These meanderings represent the personal opinions of Russell Still. They may or may not coincide with the opinions of anyone else. If you accept anything you read here as the truth, do so at your own risk. Just because Russell believes it doesn't necessarily mean that you should. Use your own judgement.
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April 27, 2005  
When "Chris" Hajaig became a person of interest recently, the press was all over it. As expected. You might remember him as the British national of Nigerian heritage who had received flight training at Gwinnett County Airport, outside of Atlanta. When his work visa expired, the feces hit the fan.

Subsequent to the initial revelation, WXIA's Brenda Wood reported that flight instructor Jim Archer had been fired for notifying authorities about Hajaig. Reporters conducted an interview with Archer, seemingly availing themselves of every opportunity to get it right. But like so many others in the press, they did not. On the 6 o'clock news, Wood stated that Hajaig wanted his flight instructor "Archer, to upgrade his flying rating even though he wasn't qualified." The implication of that can be quite ominous. It was, however, a false statement. A flight instructor has neither the authority nor the capability to upgrade any rating for anyone. That is done by an FAA examiner and requires extensive hoop-jumping in the government's red tape factory. There are no FAA examiners in this curious story.

Why can't the media take a little extra time to get it right? Beats me. Certainly television is not the only source of such misrepresentations. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published essentially the same thing referring to Hajaig's attempts to have his "pilot rating upgraded" by Archer. Other newspapers across the country followed, almost verbatim. And the sad thing is that it never happened. The public has been lead to the wrong conclusion by shoddy news reporting. Is it a case of unfortunate miscommunication? Or is it simply laziness manifested in a world where the media offers us little more than fluff?
Russell   4:46 PM   | link
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January 19, 2005  
Well, it appears that I have been silent here for something over two years. Part of that was due to problems with Blogger, and part was due to my dereliction of duty with regard to the website.

A writer contacted me last week with some questions regarding the structure of a magazine story. In particular, a profile of an individual. I hope he didn't think that I blew him off when I suggested he get the lyrics to the Simon & Garfunkel song, The Boxer, substitute "he" for "I" and use that as a template. Yes, it is a cookie cutter approach, but I think anyone will find the structure in this song quite suitable for profiles. Take a look.

Russell   9:38 AM   | link
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October 25, 2002  
News reports this afternoon have documented the tragic airplane crash which killed Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone. At this point, it isn't clear if the Beechcraft King Air was a 100 or 200 model - stories are conflicting. It does, however, remind me of the airplane crash that took the life of Governor Mel Carnahan in October of 2000. My sincere condolences go out to the families of both politicians. But the families of these people will not be the only ones to suffer.

American society has learned well over the past couple of decades the power of being a victim. And when the victims are high-visibility politicians, the ramifications are costly and widespread. In the case of Gov. Carnahan, it was alleged that his Cessna 335 crashed because of pilot disorientation resulting from a failed vacuum pump. For those of you who aren't pilots, a vacuum pump powers instruments used to determine an airplane's attitude (i.e. pitch and bank) when flying in conditions of limited outside visibility. Vacuum pumps are life-limited components. They do not last forever and every instrument rated pilot is trained to fly "partial panel" when an inevitable vacuum pump failure does occur. If you are a pilot and you fly in instrument weather conditions, you know and accept these things. It's nothing new.

Shortly after the loss of Carnahan's airplane, his family filed a series of wrongful-death lawsuits. To me it looks like they fingered anyone who could possibly be considered to have any involvement: the airplane manufacturer, the airplane manufacturer's parent company, the company that manufactured the vacuum pump, the company that manufactured the instruments operated by the vacuum pump, and the company that had done the most recent maintenance on the airplane. That's a lot of deep pockets.

Now, the NTSB issued a statement in February of this year indicating that a vacuum problem was not the culprit - in their opinion. The Carnahan family nonetheless continued with their suit and, in July, reached a settlement with Cessna to the tune of $1.6 million. That got Cessna and Textron off the hook, but the remaining defendants still wonder how bad they will be hit. But are they all the ones who will ultimately foot the bill? I think not.

Why have insurance premiums gone through the roof for pilots in the last few years? The answer is liability. The insurance companies pay out damages to families who have discovered the power of being victims. The insurance companies then pass the losses on to us, the payors of premiums. And it is the exact same thing with medical insurance. It's the American way. When a person makes a bad decision, forget the idea of personal responsibility. Go sue someone!

