I’m so tired — how tired am I? — I’m so tired that a howling thunderstorm passed over my roof last night, the kind that everyone discusses over breakfast and into the midmorning coffee break, and I slept right through it. Given that the hissing of summer sprinklers at dawn can wake me up, that’s saying something. I’m still not 100 percent functional, but a bike ride is on order now that the lovely weather behind the storm is on full display. That will help a great deal.
Just what a stressed-out person needs — another to-do list.
The class went fine, thanks for asking. As I mentioned in comments, this is an independent-study deal, and so far my little crew seems ready to go. Wayne State students are different from the ones I got to know in Ann Arbor a few years back, in that so many more of them work full-time, sometimes with multiple jobs. My student questionnaire asked them about their work hours, and let me tell you something — some of these folks work harder than any of us, and for no money, either, the paid summer internship having gone the way of the dodo.
When I was in college, the luckiest and smartest students got summer gigs at the big Ohio dailies, in Cincinnati and Cleveland and Dayton, mostly. There, the Newspaper Guild set intern pay in the contract, and as I recall it was 75 percent of a starting reporter’s salary, which even then was quite generous for a college student. The idea of working free was unheard of.
Of course, that was before Arianna Huffington came on the scene:
How bad is the job market for media types? A charity auction for a two- or three-month internship at the Huffington Post has collected bids as high as $13,000. …The auction’s beneficiary, the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, seems exceptionally worthy. But are unemployed media wannabes really this worthless?
To be sure, she’s not the one charging for the chance to sit at her feet — or, more likely, at the feet of her third assistant — for three months, but it’s fitting that the idea of paying someone else to make their coffee should be done at the HuffPost. It didn’t invent the idea of “exposure” as payment enough for one’s work as a writer, but it’s certainly made the most hay of the idea.
A few weeks ago I read something horrifying. Is writing for the rich? asked Francis Wilkinson, who worked for the devil herself:
In 2007, I was in charge of recruiting writers for the expansion of The Huffington Post. I calculated that I would need 75 unpaid blog submissions per day, Monday through Friday, in order to make the site work. That target seemed absurd at first. Yet within two months, hundreds of willing bloggers had signed up, the majority of them credentialed authors published by major publishing houses.
The high end of publishing—books, magazines, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal—has always contained a contingent of wealthy worker bees who don’t actually live off their often meager salaries. But even a couple decades ago, a writer without independent means could still scrape together a living writing about something other than movie stars. Not a good one necessarily, but a living.
…But on the whole, the writing game seems likely to become even more a province of the upper middle class and flat-out wealthy than it is already. The offspring of the affluent, branded college degrees in hand, can afford to give it a go. But anyone hailing from more hardscrabble environs may find it too difficult to get traction before succumbing to the dismal economics of it all.
In other words, get ready for a lot more Megan McArdles. (By the way, has anyone summed up and flushed someone in a phrase better than Roy Edroso, who described her as “Eloise at the Atlantic”? Don’t think so.)
What the world needs is more Jack Londons.
Actually, what the world needs is me at my desk, on task. So adieu for now. A little bloggage:
David Edelstein disposes of “Angels & Demons” in four tight paragraphs with several memorable phrases, my favorite being “loaves and red herrings.” Also, this:
About that carnage: Angels & Demons is rated PG-13 in spite of multiple splattery shootings, brandings, gouged eyeballs, and close-ups of holy men writhing in flames. Of course, there’s no nudity.
Of course.
Speaking of phrases, two that if you get them too close together? Will cause your skin to break out in rashes: “Gov. Sarah Palin has issued a statement” and “I applaud Donald Trump.” Get the cortisone cream!
Later, all.
moe99 said on May 14, 2009 at 11:22 am
Hate to admit it, but Palin has a point there about Obama and Clinton both opposing same sex marriage. It’s the hypocrisy!!
