Another aviation crash, another statistic.

Another airliner crashed on April 10th. The world's press are, of course, very interested because of the added tragedy of who was on board, including the Polish president, Lech Kaczynski. Speculation as to the cause may not be accurate, may be too early, but I feel motivated to comment.


This accident appears to be yet another example of controlled flight into terrain, or CFIT, as it's called in aviation. I feel for those pilots because they were under so much pressure to land in spite of the poor weather. It yet again reinforces the safety argument that it doesn't matter who is on board, the decision whether or not to land an aircraft rests solely with the pilot in command.


That pressure was reflected in a comment by the former commander of Air Force One in a documentary where he actually stated that they did not have the option of diverting when the US president was on board! WRONG! You always have to option to fly to an alternate airport, regardless of who's on board.


This applies to all flights, especially my own, emergency medical helicopter operations. When I was flying search and rescue, it was true then, too. It does no good to become part of the problem when a rescue is underway!


Remember the Titanic? That captain was put under pressure by the owner to maintain a high speed in the face of iceberg risk, simply because of the need for speed! Commercial considerations overrode common sense, and so many deaths were the result.


Should the Polish pilots have attempted a landing? Perhaps not, but there is nothing inherently unsafe about an attempted approach in bad weather provided they go around at decision altitude and then fly to the alternate! In a helicopter we can always land, almost anywhere, and send for an ambulance to take our patient to hospital. I'd rather that than become another CFIT statistic, thank you very much!


Accident investigations, regulatory bodies' recommendations, and lawmakers have, over the years, added technology and regulation to try to minimize human factors in accidents. Ignore Terrain Awareness and Warning System (TAWS) alerts at your peril, pilots! I would hate to think the last thing I would ever hear would be the words "WARNING, TERRAIN" in my headset. Ironic that the last words of a Spanish speaking pilot in reply to a "PULL UP" warning was "Shut up, Gringo!" just before he crashed into high ground near Tenerife.


The irony, the waste, the loss of life is just so wrong, so avoidable. To me, and I believe to all pilots with integrity, the loss of any life is a tragedy, whether a VIP or just an ordinary person.


Come on, boys and girls in the cockpit, don't become yet another person about whom we ask, "What were they thinking?"

Photo from www.sott.net © EPA

Nice new layouts. (and a picture of Rudi getting shaved!)

I like the new layouts that blogger have made available.

Here's Rudi getting shaved early this year so that he could have an x-ray of his poorly shoulder. He's got arthritis, poor lad!

The Axe man and the Saber-toothed Tiger

Once upon a time there was a Stone Age village. The men were all hunters, and every day they would go out to hunt saber-toothed tigers. One of them, Ugh by name, always seemed to have the best axe. His father had taught him and he seemed to have the sharpest edge, the best handle, and his axes really lasted. So one day one of the other hunters, Grunt, asked Ugh to make him an axe. He did, and everyone noticed how much better a hunter Grunt had become.

It was not long before others began asking Ugh for axes, and pretty soon he was spending all his time making finding flint, chipping axe heads and making handles. He became very hungry, as he had no time to hunt. So he arranged with all his hunter friends for them to pay him part of each kill, provided he kept them supplied with axes.

Now his reputation grew and grew. People from distant villages came and asked him for axes. He began to be overcome with orders, and although he had more than enough to eat, he could not keep up with demand. So he hired a friend, who was good at making handles, to assist, giving him part of the payments of meat. He took on an apprentice flint chipper too!

His business went from strength to strength. He had more meat than he needed, so he would barter meat for, say, eggs. Now the elders and tribal chiefs began muttering in their long-house. “Ugh is rich. He has too much meat and eggs. This is not fair.” So the chief, named Ubamu, came to him and said, “Ugh, you have to make baskets.”

Baskets? Ugh didn’t know anything about baskets, but he knew if he didn’t comply the marriage between his son and Ubamu’s daughter would not take place. The chief was pleased with the baskets, and gave each family one basket each. “More baskets”, he informed Ugh. Soon Ugh’s axe business began to suffer as he struggled to keep up with the chief’s demand for baskets to give away to the villagers.

