be broken. Set reasonable speed limits and impound the first car that exceeds it. Do likewise with other traffic laws. Don't just slap the drivers hand for running a red light or passing on a curve. Take their car away and impose heavy fines to be paid and many more hours on the simulator before the car is returned.

Heaving handed? No, heavy handed is getting broadsided in an intersection. Harsh? No, harsh is when you get a phone call from the Highway Patrol saying a loved one was killed by someone who was doing eighty-five and lost control.

And safe roads must be made a priority for state and local governments. In the county where I live several people have been killed and many injured at an intersection which has been known for years as a hazard because it needs a stoplight.

The light is scheduled for installation some time next year.....

OWL

July 10, 2007

I get 'em at Costco

Some of my views are quite liberal, but I don't wear the Liberal label. Some of the ideas I believe in were once bulwarks of the republican platform. Smaller government, personal freedom and fiscal responsibility, are all conservative values that have been rejected by the current, Bush, administration. Abortion is not a good thing and should only be performed when necessary. As a society we should concentrate our efforts on preventing unwanted pregnancy through education. Outlawing abortion and forcing women to give birth to children they do not want is draconian and leads to more social problems. Etc, etc, etc.

I am registered to vote as "undeclared" which is the term used here in California. I believe they used to call us independents until some joker started the Independent party. When the "undeclared" party is formed the state will have to find a new name for those of us unfit to be a member of any political party. Unfit due to an irresistible compulsion to form one's own opinions coupled with an innate inability to believe an idea is good just because the person who came up with it belongs to a particular group.

Adhering to a "right wing" belief system is like flying an airplane with only one wing. There is some important stuff on the other side of the isle. I don't group myself with the moderates, taking opinions only from the middle is like flying with no wings at all. And as everyone knows, if your using only the left wing you're doomed to an endless series of loony logical loop-the-loops trying to justify Affirmative Action after years of fighting for equal rights.

You might as well buy your opinions wholesale. It's a lot easier. They come in a big box all wrapped up in tamper free packaging, complete with air tight arguments and emotional buzz words. Ready to wear. Guaranteed. No thinking required. Bumper stickers are an added bonus.

Forming one's own opinions about various issues takes a little more time and effort. Some light reading is required. A rudimentary knowledge of logical operations, (and, or, not), is helpful as well as the ability to distinguish fact from fiction. And you have to let yourself be exposed to points of view different from your own. This is something a lot of people have trouble with, opposing ideas scare them. They are afraid they might find out one of their beliefs is wrong. Then they would have to go back through whole bag looking for other "bad apples".

Life is much simpler if you choose to be faithful to an ideology. Who to vote for and what causes to support can be decided on the basis of a few key words or phrases such as moral outrage, patriot, activist, Reganism, out source or homelandish. Determining the strength of a politicians moral character requires only that you count the numbers of times he uses the word "god" in a thirty second sound bite. And once you hear a persons views on one issue you know how he stands on all the important issues of the day. If someone tells you they think abortion should be legal then you know that he doesn't support the troops. Anyone that wants to close the border will desire to make tax cuts for the wealthy permanent. Once you put yourself in a box and label it (conservative, democrat, boyscout or homophobic) it becomes automatic to stick everyone else in a box and label them (religious fanatic, capitalist pig, sexual deviant or litterbug).

I posted a blog (Papers? May 22, 2007) expressing dismay that citizens of The United States of America are having to prove they are citizens in order to go about their business. Someone identifying themself as garficher posted a comment attacking my stance and implying that I must think illegal immigrants should be afforded equal protection under the law. My post had nothing to do with illegal immigration and did not mention the subject at all. How this person got from my desire to keep the rights I grew up with to wanting to shelter criminals is beyond me. I guess the fact I didn't fit into a regular shaped box was to much for them to get their pre-loaded mind around. They asked the question, "Should we allow the various illegal aliens who are muggers, gang-bangers and father rapers to stay when we catch them?"

I have a wife and child, father rapers have got to go.

OWL

June 23, 2007

the road

The road runs nearly east to west, rising somewhat as you travel east, almost straight and level with only a few dips and gentle curves. To the south grass land rises up to a line of hills parallel to the road. The road forks and the southern road goes around the eastern end of the hills and then up to their summit where there are a few scattered houses. The northern fork crosses the valley south to north and forks again. The east fork leads up a very steep mountain and over a high pass to places unknown. The road now skirts a line of hills on the west. Another fork to the east runs down into a valley and to a small town who's residents are ignorant and xenophobic. Past the town a small stream runs down out of the hills.


Near the west end of the road sits the house. It has two or three stories but I am familiar with only the ground floor. An elderly lady may inhabit the upper rooms of the house, no one ever sees her. Behind the house is a large back yard with a few trees and dry weeds. A tall wooden fence forms the western boundary of the lot. Beyond that is an abandoned complex of buildings whose original purpose in unknown. There are machine shops, fuel tanks, old vehicles and other signs of industry. On the southern side there are large partially collapsed underground rooms.


