Good Piloting

I came across this clip on AvWeb this morning and thought it was worth sharing. The story is a few years old, but it’s still an amazing example of good piloting. I have been fortunate not to have had an in-flight emergency anywhere near this serious, but I have had a number of experiences where I’ve had to stop sightseeing and fly the airplane while attending to a problem that could have potentially led to something this serious. It’s what pilots train for and why currency, proficiency, and recurrent training are so important to maintaining good piloting skills. When I fly I try to be constantly aware, through all other distractions, of where I am and what I might do if the engine stopped turning…NOW!This clip also brought to mind the story of another famous pilot, Capt. Al Haynes, who was Pilot In Command of United Airlines Flight 232, another case of total hydraulic failure, this one caused by a catastrophic engine failure.

On July 19, 1989, Haynes became famous for his role in the events during a DC-10 flight headed to Chicago, Illinois from Denver, Colorado. With Haynes as captain, the airliner suffered damage to its number two engine which made all three of its hydraulic control systems fail. Haynes, with the help of Fitch (who had been a passenger on the plane but offered his help) crash-landed the airplane at the Sioux City, Iowa airport, where a fuselage section ended up in an adjoining cornfield.

On the final impact the right wing was sheared off and the main part of the aircraft skidded sideways, rolled over on to its back, and slid to a stop upside down on the right side of runway 22. Witnesses reported that the aircraft cartwheeled but the investigation did not confirm this. News reports that the aircraft cartwheeled were due to misinterpretation of the video of the crash that showed the flaming right wing tumbling end-over-end

Now that crash looks pretty bad, and you might wonder why I’m writing about what a good pilot he was, but keep in mind that there were 185 survivors of this crash out of the 285 souls on board.

Owing to the skill of the crew and a DC-10 instructor pilot, 175 passengers and 10 crew members survived the crash, which is considered a textbook example of successful Crew Resource Management, due to the effective use of all the resources available aboard the plane for help during the emergency

From Haynes Wiki Entry:

Haynes kept his sense of humor during the emergency, as recorded on the plane’s CVR:

Fitch: I’ll tell you what, we’ll have a beer when this is all done.Haynes: Well I don’t drink, but I’ll sure as hell have one.

and later:

Sioux City Approach: United Two Thirty-Two Heavy, the wind’s currently three six zero at one one; three sixty at eleven. You’re cleared to land on any runway.Haynes: [laughter] Roger. [laughter] You want to be particular and make it a runway, huh?

A more serious remark often quoted from Haynes was made when ATC asked the crew to make a left turn to keep them clear of the city:

Whatever you do, keep us away from the city.

Piloting an airplane has been described as hours of mind-numbing boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. I wouldn’t describe it that way, but there is a nugget of truth in that old chestnut.

Hillary And Bill —The Bonnie And Clyde Of Politics

By Stephen Fleischman

“We rob banks!” said Clyde Barrow in the movie.

“We rob you of your political initiative…” Hillary Clinton might have said when she and her husband, the President of the United States, managed to kill the chances for Universal Health Care for all Americans by, deliberately or otherwise, playing into the hands of the Insurance Industry and their HMO backers. They set the movement for a single payer plan back a generation.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is now in a close horse race with Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination. She seems to have learned her lesson. She is now espousing a so-called “universal” health plan that doesn’t offend Big Pharma or the private health insurance industry.

After Super Tuesday, we are currently in that murky area where the candidates are cantering in the open field, trying to pick up a few more primary wins and fighting for super delegates before galloping to the convention. Bill is sort of riding side-saddle with Hillary.

Bill Clinton may not have robbed banks, but he robbed gay and lesbian citizens of their civil rights with his “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy for the armed forces:

“Sexual orientation will not be a bar to service unless manifested by homosexual conduct…., or a marriage or attempted marriage to someone of the same gender,”

It’s still a part of “The Pentagon’s Policy Guidelines on Homosexuals in the Military.”

The policy has continued under the Bush Administration unofficially, stretched to include gays and lesbians in the general population when it ran up against issues of gay marriage.

Before the end of his second term, Clinton was fighting impeachment in the House and the threat of being ousted by the Senate charged with perjury—lying about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. His Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, was urging him to wag the dog. That bit of advice came in handy. How else do you rob your constituents of their political initiative? Start a war. We know from historical experience that it does the job.

While members of the US Congress were whooping it up with shouts of “Ethnic Cleansing”, Bill was getting his bombers ready. The issue somehow got mixed up with the Holocaust and genocide. The mainstream media picked up the chant and CNN led the charge with woman warrior, Christiane Amanpour, the Amazon of the network, married to Mme Albright’s pet assistant, James Rubin (conflict of interest?) when she covered the exodus from Kosovo.