Speaking of hypocrisy, I also thought this comment by Josh Marshall was trenchant:
“If we need to keep evidence of torture, like photographs, secret, to protect our troops, doesn’t that suggest that torture isn’t a great way to keep them or us safe?”
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Joe Kobiela said on May 14, 2009 at 11:38 am
N,
I was watching those storms closely last night. Got home before they came in. There was a solid line that ran from Travers city all the way down to Texas. When they hit here in Northern Ind, I rolled over and went back to sleep and hoped I would not get a early call out. You have two choices when faced with those kind of fronts. Park it and let them pass over you, or parallel them and look for a weak spot and shoot thru them. It gets bumpy and the rain is loud,when you can hear the thunder over the engines you know your close. The good thing is it doesn’t last long, usually only 10-15 miles. Makes you feel mighty small in a big sky.
Pilot Joe
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nancy said on May 14, 2009 at 11:43 am
Yikes. I can’t imagine looking for a weak spot in the angry orange/red blobs on the radar last night. I’d make a crack about big brass ones, but that would be unladylike.
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brian stouder said on May 14, 2009 at 11:50 am
I’d make a crack about big brass ones, but that would be unladylike.
Plus – the last things I’d want in my lap in the middle of a violent electrical storm is a couple of big brass ones!
Our whole bedroom lit up a time or two – and very loud thunder rattled the windows (and woke up Chloe)
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Sue said on May 14, 2009 at 11:50 am
My daughter has an internship that she pays for as she would a class. That seems to be the norm around here, at least in her major. She is working almost full time for free, but she does get credits toward her major. No complaints, actually; the placements for these things are at non-profit organizations that are desperate for help that they could never afford otherwise, and with one awful exception she’s been mentored by people who can’t teach her enough or help her enough. Too bad none of them can offer her a job afterward.
I’d like to hear Pilot Joe’s take on what’s going on with those hearings into the plane crash in Buffalo.
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Connie said on May 14, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Butler U has a new program where they provide money for paid internships at non-profits. My kid just spent six months at the Indiana Wildlife Federation getting 10 bucks an hour for 15 hours a week as a Butler paycheck. Her title: Climate Change Research Intern.
She found the experience interesting and bizarre, most particularly the time she spent working their booth during the 10 day Indianapolis Boat Sport and something show. She expected the organization to be about wildlife and habitat protection. But she says it’s really all about the guns, and making sure there is game to shoot.
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alex said on May 14, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Yeah, Connie, around here the yayhoos go to a place called the “Conservation Club” to blow lead all over the environs. I think it must have been a euphemism coined back in the day when the whorehouses called themselves “conversation studios.”
For all the brass balls the NRA dupes purport to have, they went ballistic a few years ago when the local paper was going to publish a list of all the registered gun owners in the county. I remember looking at a demographic profile compiled at the time which showed the average gun owner in the county was 5’5″ and 200 lbs., which suggests a lot of porky little hotheads with Napoleonic complexes are packin’ in these parts.
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brian stouder said on May 14, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Moe – agreed.
The point I insist upon (when the conversation turns sneering, and my anti-Obama friends and colleagues gleefully sing-song “if torture is a crime, Obama is now an accessory after the fact” – or whatever) is that Obama has always insisted torture was wrong; The Bush administration OWNS this, lock stock and barrel (so to speak); and when the pictures eventually come out (and they will), the late Bush administration will STILL own this – and Obama cannot be conveniently assigned a share of the blame – for ‘reckless endangerment’ (or whatever) by consenting to the release of the pictures.
It IS politics; and I’ll take that
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Joe Kobiela said on May 14, 2009 at 1:13 pm
As far as the Buffalo crash, as much as I hate to say it, it looks like the crew messed up. They got slow, the stick shaker started to shake and they pulled when they should have pushed and stalled the aircraft. If they would have had another 1000ft of altitude they probable would have recovered. The press is going to make a big deal about rest time, training, pay, and experience. The first officer made a little over 16,000 a year and the captain around 36,000. Seems pretty low doesn’t it? Its really hard to write about this, because you want it to be some sort of mechanical problem and it looks like it wasn’t. But please believe me, flying is still the safest way to travel, and the 99.99999999% of the crews are very professional, well trained, and safety aware, and want nothing more than get you to your destination.
