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I know what you mean, guys. I think we all have experienced how the media blows events all out of proportion. On the coast of CA here, we have lots of earthquakes. Most of them are fairly small, so small that one doesn't feel them. But even when we have destructive shakers, the national reportage would have you believing that entire counties are destroyed, which just isn't the case. I guess folks, especially those who haven't experienced large quakes, are generally pretty freaked out by the idea. So they are susceptible to getting quite excited when they see the portrayals on the TV. After a large earthquake, I always get calls from very worried people and I always tell them that the event was not nearly as bad at the tube made it look. Our local media is guilty of this too. Yesterday's Eureka paper had a picture of a flooded farm field on the front page and was making a big deal out of the situation. We get a lot of rain here. What little (legal) agriculture we have is located on river flood plains and bay fill areas. Just a normal rainfall will "flood" the flood plains and the bay fill areas, which are, essentially, wetlands. Well, duh. The farmers and ranchers who own the land are well aware of the conditions and have their own methods of dealing with it. Regarding this kid in Florida, nobody knows for sure what was in his head during the last moments of his fatal flight. Speculation about his intentions is just that, speculation. He was 15. You all know how nutty teenagers can be at times. Lots of times they truly don't know what they're doing or why they're doing it. So I'm going to speculate a bit. Maybe he got a wild hair, grabbed the plane, and then once he got in the air everything started snowballing on him and he got freaked out. Maybe he didn't even mean to hit the building. It's not like he was an experienced, mature pilot. My point is that we don't know and will never know. Kids have fatal auto/motorcycle accidents every day in this country. It's so common, unfortunally, that unless there is an unusual twist to the accident, no one beyond the local area ever hears about it. When I lived in LA, all of the LA auto accidents didn't even make it to the LA papers. Like we all have been talking about, because a plane is involved, the already jumpy general public is so shook up. Yesterday i was thinking that after the Oklahoma City bombing, all the truck rental businesses in the country weren't shut down. It's still very easy to rent a truck or car. As far as I know, the requirements haven't changed at all. In Eureka here, the freeway borders "my" airport, Murray Field. The runway is perpendicular to the freeway, so planes are taking off or landing over the freeway. Because of the usual wind direction, we're usually taking off over the freeway. One morning I was riding the bus, as I usually do. The wind was coming from the unusual direction, which meant that planes were landing after crossing over the freeway. One rider, a woman who does tend to talk a lot, looked out the window at saw a plane coming towards the bus at a low altitude. I know it looked to her like the plane was aimed right at the bus. She got quite upset but calmed down when she saw the plane wasn't going to hit the bus. If she knew just a little bit about flying she would have known about the prevailing wind direction, been able to notice the sock, which is in plain view of the freeway, would have noticed that the plane was clearly lined up on the runway, and would have been able to judge that the plane would miss the bus by "miles". I don't know the woman and have never talked to her. I tend to be quiet and observant when I'm out in public - and I am shy. However, that was one time I should have spoken up and explained to here what was going on. She unecessarily upset herself and some of the other passengers. And some more drops were added to the bucket(s) of unfavorable opionions towards aviation. I missed that opportunity. I'm not going to let it happen again. When I hear that kind of talk, I'm going to put my natural shyness and reticence aside. I can diplomatically and gently try to show folks another way of looking at aviation. I know that some people won't listen, but some will and I might be able to do some good. OK, I'll leave the podium now. Spook ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?aVxiLm.aVzvvT Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
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