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luciabRelative to events of the last week or so, particularly Steve Irwin's death, and the airplane crash in Kentucky:
Given that Steve Irwin made a regular practice of getting all up in the faces of critters that could kill him in a heartbeat, and given that that is exactly what he was doing when he was killed, how can that be called a freak accident? The dictionary talks about an "accident" being unforeseen or unexpected. I guess we're going with the part of the definition about it being unplanned and unfortunate. Yeah, I read that part of the reports about stingrays being so placid and all; maybe the accident is that he and the cameraman boxed in the one neurotic stingray in the ocean.
And the plane crash. All the recent articles have headlines about how the controller had just turned his back on the radar screen and was doing paperwork, and how there were supposed to be two controllers on duty. I hope they aren't fixing to hang that controller out to dry, because earlier articles made it clear that his responsibility had ended. The plane was cleared for takeoff, and it wasn't his job to make sure the pilot was on the right runway. If they're going to try to add that to controller's responsibilities, they'd better be prepared to add even MORE help wanted ads, because those guys are terribly overworked and overstressed as it is. I think both the airport and the FAA are responsible for not having two controllers on duty as required by their own rules, but from what I've read, even if there were two on duty, neither of them would have had responsibility to make sure the pilot was where he was supposed to be, anyway. Geez.
Sometimes (most times?) the press annoys the hell out of me.
Given that Steve Irwin made a regular practice of getting all up in the faces of critters that could kill him in a heartbeat, and given that that is exactly what he was doing when he was killed, how can that be called a freak accident? The dictionary talks about an "accident" being unforeseen or unexpected. I guess we're going with the part of the definition about it being unplanned and unfortunate. Yeah, I read that part of the reports about stingrays being so placid and all; maybe the accident is that he and the cameraman boxed in the one neurotic stingray in the ocean.
And the plane crash. All the recent articles have headlines about how the controller had just turned his back on the radar screen and was doing paperwork, and how there were supposed to be two controllers on duty. I hope they aren't fixing to hang that controller out to dry, because earlier articles made it clear that his responsibility had ended. The plane was cleared for takeoff, and it wasn't his job to make sure the pilot was on the right runway. If they're going to try to add that to controller's responsibilities, they'd better be prepared to add even MORE help wanted ads, because those guys are terribly overworked and overstressed as it is. I think both the airport and the FAA are responsible for not having two controllers on duty as required by their own rules, but from what I've read, even if there were two on duty, neither of them would have had responsibility to make sure the pilot was where he was supposed to be, anyway. Geez.
Sometimes (most times?) the press annoys the hell out of me.