So here's the deal. If you aren't willing to rely on a vacuum pump, replace it with a solid-state alternative, or don't fly in instrument conditions. In fact, maybe you shouldn't be flying at all. I would rather not have to pay your bills.

Russell   5:51 PM   | link
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October 15, 2002  
When Dr. John Avant of the New Hope Baptist Church in Fayetteville, Georgia began his argument against evolution, do you think it occured to him that he might be wrong? See my new article entitled "Evolution vs Creationism"
Russell   2:11 PM   | link
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October 11, 2002  
10/9/02 - When I see the newest attempts at PC - political correctness - it always seems to ignite a little fire in my craw. Not because I am a fan of the insensitive, nor that I believe in white male superiority. No, not at all. The reason it gets under my skin is because I would prefer to be a sheepherder than a sheep. But the media constantly tries to convince me that it is preferable to walk on four legs with the group. It's almost like a fad that the public has come to accept without giving it any intelligent thought.

In the hilarious movie, Something About Mary, the title figure admonishes one of her male suitors for a statement he made. "That's not very politically correct," she scolds. The implication is that it is right and proper to be politically correct. That seems to be the idea that is promoted by the media. Personally, I think it is neither right nor proper. I think it is simply stupid.

One of the more useful aviation websites on the net is www.landings.com. It is over maximum gross weight with resources, information, and databases. Rummaging through it this morning, I stumbled across an article by Jefferson T. Packer. Now I have no beef with Mr. Packer. No idea who he even is. But take a look at a section from his opening paragraph:

"Despite the intimidating number of gauges and switches, any IFR pilot in General Aviation could sit down in the left seat of an older airliner, and in a very short time, be able to recognize and comprehend almost everything that was in front of her."

"Her"? What's with that? Simply from a statistical standpoint, what are the odds that an IFR pilot is a woman? Five..., ten percent maybe? Of course there are no reasons that a woman should be less likely to fly IFR than a man. It's just a general observation of the statistics. There are fewer female pilots, by far, than male pilots. So why did Mr. Packer refer to his hypothetical pilot as "her"? Perhaps he thinks women pilots would be insulted if he, Mr. Packer, had assumed the pilot was a "him". Maybe he invisions crowds of people smiling and patting him on the back for conforming and being part of the group. Me? I suspect it is because he, like many others, is losing his skill at independent thinking. Like the mobs that accepted the emperor's new clothes, Mr. Packer has fallen into the pit of conformity and doesn't even know it.

We can't have a chairman of the board any longer. Now it has to be chairPERSON of the board. The terms Steward and Stewardess have been replaced by the eminately more prestigious title of Attendant. Personally, that makes me think of the guy in the bathroom who wants you to give him a dollar when he hands you a paper towel.

We can't refer to people as Oriental - they must be labeled Asian. This can get really confusing. All Orientals are Asians, but not all Asians are Orientals. Middle Easterners, for example, are Asians from the Middle East and it is OK to call them Middle Easterners. However, the fact that Orientals are Asians from the Orient doesn't lead to the same conclusion. Go figure that one out. It gets more ridiculous.

We swapped "Miss" and "Mrs." for "Ms.". Will we next combine "Ms." and "Mr." into a resulting "M."? Does it follow that "male" and "female" will change to "male" and "feperson" in the New Millennial PC world? Or will we simply jump back to the unisex fad of the 60's and remove references to gender altogether? I can see it now: when you fill out an employment application, there will be just a single box where sex used to be and it will say "Human". Everyone checks the same box. But, oops, we've got a problem with that one, too...

Imagine how it might have been on July 21, 1969 when Neil Armstrong first hopped down onto the dusty lunar surface: "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for hupersonkind."
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Russell   12:53 PM   | link

 
9/19/02 - Russ Still's reply to a BBC website poll regarding their question, "Did the U.S. really land a man on the moon?"

"Your current poll on whether or not the U.S. successfully sent men to the moon 35 years ago is the most ridiculous stab at journalism I've seen in quite some time. I assumed that BBC editors were intelligent people. The fact that you legitimized the "debate" by even asking the question shows that you either pander to the lowest levels of intelligence or are members of that group yourselves. In the interests of consistency, I certainly hope that the next debate you host will question whether or not the earth is flat.

- Russ Still, Atlanta, GA USA"


Russell   12:49 PM   | link
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