To the north of the house there is a lawn bordered by a white picket fence. A step hill, covered with brush and scrub oaks, sits beyond the fence. Near the top, about an hours walk from the house at the back of a flat area is a cave carved out of the natural limestone. To the east of the house sits a ravine also covered with brush, scrub oaks and dry weeds. At the edge of the ravine is a small travel trailer that has some of my collected "stuff" in it that needs to be moved. Past the ravine are some hills and then a little town. A trail leads through the hills to the college.

This is the landscape of my dreams. Many of them are set in one of these areas. Some of them have emotional meanings going back to my early childhood. I might share those meanings with Black-eyed Susan. Why am I sharing these images here?

Why did early hunters paint on cave walls? Why do kids mark walls with spray paint? Why do politicians give long speeches? Why is there an American flag on the moon?

The Internet is modern man's cave. We sit in darkened rooms throughout the night, basking in the warm glow of the computer screen, our shadows looming up behind us, pulling hope and fear from the recesses of the subconscious and posting them on the virtual wall in a vain attempt to gain power over them by giving them substance and permanence.

OWL

June 19, 2007

You should be in pictures

I admit it I'm prejudiced against a certain type of people. Actors. Men and women who act for a living. Can't stand to be around them. I don't even care for those who appear in community theater in their spare time. I not going to say that the world would be better off without them, they provide us with entertainment. A little distraction and maybe enlightenment on a Saturday night. But do we have have to let them commingle with normal folks?

Back in Shakespeare's day actors were shunned. Decent people didn't associate with the low life itinerant scum that traveled from town to town putting on plays which appealed to mankind's baser instincts. So bad was the common perception of the acting profession that women were not allow to join the troupe.

Think about what it is that actors do. What makes someone a good actor. You have to be able to put on make-up. Nothing wrong with that. Getting in and out out various costumes quickly, and looking good in them comes in handy. That's OK, we all like to dress up now and then. And it is necessary to be able to remember your lines. Having a good memory is wonderful thing. So what is about actors that just turns my stomach?

Their seemingly innate ability to make you believe that how they feel is different than what they really feel. A great actor can convince you he hasn't a care in the world when in reality his stomach is all knotted up because it is opening night and he thinks the play is going to flop. A good actress will appear to be so in love with her leading man even though she really thinks he is a disgusting drunken slobbering pervert. He probably is. Acting is deception at the deepest possible level. The falsification of emotion.

Most actors are very good at it because they do it all the time. They're always on. Either they learned at a very early age that they could get whatever they wanted by "pretending" or they detest themselves so much they spend their entire lives trying to be somebody else. I don't trust them.

Remember when you were growing up it was always the kids who were good actors that were little brats who that got away with everything. They could turn on the charm and convince all the adults that they were little angels. If one scraped a knee you would think he'd been skinned alive the way he would carry on. If some other kid had one of her toys it was suddenly the most precious thing in her toy box. These are the kids who got extra treats and always rode up front (car sick) and got to pick which movie we saw. And when they got their way and the adults weren't looking he or she would look at you and stick out their tongue. Naa Naa Naa....

Many actors are now entering politics. The fine reputation of that noble profession for integrity and honesty has suffered accordingly.

Maybe the real reason I don't like actors is because I am so shy and don't draw a lot of attention to myself. An actor comes into the room and blam, immediately everyone is watching them and listening to their every word. They are the center of attention.

They do this by pretending to be someone they are not.

OWL

June 10, 2007

I'm really losing it

Over the past few years there has been a lot of controversy locally about whether or not to allow "big box" stores into our little community. Some people think the huge retail chain outlets will destroy our small town atmosphere. Others want the convenience and savings that can only be found in a building with seven million square feet stacked floor to ceiling with discounted merchandise from every third world country in the solar system.

This is from the local news this morning, quoting our city administrator, siting a study made two years ago, "the city and the county have each lost $414,000 per year in sales tax revenue by not having Lowe's in the community."

Public officials say this kind of thing all the time. "We are losing money." By "we" they mean whatever government entity they work for. But it is the definition of "losing" that is of real interest. It means there is money out there that could be collected with a new tax or fee or regulation or permit or whatever. In this case it alludes to the fact that more taxes could be assessed if this development were allowed to go forward. How is that losing? Losing almost never means they had the money and it disappeared or was wasted due to bumbling incompetence and criminal negligence.

Whatever their title, city administrator, tax collector, treasurer, chief petty parking enforcement dude or purveyor of the public trust, these people seem to think they have a right to our money. If there is a way to get more of it and they are not doing so, well then, "we are losing money". And the people better wake up and put pressure on their leaders to right this wrong being done to them!