So we bombed a country back to the Stone Age. It was only Serbia. Maybe its leader, Slobodan Milošević, deserved it. But the Serbian people didn’t.

The Democratic Party has always been known as the party of the big tent, room for everybody—let many flowers bloom—left-labor-progressives, blacks, other minorities, immigrants, radicals, students and even conservationists. It has also been known as the “war party”.

In the 1996 Presidential election, the Barrow gang, I mean the Clinton gang, brought in one of their big guns—Devious Dick Morris—the Karl Rove of his time.

“Don’t worry about those losers on the left,” Devious Dick must have told his pal, Bill, “they’re only your base. They have nowhere to go. You’ll get their votes. It’s those weak-kneed Republican compassionate conservatives, on the right, you have to go after.” And Dick knew what he was talking about. Move to the right and call it the center. The Democratic Leadership Council was formed and they eased in on the Republicans and captured a big enough chunk of their votes to win the election.

Our two-party system became one party with two faces—neither of them very pretty. Whatever happened to the “loyal opposition”? It still is nowhere to be found. The big tent must have collapsed on it.

So we now have an “oligarchy”—dictionary definition: from the Greek for “rule of the few”—a form of government in which power is centralized in the hands of an organized elite. Its power is maintained by shaping the law to restrict the people and remove any need to consult them or be accountable to them. And the oligarchy has now selected its man—I mean, women—for the Presidency of the United States.

“We rob banks!” said Clyde Barrow, “not people.”

Where are you, Dick Morris, now that Hillary really needs you? Getting ready for that triangulation-strangulation strategy you used so successfully for Bill in the 1990s?

Lesser-evilism is alive and well in the 21st Century.

Solidarity Forever

When the Union’s inspiration through the workers’ blood shall run,There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun.Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one?But the Union makes us strong.

From Nikke Finke:

I’ve received word from inside the Shrine Auditorium meeting that the WGA West membership was obviously “very positive” about resolving the writers strike as soon as possible and accepting the deal negotiated by the guild leadership with the Hollywood moguls. Also, the WGA governing bodies wisely decided to ensure that guild members be able to vote within the next 48 hours before the strike can be called off by leaders — even though the AMPTP made the deal contingent on the writers going back to work immediatelt. Under this new end game, Hollywood could now get back to work by Wednesday at the earliest (not Monday as previously arranged). This also means the Academy Awards, just 14 days away, won’t be picketed. A writer who just left the confab told me: “There was cheering for everything and standing ovation after standing ovation for all the leadership. There is no question in my mind that because of the atmosphere in that room this strike will be called off. There is no gearing for a fight. It’s over.”

WGAW President Patric Verrone announced that there would be a vote by the membership over the next 48 hours on whether or not to lift the strike. I’m told Verrone said specifically that the decision to call off the strike, regardless of the WGA Negotiating Committee’s or the WGAW Board’s or WGAE Council’s recommendation, was to be in the hands of the membership (which wasn’t originally planned). Pending that outcome, the 10-day ballotting process for members to accept the tentative deal would begin. Since the moguls insisted that vote not delay the lifting of the strike, WGA leader Dave Young Young told the auditorium that the writers, and therefore all of Hollywood, could get back to work by Wednesday. That means Back 9 orders of some scripted TV series could be saved along with a no-frills pilot season with less scripted series ordered than ever before. (And expect the upfront presentations to advertisers to consist of a lot more pleading than preening.) Some of the force-majeured deals could be reinstated. (But it’s important to remember that three times as many pacts would have been cancelled if the agents and lawyers hadn’t lobbied the networks and studios.) Feature films that were halted could get going immediately.

So this is it. It looks to me like the WGA has won. The AMPTP wasn’t successful in it’s efforts to bust the Guild, and when was the last time you heard Nick Counter’s name mentioned?Is the deal perfect? No. Did the WGA get everything that they asked for? No. They had to give up a lot. Reality TV and Animation is still outside WGA jurisdiction and the horrible DVD deal that has been plaguing writers since the infamous 1988 strike was not improved upon. But the Producers were forced to acknowledge the value of so-called “New Media”, which is simply a nice name for digital distribution, and they were forced to accept a formula for compensation. This is a really huge win for the WGA and for labor in Hollywood as a whole. In my opinion this was the most important contract that any of the Hollywood unions or guilds have negotiated since I began working in the industry in 1971. If you are interested in the details of the deal there are links to the document texts here and lot’s of analysis of it here.Screen Actor’s Guild President Justine Bateman wrote yesterday on United Hollywood:

To the WGA membership,

As you prepare to examine the proposed deal points and assemble for your meeting tonight, if the decision is made to continue striking, I will see you on the lines Monday. If you decide to recommend the deal to the membership at large for a vote and it is ratified, I stand beside you. Either way, I wanted you to know some things:

I want to thank you.