You don’t want to point fingers in cases like this because we all make mistakes, some are just worst than others.
Pilot Joe
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mark said on May 14, 2009 at 1:19 pm
It seems it takes an anti-Obama guy to take Obama at his word. Obama said his advisors think releasing the photos to the public, now, will pose an unacceptable danger to our troops.
Sounds reasonable to me.
Those who want to gin up the mob to pressure for prosecutions are probably a little disappointed. A little extra risk for the troops is an acceptable risk for ACLU members to bear, I guess.
The evidence is still there. The prosecutors can do whatever they think appropriate. Let the public wait a few years if it keeps the military a little safer, as Obama claims is the case. This decision doesn’t make Obama complicit in anything.
BTW, Obama also said the new pictures are NOT particularly sensational compared to those previously released. Should we assume he is telling the truth or lying?
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MarkH said on May 14, 2009 at 1:25 pm
Perhaps you’re a little too light on the crew, Joe? Talk about the sterile cockpit rule: below 10,000 feet, no extraneous talk among the pilots on commercial flights. These two were on initial approach and still yakking away (as per the transcript) trying to field ATC communications at the same time. I know this is a very sensitive subject, especially for pilots like you. But they were dismissing acknowledged evidence of excessive ice build-up as they descended. Just my $.02; very sad.
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moe99 said on May 14, 2009 at 1:31 pm
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/05/profiles-courage
More evidence that the Republican attacks are working on neutering the nervous nellie democrats.
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Catherine said on May 14, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Kind of OT, Ken Levine has an amusing explanation about how the studios will next be using the Internet to screw TV writers & actors: http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/
An actress friend said recently, “First, the music industry; next newspapers; soon publishing; and after that the actors & TV writers.”
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jeff borden said on May 14, 2009 at 2:15 pm
I watched the storms from Section 221 at Wrigley Field last night, where the wind was howling out over left field and any reasonably well-hit ball that got up into the airstrean ended up either in the bleachers or on Waveland Avenue. The game was delayed because of rain, then interrupted twice, but in the eighth, the heavens opened up while there was a celestial light show over Lake Michigan. The game was called and the Cubs beat the Padres 6-4.
Ordinarily, my seats are in a very modest area of the upper deck along the third base line, but my buddy and I were talking hockey (Hello, Sue!) with a couple of guys at Murphy’s Bleachers, who were attending the on company tickets. (For comparison, the face value of my ducats last night was $15. The face on Section 221 was $50.) They gave us two extra tickets, so we had phenomenal seats. I gave my seats to a couple of young guys who were hanging around the ballpark and looked like they hit the lottery when I asked them, “You guys want a couple of free tickets?” So, Blackhawks fever is running high and just talking about the team with a couple of strangers gets me some great seats at Wrigley.
Damn, I love Chicago.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on May 14, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Amusing? I wish.
So sad in the NTSB transcripts; push it down, fella — but he pulled up, and as Joe said, another 100 ft of air between him and the ground, and it would have been a story told only around the baggage carousel.
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Scout said on May 14, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Mark, I agree with you. Not releasing the photos to the public doesn’t mean they go away. Nor does it mean the investigation stops. Adding citizens armed with torches and pitchforks doesn’t make some greater case that the torture is heinous. Call me naive, but I believe Obama when he states his reason for keeping the pics under wraps and I don’t think his reasons have anything to do with what the Cheney family wants.
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paddyo' said on May 14, 2009 at 3:46 pm
JeffB, thanks for last night’s slice-o’-life from Wrigley. A nice, evocative pause in the grim slog of daily stuff we’re all dealing with … and you don’t have to be a Cubbies fan to appreciate it.
