Eight Feet Deep

What the heck is going on with Continental airlines?

Granted, I haven’t done a lot of flying in my life when compared with many other folks. I have flown more in the past 10 years than in the previous 20 and as a whole I have made more flights on Continental than with any other airline. The reason for that is geographical. The two cities from which I have made the most flights were relatively small and had either one or two airlines from which to choose. One of those were Continental “connections” as the company advertises.

I have found Continental service more good than not good. They certainly have had a decent safety record. I have lost baggage with Continental twice. The first time my bags showed up the next day. The last time, the bags went bye-bye and it took months to get reimbursed for what I had to replace.

In the last few weeks, Continental has shown up in the news more than often. Today, of course, one of their pilots died in mid-flight on an international flight from Brussels to Newark. Apparently, the passengers were none the wiser.

This comes just days after two different unaccompanied girls, one 8 years old and the other 10, were mistakenly flown by Continental to wrong destinations. Ooops!

The pilot’s demise is one of those things, the mistaken flights not so much. But one incident involving a Continental “connection” also apparently no fault of the company’s but probably more alarming than all the aforementioned incidents has received little notice except in my area of Texas.

Pilots on a Continental Express jet which just left George Bush International Airport in Houston for Greenville, S.C. reported seeing what appeared to be a rocket flying toward them around 8 p.m. on May 29. The pilot of the plane, carrying 23 passengers, reported the rocket had triangular fins. Authorities believe the rocket was of civilian type and of the kind used by hobbyists. It was thought the rocket was launched somewhere in Chambers County, which is one of the counties on the western border of the county in which I reside (Jefferson County). The near encounter was believed to have occurred between 2-to-4 miles north of Interstate 10.

A similar incident also took place on Memorial Day weekend in 2008 in the same area. Involved was another Continental jet. This one a 737 carrying 148 passengers which had just left Houston for Cleveland.

Suddenly, the skies don’t seem quite so friendly. Oh, right. That was United.

Yet another teacher in yet another area small-town school was indicted recently for alleged sexual misconduct with two students. The teacher is a man and his two students are girls.

When one reads such charges time and again, especially when the gender tables are turned and the suspect is a woman and the alleged victims boys, one wonders if there is some kind of sexual epidemic going on in schools today? Or, to put it quite bluntly, one wonders whether there is some kind of serious false allegation epidemic taking place?

Make no doubt about it, there have been plenty of news stories and a plethora of movies of the week about teachers abusing students and students ruining teachers’ lives through lies. Kids today are much more savvy today than in the past and basically, all it takes is one allegation and a teacher’s life can be turned upside down and inside out.

I think about an assistant principal at a local middle school who was accused of sexual assault. He was acquitted and went back to work. But that apparently didn’t turn out so well so he has resigned in the wake of lawsuits and counter lawsuits.

In addition to having lives ruined by lies, kids who tell false tales on teachers also pose potential harm to their peers who really do find themselves sexually abused by educators. Think “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.”

It’s a shame for all concerned and until those who commit crimes by making false reports or perjure themselves wind up in deep s**t, a balance will be hard to strike in what has become a very sad situation for all concerned.

Long days call for short sentences. My crick hasn’t gone away. My feet hurt, as always it seems. The “piggyback” commercials in between the “NCIS” rerun I am watching are almost over. Hooray for profundities.

While I admit to a long list of annoyances and petty grievances something that does excessively steam my clams is the news show “tease.” I speak of the little announcement and video clip that one expects, or at least hopes, will precede a news report.

When such a tease is given prior to a commercial there is an expectation that sometime soon after the program returns the report that was teased will play. But so often, the report will not return in the segment following a commercial and yet another tease will precede another commercial and at times even another sequence of tease-commercial will ensue.

Now it is easy to understand that a tease is used to entice viewers to continue watching the news program. However, it seems to me that if the teased piece isn’t shown after the first tease-commercial that these folks are just jerking me around. I usually say “to hell with it.” I did today stay, because of my interest, this afternoon watching two tease-commercial sequences.

This was on CNN’s “Situation Room” with Wolf Blitzer. The tease in question was for a video in which an Oklahoma state trooper pulled over an ambulance because its driver allegedly failed to yield right of way. The ambulance was carrying a patient to a hospital although the vehicle was not running with lights and siren.

In the video, the paramedic supervisor who was riding in back got out after the trooper pulled over the ambulance driver and an argument began between the cop and the paramedic. The trooper took a belligerent tone throughout the traffic stop, almost immediately cussing the ambulance operator for not letting him pass, and later the family of the woman being transported came up on the scene. A scuffle involving the paramedic and the trooper briefly took place. The trooper finally let the EMTs continue to the hospital where he issued the driver a warning. The local DA declined to file charges.

Not knowing what the patient was being taken to the hospital for it isn’t totally easy to judge the outcome. My feelings — provided the delay didn’t cause the patient any undue stress or endanger her — is all’s well that ends well.

My opinion, informed as it is inasmuch as my past experience in emergency care includes time as an EMT, is that operators of emergency vehicles are bound by the law to follow traffic regulations even during dire circumstances. Having not seen what all took place precipitating the stop, I can’t say if the ambulance in question actually broke any laws.

Just because an emergency vehicle isn’t running lights and sirens doesn’t necessarily mean the auto isn’t “running hot” or on an emergency run. To give one example, an ambulance might not use a siren while taking a person with chest pains to the hospital in order to lessen the chance a patient will be scared even more than they already are. They probably should use emergency lights in such a case though. Also, a police unit might not use lights and sirens in some situations such as approaching on a crime in progress.

It does seem both the trooper and the riding paramedic went way more off the reservation (pardon the pun since the ambulance apparently belonged to the Creek Nation)and could have acted more professionally. They could have harmed the patient and they obviously damaged their public posture.

As for Wolf Blitzer, quit being cute with your teases.

Two funny things happened to me today involving money.

The first was this afternoon when I was walking in the parking lot of a large discount store. I saw this incredibly wadded up piece of green and white. It turned out to be a $5 bill.

Now some might have gone looking for the person who dropped it. So you stop everyone you see at ****** and ask them: “Did you lose a $5 bill?” You probably will find the “person who lost it” on the first try. So, to prevent some person from telling a lie and harming their karma, I decided to put the fiver in my wallet. That is where it resides at this very moment.

This morning I received what appeared to be a check in the mail. It turns out it was a bank draft from a Dallas company that buys oil and gas minerals and royalties. The company had a specific piece of mineral property that they wanted to buy, but they also wanted all my minerals and royalties in that county and were willing to pay me the price of $165.

Now first of all, the mineral wealth I inherited from my mother is not and has never been a major amount of jack. In the last few years, I have been lucky to make $200 a year off of oil and gas royalties. But that amount came from one or two separate wells — not from all the little pieces of mineral rights I own. So do the math.

Both instances of what happened to me today are funny. One is funny in a ha-ha, fortuitous sort of way, that be my finding a five-spot. The other is funny in the way of reading about someone suing McDonald’s for spilling hot coffee on themselves. It’s more like, isn’t it funny how many weasels there are out there.

I probably should give that $5 to charity. But I won’t. I will give more than $5 to charity sometime in the future when the notion strikes me. But it probably won’t be that five dollars. What a way to start the weekend.