For sticking your finger in the dike and not allowing greed to smother all content creators.
For striking when you did and not allowing massive stockpiling to take place wherein SAG (along with WGA) would have had no leverage in June.
For picketing.
For holding your shit together within your ranks.
For United Hollywood and all its invaluable information within a virtual media shut-out.
For electing superior leadership and standing behind those choices.
For supporting an unbeatable staff while they were, I’m sure, stressed and exhausted.
For your excellent communication between Strike Captains.
For your incomparable wit and cleverness on the picket lines.
For your thoughtful, well-composed posts on blogs everywhere.
For your funny, moving videos.
For your maturity.
For letting me in.

I count my new friends of the last three months as some of the finest people I know. The people who make up the WGA are Cowboys. And I salute you.

Love and Respect, Justine

Solidarity works. As a proud member of I.A.T.S.E., Local 700, I would like to second Justine’s sentiments, and I would also like to thank all of my felllow members, in all of the Hollywood Locals and Guilds, for maintaining our solidarity throughout this strike and supporting the writers who put their jobs literally on the line to fight for all of us. Our solidarity played a significant role in winning this strike and we will all benefit from the outcome.Do you think that the Democratic Party can learn anything from this?

Now everyone can get back to work keeping the masses entertained and distracted.

News From The Front

Good news today on the strike front.

This was sent early this morning to membership. The delay in publishing the deal points, we’ve learned, was because the companies dragged their feet enshrining some of the final details in an attempt to renege on some of what they had promised. The last-minute fight to keep that from happening took until late last night.

To Our Fellow Members,

We have a tentative deal.

It is an agreement that protects a future in which the Internet becomes the primary means of both content creation and delivery. It creates formulas for revenue-based residuals in new media, provides access to deals and financial data to help us evaluate and enforce those formulas, and establishes the principle that, “When they get paid, we get paid.”

We await the results from tonight’s meetings in NY and LA. Everyone may be back to work by monday if all goes well.

If a majority of the assembly seems happy with the Terms of Agreement, and will likely ratify it – the greater board will take this into consideration when they meet on Sunday. Then, on Sunday they will vote on whether or not to lift the strike, and send everyone back to work on Monday. They will only vote to lift it if they feel that the majority of membership likes the deal and will ratify it. If that’s the case – we go back to work on Monday.

In the meantime, it’s not over yet. Until the deal is ratified by an historically fractured membership and the ink is dry, there is no deal.

More shall be revealed.

Pachelbel Is Following Me

Howie Klein posted this video on Crooks & Liars last night. This piece has always been a favorite of mine. My fondest memory of it was just before Christmas in 1990. I was working in Munich, my first trip abroad (yes, I am that provincial) and was wandering around in the open air Christmas market in Schwabing one night, buzzed on glühwein and missing home. There was a street puppeteer doing his thing with a plastic boombox playing this piece. I don’t know if it was the music, or the culture shock, or the glühwein, but it was one of the most beautiful things that I’ve ever witnessed and that night will be stuck in my memory until I die.

In his post Howie pointed out a number of examples of how Pachelbel’s chord progression has been used in popular music.

It may blow your mind to know that Pachelbel’s chord progression from this piece was ripped off by a wide array of popular arists of late, including the Pet Shop Boys and the Village People (”Go West”), Oasis (”Don’t Look Back in Anger”), Coolio (”C U When U Get There”), and Happa-tai (”Yatta”). See if you can recognize any of them in this performance by the London Chamber Orchestra:

Down in the comments I found this little gem which sums it all up pretty nicely:

Big Media: A Pox Americana

It’s always interesting to see how the foreign press reports on domestic American issues, like a presidential campaign. This comes via TRex’s Tree House to remind us that the whole world is watching. It’s from an article on one of the Australian tabloids, Crikey (which requires you to sign up for a “Free Trial” to read the whole article. TRex has dragged it all out here). Here’s my favorite part:

“We don’t want our enemies trying to influence the way we vote and I worry about Al-Qaeda making some sort of strike or something before the elections,” says Chris Matthews, one of the half-dozen or so populist blowhards who dominate the airwaves here. People wonder why a third of young Americans say they get most of their information from satirical news sources like Jon Stewart’s Daily Show. The answer is because it’s the only goddam source that actually tries to synthesise and summarise, rather than sprawling all over the place, like being trapped in a lift with your Uncle Vic, whose prostate is enlarged and is damn angry about the fact that Asian triads are running madrassas in Cabramatta with money supplied by the Australia Council.

