On Heros

Someone passed me a link to a website that had an animation of the ill fated US Air flight 1549 that crash landed in the Hudson River. As the guy who created the site notes, Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger must have nerves of steel. I like how the ATC (Air Traffic Controller) suggests returning to Laguardia. But that is not gonna work, what about Teterboro? Oh never mind, I'll just save over a hundred lives, including my own, by making use of this conveniently located river! Later on, when pressed for interviews Captain Sullenberger refutes the claim of heroics, he's just doing his job.

Meanwhile the father of a grade school friend of mine has been convicted of white collar crime. The conviction made headlines here. When we were in grade school my friend had a pretty sweet life, his parents owned a very nice home. I never knew the father that well, but his mother I knew pretty well and his older sister, they were all very decent and surprisingly down to Earth individuals. Its not like the stories I heard about Conrad Black and his wife, Barbara Amiel, they sound like positively horrible people. When someone like Black is sent to jail I don't think much of it, he had it coming, but my friend's father, well the only thing I know from jail is what I learned in the Shawshank Redemption and frankly well I hope things are not so bad for him. He was a decent guy who from the sounds of things got caught in a mess of his own accidental making. (And no, he had nothing to do with the banking industry, sub prime loans, Enron, the Bush Administration, WorldCom or anything else of that sort.) In short while he did commit crimes, the people hurt were all so disgustingly wealthy I don't feel overly sorry for his investors.

Finally on the subject of hero's some time ago I was passed a link to an article that first appeared in the New York Times. It is about the former Vice President Of The United States (V-POTUS). I am sure most of us would rather forget Dick "we will be greeted as liberators" Cheney, but some people seem to like the guy, in particular one former Senator, Alan K. Simpson said: Dick Cheney is not a guy who is bitter... He doesn’t seethe, he doesn’t brood. Well it seems to me, Cheney just shoots his buddies in the face with a shotgun and then they apologize for it!