Damn, I love this blog and its comments section …
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Dexter said on May 14, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Hockey in Chicago…bully for you. However, since Sidney Crosby showed Alexandre Ovechkin who is boss last night ( Pittsburgh killed the Capitols) , all eyes are focussed on Joe Louis Arena where the Red Wings will surely give a beat-down to the Anaheim Ducks tonight. I am all geared up, hat and jersey on already, already fed, a big bucket of extra-fiery chicken wings for a late lunch, and ready to drop that puck! Nothing fires me up like Game Seven hockey in May!
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Colleen said on May 14, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Pilot Joe, I learned in flight training that you get three mistakes…after that, your goose is cooked. They might have been ok with JUST ice, or just being tired, or just being lax in the cockpit, but combine the three….
The lack of the whole sterile cockpit thing was odd to me as well. Gah. NEVER be complacent when you’re flying a plane!
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brian stouder said on May 14, 2009 at 4:40 pm
NEVER be complacent when you’re flying a plane!
That reminds me of a phrase in the book (and movie) The Right Stuff that always impressed me; referring to flying (or riding in) a plane as being strapped into “a hurtling piece of machinery”
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jeff borden said on May 14, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Dexter,
The general feeling around here is that the Blackhawks would rather face the Red Wings, even though they would get home ice advantage if Anaheim emerges, simply because they are the best team in the western. The Sun-Times today had a pretty good story about how the young Hawks are a legitimate Stanley Cup contender simply because they have gotten this far.
We were watching the Penguins-Capitals game at Murphy’s last night before the game. Man, the Pens are scary. They were leading 5-0 when we left and had scored two goals in less than one minute.
Wings fans are old pros at playoff hockey. This is the first time the Hawks have gone anywhere in 14 years. Tell you one thing: they have completely blown away the Bulls as a topic of conversation, despite the Bulls’ heroic series against the Celts.
Enjoy the game. Hopefully, we’ll be seeing you guys next week.
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caliban said on May 14, 2009 at 7:34 pm
i>the hissing of summer sprinklers . A very fine literary allusion. I qouldn’t say that lightly. It might be suspect from a male view, because, Joni Mitchell is really attractive. She’s beautiful, she’s statuesque, and when Joe Walsh was looking for Stevie Nicks, the Canadian Venus was writing muscular and evocative poetry and setting it to bass-heavy melodic lines with jungle rhythms that evoked Monk. She was writing jazz for a new age.
Women in jazz are supposed to have pipes, and Joni has an idiosycratic, pitch-perfect scat voice as evocative lyrically as, I don’t know, WB Yeats? and ridiculously assertive. She’s remarkable. But, you know, I can recognize Ella’s voice, or Carmen McRaes, and neither of those ladies wrote wordscapes like Coyote.
Lord knows, Both Sides Now seems jejeune now, but it was both brilliant when she wrote it and prescient. Judy Collins, and Clarke, and the Steve Stills connection are compelling, and Ms. Collins sure had the brains to recognize a brilliant songwriter when she heard one. My Father is so beatiful Dick Cheney may be the only asshole on the face of the earth that wasn’t affected. So I guess Judy Collins knew great songs when she heard them, and had the most perfect voice genetics I’ve ever heard.
I’m nodt averse to opera, though opera librettos would make the people at Lifetime Movie Network blush. But Dame Kiri or whoever is the flavor of the operatic day doesn’t touch the purity of Judy Collins. And, she can do Marat Sade with such a vengeance, she sounds like Seven of Nine.
So I digress. Isn’t sleep the most singular, and wonderful, and possibly frightening human beings share with each other? The greatest dreamer, maybe not, the most evocative dreamer, in liiterature is Caliban.
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/all-you-see-is-white/
Caliban describes very strange dreams. Does he ever sound scared. I’m relatively old, and I can honestly attest, I’ve never had a nightmare. Judging by my friends ad associates, and people I love, I figure this is kind of strange. Mostly, I’d attribute this to enjoying dreams. And knowing that I was dreaming. Recurring dreams, certainly. Threatening circumstances? All the time. I dream plots, and return to them after awakening and going back. In fact, I want to return.