Ugh began to starve. He fired his flint apprentice, his handle maker, and concentrated on baskets for the chief to give to everyone. Hunger forced him back to hunting, and soon he fell short on his basket payments to the chief. The marriage was cancelled, Ugh grew hungrier, and finally the chief banished him from the village.

Ugh died trying to survive on his own.

So the moral of the story? Socialism didn’t work then and it doesn’t now!

Genealogy - a fascinating hobby!

Greetings,

Well, I've been re-infected with the family history bug. It all started back in the late 80's, I think. One of my late father's friends passed away. Dad was so depressed, saying things like, "They're all dead!" So Mom went onto the international directory enquiries and asked for a friend of Dad's by name. They offered her twelve or so numbers for that name in the whole of the USA. The first one she dialed was the right one, so she handed the phone to Dad. I can't remember the name of that friend, but it cheered up the old man considerably.

At the same time Mom handed me the "Family Tree", a large paper handwritten one begun in the 30's by cousin, James Picken. At the time I was working in Aberdeen, Scotland, thus popped into the Aberdeenshire and North East Scotland Family History shop to see what they could do for me. My task was to try to find a living relative of my Dad's in the UK. Well, I failed miserably in that goal, but was delighted to meet a charming lady, one Olive Murray, at that shop. She asked what I had so far and became very animated and excited when she saw the name Picken. She rushed off to view some microfiche or other and then turned to me and shook my hand. "What's that about?", I asked. She explained that part of her life's work had been to research the families of the "Covenanters" and had always wished to meet a living descendant from the signatories of the document.

Ashamed to say, I was a little lost. "Don't you know your Scottish history?" she asked. Well I didn't.

Here's a little about the Covenanters...

The Covenanters, Who Were They ? A snapshot view.

The history and the changes that occurred in Scotland - and subsequently in Ireland - through the 17th and early 18th centuries are highly charged by one word: Covenanters. So who were they and why were they so influential?

It is easy to say that they were the Scottish Presbyterians who in 1638 signed the "National Covenant" to uphold the Presbyterian religion, and the "Solemn League and Covenant" of 1643 which was a treaty with the English Parliamentarians. The Covenanter's made a stand for political and religious liberty that led to almost a century of persecution and their widespread migration to Ulster and the American colonies. But their role in history was not as simple as that, as they were the children of the Protestant Reformation in Europe and sought to have the church of theirbelief, according to the Scriptures. Above all, there was but one Head of the Kirk - Jesus Christ, and they refused to accept the King in that role. From this opposition to the king arose all their troubles.

http://www.thereformation.info/covenanters1.htm

Well I'm not sure who my ancestor was who signed back in 1638, but quite possibly one of the Stewart family ancestors as listed. Check the link if you're interested.

As for now, using ancestry.com and some computer software, collaborating with family members, both my own and my wife's, I now have 786 names. I know there's many an error, as blind acceptance of other people's family trees do lead to some errors. A true genealogist would look up original records.

However, there are a few facts that fascinate.

1. Great Grandfather, Henry Beam Piper, lost his leg in the war between the states.
2. Burke's Peerage (google it!) lists some of our ancestors as members of the peerage. See William Murray of Tullibardine, Perthshire. (http://thepeerage.com/p2408.htm) That's a fascinating website in its own right! Details of the nobility back as far as the 14th century!
3. Although I never did find a living relative on my Dad's side, I have, to our surprise, found a living relative on my wife's father's side in England. Not only have I written to him, and await an answer, but my niece, Semra, lives in the same town.
4. Bought a book which is a biography of H. Beam Piper 1904-1964 who is my 1st cousin once removed. He wrote science fiction, and there's a small but enthusiastic "cult" of followers.
5. Finally, beware! This hobby can absorb you for weeks and weeks. Those little leaves on ancestry.com which have ancestry hints can take you deeper and deeper into the subject. Trying to decipher photocopies of old handwritten records hurts the eyes. Trying to decide if the German speaking clerk in Pennsylvania decided to change the spelling of names (for which he is famous in genealogical circles) baffles. Trying to track down stories of relatives WILL produce surprises.