Mathews, another bloke named Lou Dobbs, a man named Tucker Carlson who appears to have a well-behaved stoat on his head all work on a virtually identical setting, which is foam-flecked outrage barely kept under control. They all got their start in the Clinton years, and found an audience overwhelmingly composed of angry white people being done over by the collapse of American industry, and looking for anything other than the actual government or economy to blame.

In the past six months they’ve had to modulate their stance somewhat, as it became clear that Bush was so loathed that a large chunk of their audience is switching back to the Democrats. But old habits die hard, and they got a great chance to get back into it when Mitt Romney announced to the annual CPAC – Conservative Public Action Committee — conference that he was suspending his campaign because “to continue would make it more likely that the Democrats would win and surrender in Iraq and I couldn’t help them do that.” In other words, the fight for freedom and pluralism is so important that we have to suspend the actual exercise of it.
If one spectacular attack in seven years puts you on a permanent war footing, always looking over your shoulder, then the enemy has already influenced domestic politics – shaped it pretty much entirely, especially on the Republican side. Which points to the asymmetry of the contest, the Democrats talking about hope, the Republicans about fear. The former are filling a vacuum of despair and disconnection, the GOP (it means among other things Grand Old Party) digging a hole where only a divet is. If there was another attack it would reap dividends, but most Americans have turned inwards, to focus on the sense that something is wrong at the root of the Republic.

Snarky, pithy, right on.

The news has been canceled. We now have nothing but dollar-driven infotainment which, for most of us, has become a daily ritual of self-lobotomization. This hypnotic hold that “the media” has on us seems to have had the effect of transforming the Good ‘Ole USA into a culture that is mean, short-sighted and stupid. Or maybe we’ve always been that way. In any case, it’s really embarrassing.

“Shine A Light” In Berlin

From Variety:

Martin Scorsese’s energetic account of a Stones concert at Gotham’s Beacon Theater in fall 2006 takes full advantage of heavy camera coverage and top-notch sound to create an invigorating musical trip down memory lane, as well as to provoke gentle musings on the wages of aging and the passage of time

Nice.

One question, how do you misspell “Tom”?

On the Hunt for Change

By Stephen Fleischman

Let’s cut to the chase.

What this country needs is a good 25-cent Havana cigar and a lesson in political economy.

If you can explain the Theory of Surplus Value clearly enough, you’d make a Communist out of every working class American. Stop right there! Don’t go reaching for your copy of Marx’s Das Kapital!

The question is simply this. Do you want your labor power stolen from you—or any part of the value of your labor “taken” by somebody else? That’s what happens when you work for someone producing a commodity that he sells in the marketplace.

I know you’re going to challenge this because you’re in a union and are getting a fair wage for your work. And you keep getting raises and you feel good about it, and you love your boss, and you think you are getting paid fully for the work you do for him. Well, think again.

And the first thing you should think of is, “How is he making a profit and staying in business?” That’s the rub and here is where you have to get a little help from your friend, Karl.

Torture

Over at Firedoglake Christy posted this video to accompany a piece she wrote about this story.

The White House on Wednesday defended the use of the interrogation technique known as waterboarding, saying it is legal — not torture as critics argue — and has saved American lives. President Bush could authorize waterboarding for future terrorism suspects if certain criteria are met, a spokesman said.A day earlier, the Bush administration acknowledged publicly for the first time that the tactic was used by U.S. government questioners on three terror suspects. Testifying before Congress, CIA Director Michael Hayden said Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubayda and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri were waterboarded in 2002 and 2003.

[...]

Senate Democrats demanded a criminal investigation after Hayden’s revelation.

Bush personally authorized Hayden’s testimony, White House deputy spokesman Tony Fratto said.

Well it also looks like Bush must have authorized the torture in the first place, how interesting.

News from the News Blackout

WGA President Patrick Verrone gave this interview to United Hollywood’s Jeff Berman. The rumor mill has been positive over the weekend, but Verrone reminds us that rumors are often wrong and that maintaining solidarity now will really pay off in this intense (and hopefully final) stage of negotiations. I’m staying optimistic. The WGA West has scheduled a general membership meeting this coming Saturday at the Shrine Auditorium, and I see that as a positive sign.

Berman: How long are you willing to strike?

Verrone: How long is a piece of string?

Berman: As long as it needs to be.

Stay strong, brothers and sisters. And now here’s a little ditty that you’ll all love.