This from Will Shakes is the way I most frequently feel:
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices,
That, if I then had wak’d after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open, and show riches
Ready to drop upon me; that, when I wak’d,
I cried to dream again–
So, if there’s a point to nightmares, why haven’t I ever had one? No joke. I had a dream where I was progressing up a moving stairway. The handrail was poisonous toads and snakes. I wasn’t scared. I put my hands on them. I’ve tried to figure out why everybody has nightmares and I don’t. I’m pretty smart. I saw an IQ test rating when my parents were called to Mother Superiors office to figure out why I hated school.
I loved school. I was in a three grade room in first grade and just sort of assimilated the 2md and 3rd. Then, I went to several grades of some whack nuns and some great teachers. And then I went to the Jesuits. That doesn’t really require exceptional intelligence, just curiosity. Everything important in the enlightenment, JesuitCatholics are taking a bad rap. Those whack-jpbs fu;minating over Obama and Notre Dame. Look up how many Bishops think they’re idiots. The Catholic Church is being tarred by 1% of Catholics. Donahew may be loud, but he represents almost no American Catholics.
Here’s part of the deal on Donahue. He is remotely consistent. He believes the death penalty is bullshit. If most of his followers heard that, they’d fry his ass. Here’s another way of looking at things. If you know a comatose patient is jelly, would you extend her suffering for seriously bogus politival concerns? You’d have to be some sort of heartless bastard.
There’s a litmus test. Anybody that is so keen to save the life of somebody braindead better sure as shit believe the idea of capital punishment is bullshit. They do not. There’s another litmus test. Cheney believed you could just bag the Constitution. And he could take some draft-dodging jerk, and just ignore the real world. Here’s one deal. These assholes tried to talk Clinton into this horseshit and he laughed at them. They despised the Constitution.
Cheneys intention was to bag the Constitution in favor of his bixarre idea that there is a PRESIDENT that just makes the Constitution ridiculous. Here we have the Vice President subborning the Constitution. You can say anything you want, Chebey usurped his position. He’s a criminal, and that’s a fact. Cheney believes in the imperial presidency. This is sad. What we have here is two draft dodgers that impugned the heroism of John Kerry.
All of those progressives that dumped on John Kerry, shame on you. If you’re holier than thou, Kerry went througj shit you wouldn’t ever comprehend. Bigger balls than you could possib;y imagine. Are you so stupid and full of yourselves you don’t know anything about Kerry vs. Reagan? Kerry expiosed Reagan, you dumbasses. That’s why they hated him so much.
These idiots thought propping up military bastards was resonable and responsible, so Chenetyt thought military nuns . Was that OK? Cheney and Rummy thought it was perfectly fine. Cheney and Rummy thought murdering and raping Maryknoll mums was acceptab;e. If somebody wants to claim these guys didn’t. you are liars.Those nuns weren’t actual Christians, they were Catholics. Because no matter how you look at it, we Catholics aren’t real Christians. How does this shithead get off blaming his assault on the Constitution on Christians?
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beb said on May 14, 2009 at 10:02 pm
Pilot Joe, I hate how the review board always seems to blame “pilot error” for every crash. Don’t blame the plane, don’t blame the company, just blame the crew. They’re dead and can’t defend themselves.
2. I was shocked to hear that the co-pilot got $16,000 a year. That’s minimum wage, a pennies from it. I wonder how many passengers would fly in a plane piloted by someone making no more money that a burger flipper at McDonald’s? When a company is only willing to that little for a skilled craft (piloting) they are not going to get very good pilots. This puts the blame on the company, because they’re not hiring well trained pilots. They’re not ensuring that their pilots are trained in all conditions. I see a lot of corporate malfeasance here, but the review board is never going to fault them!