It's our money.....

OWL

June 7, 2007

I learned it on PBS

Back in the seventies PBS, the Public Broadcasting System, was a fetid backwater running old episodes of Monty Python, subsisting on government grants and the meager donations collected in their endless fund raising drives. Bitter about their marginal existence the network lased out viciously against the abuses of corporate America, exposing the unsavory practices of Big Oil, Big Business and Big Campaign Contributions. The news and documentaries on PBS tended to be very critical of the status quo.

Something had to be done. Not wanting to be unduly influenced by corporate sponsors PBS refused take money in exchange for advertising time on their network. So instead Mobile Oil Corporation had a brilliant idea. Mobile gave PBS millions of dollars to produce Masterpiece Theater. Other big companies followed suit. PBS began to move up in the world. Higher production values meant more viewers. More viewers brought an increase in the donations and public support equals larger grants from the feds. A steady income can be addictive.

Now PBS gets major funding from "advertisers" in the form of acknowledged sponsorship of various programs. Utterly dependent on the oil/money pipeline the executives at our public television network have silenced their editorial staff. Mission accomplished!

World governments could learn a lesson here. For as long as I can remember the standard practice in international politics has been to refuse foreign aid to countries whose leaders were not playing by the rules, to ban trade with them and cut off diplomatic relations. Works real good. A half century of this tactic and Cuba's Fidel Castro is still in charge. The isolation imposed has just served to consolidate the power of the communist regime.

Maybe they should try the other way round? El Presidente' cancels free elections, give him a nice humanitarian package. Socialist government violates human rights make them a preferred trading partner. Lavish money on 'em. Throw large piles of cold hard cash in their direction. No strings attached, no conditions, nothing asked in return.

Not only will the rulers benefit but according to the theory of "trickle down economics" the standard of living enjoyed by the peasants will go up as well. And when everyone gets dependent on your largess then you start asking for small "concessions". They won't be able to refuse. Then add a few "conditions". Sweeten the pot with a free trade agreement and poof in a few short years you're telling them how to run a country. They have no choice but to become a democracy.

Mission accomplished.

OWL

June 6, 2007

Fitfy-one

I am fifty-one. This is my fifty-first blog entry. There are fifty one cards in a deck that's missing the ace of spades. Coincidence? Maybe.

Last year when we had an inspection I walked around the night before and checked everything out. Everything was okay. The nice lady young lady got here at nine in the morning and we took a tour of the property. In one of the hallways the plastic light cover had fallen down some time during the night and shattered. It was laying there in pieces on the floor. I felt like a fool.

This morning we had this year's inspection. I did a quick walk through at eight AM in order to prevent a repeat of last year's embarrassment. The place looked fine. This year our supervisor was on hand for the inspection which started at nine. It went real good. The place was clean and fresh and all the light covers were in their proper places. The inspector left and I went to warm up a cup of tea. I got my tea and headed back to the office, shutting the door behind me.

BLAM!

"What the..??". I looked around and there in the hall a white plastic light cover lay shattered on the floor.

Coincidence?

OWL

June 5, 2007

I swear

There has been a big to-do over whether or not it is constitutional to have teachers lead students in the pledge of allegiance because of the words "under God". As usual the relevant point seems to have been completely missed.

First a little background. The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by Baptist Minister Francis Bellamy to be used in a promotion for a children's magazine, Youth's Companion. The Pledge was first used in public schools on Columbus Day in 1892 after a proclamation by President Benjamin Harrison. The Supreme Court ruled in 1940 that public school students could be compelled to recited the Pledge and reversed the decision in 1943 on account of the "compulsory unification of opinion" violated the First Amendment. Your teacher can't make you say the pledge but in kindergarten you've been told to "obey teacher". The Pledge was officially recognised by congress as the national pledge in 1945. In 1954 President Eisenhower signed a bill into law adding the words "under God".

The controversy surrounding the use of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools has been about the words "under God". What about the insidious act of making very young children, some as young as five years old, swear "allegiance"? To a flag? With their hands on their hearts? The idea of pledging one's allegiance to one's country is a very serious matter or at least it should be. It should only be under taken after due consideration and with full understanding of the meaning what you are doing.

It is OK to teach school children words to the Pledge of Allegiance. Teach them meaning of the words: "liberty", "justice", "indivisible" and "allegiance". And teach them why so many adults think it is so important to love this great country and the freedoms we have. Teach them about God. Then when they are old enough to know what it is they are saying and why they are saying it give them the opportunity to do so of their own free will. And then the words will have real meaning.

To have children recite it every day by rote makes it a meaningless and hollow ritual and makes a mockery of the very concept of liberty. The daily forced vow of fealty is the kind thing you would expect under ruthless dictators in rigid totalitarian societies.

OWL

June 2, 2007