Enjoy.

The most amazing cathedral on the face of the planet.

Writer Bill Bryson wrote in his book, Notes from a Small Island, that in his opinion Durham Cathedral is the most beautiful cathedral on the face of the planet.

Or so he says.

IMHO I agree. When Gail and I visited, she said there was an amazing spiritual feeling there, to which I replied, "Nine hundred years of loving prayer does that to a place."

Click the links above.

Family History

Well, I've resisted the advertising for Ancestry.com for ages, simply because they want lots of money. I finally bit the bullet and started. You may have seen their leaf advert on the TV. Well, I put myself in, and immediately got a leaf - an ancestry hint - and found my birth certificate in North Carolina. That lead to me adding my Mom and Dad, who I then edited with what I know. Soon it was like autumn in New York, with those leaves popping up everywhere.

That's when I discovered that my cousin Andrew had already done a lot of work on the Farrar and Picken family lines. I grabbed all sorts of ancestors off his public tree. Then discovered a relative I don't know had done years of work on the Stewart family tree - all of which matches stuff I already knew. So now I'm back to 1382 with my 12th Great Grandfather....

All rather absorbing.

However, as this post is somewhat of a review of ancestry.com, let me say that it's rather expensive. Some of the ancestry hints are for British records. If I want to access them from here in the USA, I have to pay $25 per month. Not going to do that, will rather collaborate with Andrew, let him look up the UK records, and I'll continue on the local price doing the USA records.

Fun, fun, fun. As if I wasn't already busy enough.

Check out the Kirk Family Tree

Politically Correct? Sometimes, but read this little bit.

Gail and I were shopping in a mall yesterday. I stopped by the table where the Ontario County ARC were doing gift wrapping. I asked this very nice lady what "ARC" actually stood for, having often seen their busses. She replied something like, "Well, originally it was Association of Retarded Citizens but that is no longer politically correct, so it's simply ARC."

We enjoyed a little banter about political correctness and said "Merry Christmas" to one another, after all it's a free country. It made me think about all this and here are some of my thoughts.

I am a caucasian and when I see a negro I see differences.... but I also see that we share one God and have been created equal with unalienable rights.

I am able-bodied and when I see someone disabled I see differences... but I rejoice in their amazing adaptations, such as the blind man who walks with confidence using a stick or a guide dog. I am in awe of their special abilities.

I am a Christian and when I see a Jew I see differences... but I remember that we share the same God, the same roots, and I pray for them all knowing He will hear my prayer.

I am peace loving and when I see a terrorist I see differences... but I know in my heart that if they turn from their sin they, too, can have eternal life. If I can forgive them there is always the hope that they, too, will see the right path to eternal life.

I am a man and when I see a woman I see differences.... but I know that when a word such as "chairman" is used it is genderless, having worked under the chairmanship of many a fine woman.

I speak English and when I learn a little of a foreign language I hear differences.... but when I learn about the culture of another through their own language I find out things about them I would otherwise not know. There are words in other languages for which there is no English word. You try and translate the word "shalom." (See image above) Knowing these things enriches my life and allows me to seek that humility that is so hard to achieve.

In the end, taking offense at words used that are not nor never were intended to insult is just plain silly. To stop me from saying Merry Christmas in a country which espouses the principle of freedom of speech is so wrong that maybe it's time to fight this so-called liberal notion of remaining politically correct.

If you are insulted by my thoughts then forgive me. I do not intend to insult.

If fear of being called a racist prevents me from befriending a black man, an Arab, an occidental or anyone else who Christ commanded me to love, then that fear is itself a sin.

May your God protect you and keep you!