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alex said on May 14, 2009 at 10:36 pm
Caliban, I hear ya. I had a friend who went to a Jesuit high school and he’s one of the most intellectually curious people I’ve ever known. And sofa king Catholic.
Catholic is a culture, a heritage. Most Catholics in the developed world honor this heritage while simultaneously thumbing their noses at the dogmatic mumbo jumbo. The percentage of American Catholics who support Obama is the same as the general population. This Notre Dame flap is just a bunch of insignificant noise from a fanatical minority, the same percentage as the population that gets its tits in a knot every time Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh hits their g-spot with a crucifix up their ass.
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Joe Kobiela said on May 14, 2009 at 11:41 pm
Beb,
There are a reasons the pay is so low, One is because for every pilot making 16,000 a year, there are 5 more willing to take their place at that pay scale.
Another is you cant pay big money to the crews if your only charging 98.00 to fly coat to coast.
Brian S. There is also the prayer that every pilot learns, it was mentioned in the right stuff, which by the way is a top 5 movie in my book, Lord please don’t let me F$%k up.
Top 6 airplane movies
Right Stuff
12 O’clock high
Battle of Britain
The high and the mighty
Strategic Air Command
Airplane
Pilot Joe
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Dexter said on May 15, 2009 at 1:10 am
Pilot Joe…You simply must see “Hell’s Angels” (1930) and “Wings” (1927).
http://tinyurl.com/pyzdpu
Also, “A Guy Named Joe” Just check out this cast:
Spencer Tracy … Pete Sandidge
Irene Dunne … Dorinda Durston
Van Johnson … Ted Randall
Ward Bond … Al Yackey
James Gleason … ‘Nails’ Kilpatrick
Lionel Barrymore … The General
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caliban said on May 15, 2009 at 1:54 am
I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.
Count on WB Yeats to take things seriously. And personnaly. And to get things right. In American parlance, he could be talking about commanding a riverine boat. And being stabbed in the back by people claiming to care about troops when they intended to undermine the Constitution. Promote judges that think the Fourth Amendment is inferior to their bogus interpretation of the Second. And disengranchise everybody in Florida that didn’t vote to have Cheney run the US gobernment from a bunker with the Bikll of Rights suspended in the interest of imperial presidency. If you think that’s dangerous bullshit, you must have been pallin’ around with terriss.
How is it that Cheney was acting legally but Republicans want you to think Pelosi was a coconspirator in acting illegally? Does this make any sense?
Cheney’s interest in torture was single-minded. He wanted to force bogus testimony that there was some sort of connecyion between Saddam and 911. He knew it was bogus. He knew for a fact it was bogus. His interest was in phonyi ntelligence.
Cheney can say anything he wants, His interest was producing lies intended to stop inhumane treatment. I don’t have a clue about what the President is supposed to do about anything so horrendous.
If he points out Cheney, at this point, people like Boehner will claim it’s political. And You know What? American voters are such idiots, they’ll buy that. It must have been Nancy Pelosis’s fault they lied their ass off to her. She wasn’t in any position to do anything, and if she’d opened her mouth, she would have broken the law.
So my senator, Lindsay Graham says Pelosi was on board, but it wasn’t illegal anyway. But somehow, she should have raised a red flag when that didn’t occur to him. And Lindsay is a JAG lawyer. Lindsey Graham is a good man, and I never vote for him because if he were actually a good man he couldn’ be a republican. But Senator Graham, you were one of the Gang of Four. You heard the horsesshit told to Pelosi. You are on record as saying waterboarding is torture. So what did Nancy knnow, and why in the world does that mean dick?
Mow the idea that {e;osi was flat out lied to is exceptionally easy to believe. These people bought the imperial presidency horseshit Chene was peddling. Lying to Nzncy Pelosi was just part of the imperial presidency.
Do you nitwits know that the Project For the New American Century tried to coopt Clinton. They took over when Scalia shut down legal voting in Volusia County and most of the rest of Floridd in 2000. If you think mthere was anything legal about Florida voting, you’re an idiot. You probably think Kerry didn’t win Cuyahoga County.
Kerry was a hero, Bush was a pindejo. None of you care.Kerry ran the SBCCI investigation. He proved Reagan was full of shit and turned South America into hell. and Cheney and Rummy pretty much made the whole thing up. But he wasm’t a war hero like W or Cheney. People that vote are idiots. And even the majority of idiots sisn’t elect W. That took a psycopath pn the Supreme Court.
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caliban said on May 15, 2009 at 2:54 am
Alex. Heres my deal about Catholicism. There are sabout 350 Bishops. Most of them believe in social justice and, like the President, believes in making abortion rare. In the first place, actinbg like these anti-Kerry whack-jpbs represent Catholics is loony. My understanding of my Catholicism comes from reading Teillhard. It’s more or less hillarious reading about the Church (well it’s a hoot reading about the Church, since preachers like Billy Graham and Oral Roberts say we’re a cult, and I could swear we were here first).
The State of Israel can mock the Pope, but if somebpdy wants to claim they aren’t practicing apartheid, p;ease explain to me how there is some difference? DThere is no difference. If you were mistreated, and your reaction is to mistreat others in virtually the same fashion, You are tempting God. You can’t claim international dispensations for bad behavior amd practice the same bad behavior against a people incapanle of protecting themselves, when you’ve systematically destroyed their defenses
This is bizarre. Israel is supposed to be democratic. That would seem to preclude,on the face of things, treating Palestiniams like Schwartzwes . That is what you thimk.And black people are inferior, um;ess they’re plllayimg soccer. And Palrstinisasthat have lived there forever.
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caliban said on May 15, 2009 at 3:27 am
What I actually meant to say, Is that the state of Israel can claim to be unbiased all it wants to, but the government practices apharteid, plain and simple. Now I know I’lll be accused of anti-semitism. In the first place, you idiots. the Palestinians are semites. You cannot claim that because you’re people were horribly mistreated 60 years ago you can act like Naziz and blow up virtualllysll of Lebanon and enslave Palestinians living in the West Bank.
If somebody can explain to me how this isn’t exactly what Israel is doing, feel free.And I don’t know about y’all, but the fact this misbehavior is bought and paid for by the USA while these people spy on us and build a nuclear arsenal. Whatever.
Israel is sittng on a bunch of nukes. Iran is trying to get electricity to Qom.
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Colleen said on May 15, 2009 at 7:50 am
Alex, that’s very much how I look at being Catholic. It’s in my DNA, it connects me to part of my heritage, etc. I have a relative who is a priest, and when I asked him if I could be a Catholic and still be pro choice, a feminist, pro gay marriage, etc, he said the only thing I HAD to do was believe the Creed. And people like to forget that the One True requires us to follow our consciences…if after contemplation and prayer, etc, our hearts tell us something that isn’t totally according to Hoyle, we are require to follow that.
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MarkH said on May 16, 2009 at 6:25 am
Joe, you didn’t address Beb’s lament that pilots seem to take the blame in most air accidents. Isn’t it because, if you look at NTSB report history, it’s true? Pilot error is to blame for most air accidents (some recent exeptions: the recent lethal 737 tail stabilizer problems; same for a recent Alaska Air MD-11 stabilizer, among others).
Also, please pull “The High and The Mighty” from that list. A terrible film from start to finish, even though it does have an airplane in it. If you must put a John Wayne film in there, try “Jet Pilot”. At least it’s a lot more fun as hokum, and the Korean War era flight sequences, complete with Chuck Yeager doing doing most of the stunt flying, are terrific. Topping it off is an appearance by the actual Glamorous Glennis X-1. I might also substitute “Toward the Unknown” or The Bridges at Toko-Ri”. Both have William Holden, with the latter featuring Holden actually taxiing an F9 Panther on the deck of the Oriskany.
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