Plead the First

From CNN:

An unprecedented national survey of pilots by the U.S. government has found that safety problems like near collisions and runway interference occur far more frequently than previously recognized. But the government is withholding the information, fearful it would upset air travelers and hurt airline profits.

…

Among other results, the pilots reported at least twice as many bird strikes, near mid-air collisions and runway incursions as other government monitoring systems show, according to a person familiar with the results who was not authorized to discuss them publicly.

The survey also revealed higher-than-expected numbers of pilots who experienced “in-close approach changes” — potentially dangerous, last-minute instructions to alter landing plans.

They’re “fearful it would upset air travelers and hurt airline profits”? Too bad. If things really are less safe than expected, air travelers have a right to know, and to be upset. I would think there’s a greater chance of improvements being made if the airlines’ profits are on the line.

For me, the highlight of this year’s ConvergeSouth was definitely the film festival organized by Andy Coon. Don’t worry if you missed it – Andy’s taken the time to post video of most of the films. My personal favorites were the Deadly Finger entries, the Banana Bus, and the Katrina film. There are other great ones in there as well, so pop some popcorn and take a look.

The U.S. Postal Service. Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. But park a car too close to your mailbox, and all bets are off.

David Wharton shares memories shaped by the Haw river:

In high summer the fireflies would settle in the trees after their dipping twilight mating flights and just pulse, their yellow glow contrasting with the thick icy white of the Milky Way. Late at night the whippoorwills would wake us up with their loud, repeating cries. In winter, you could often see the barred owl who lived nearby, and through the bare trees there were always a couple of turkey vultures circling in the pale sky.

As I said in the comments, David’s posts usually make me want to move into the city. This one makes me want to move away from it.

A visual (and aural) representation of coalition deaths in Iraq over time since the beginning of the war.

The animation runs at ten frames per second – one frame for each day – and a single black dot indicates the geographic location that a coalition military fatality occurred … Accompanying the visual representation is a soft ‘tic’ sound for each fatality … More deaths in a smaller area produces visually deeper reds and audibly more pronounced ‘tic’s.

Bluegreen Corp., a Florida-based real estate development company, is looking to turn some unique land along the Haw River into a gated community and golf course. The land is unique because it’s the key to expanding the fledgling Haw River State Park.

If the developers get their way, 100,000 gallons of water per day will be diverted from the headwaters of Haw River for the purpose of irrigating their golf course. At the moment, the outcome hinges to a large degree on the Guilford County Board of Commissioners, who are supposed to have a hearing on rezoning the land for the development in December. Normally, I would say that doesn’t bode well for this turning out in favor of the park, but public sentiment – and that of some of the board members – seems to be leaning heavily towards not allowing the rezoning to go through.

There are well over 200 golf courses in North Carolina, but only one place where Haw River State Park can gain a more solid foothold.

More info:

Citizens for Haw River State Park
“Guilford at a Fork in the River” (Ed Cone)

Joel Gillespie recently wrote a great post outlining his views on the “pro-family” label and some of the problems with the accuracy and selective application of that label. Joel says that a better label might be “pro-traditional family”.

In my reply to his post, I said:

One area that I would question is that of gay marriage. I understand that it’s not a “traditional” arrangement. However, consider this: There are now – and have been for a long time – de facto families headed by gay people. These de facto families aren’t going anywhere. They have kids from previous marriages or by adoption, the adults in those situations support and rely on one another. Is it not in our best interest as a society to make those arrangements strong, rather than weak? What purpose is served by trying to undercut them? They may not be “traditional” families, but they are families nonetheless.

Essentially, the problem is that the stance taken by some self-described “pro-family” or even “pro-traditional family” advocates is really anti-family if the family does not meet a specific narrow criteria. A good example of this came up recently in Utah (via Dispatches from the Culture Wars).

A Utah woman with a history of drug problems, currently entangled in legal issues as a result, wants her four children to stay with her uncle. Her uncle is willing and able to care for them. However, because he is homosexual and cohabitating with his partner, the state of Utah wants to place the children in the foster care system, where they may be split up.

To the state, it’s a simple matter of the law, which says that to adopt or be a foster parent, you must be legally married or single and not cohabitating. … The two men, both natives of Utah County, said they would love to get married, but voters passed a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

This would certainly seem to be one case where an insistence on only allowing “traditional” families to exist is having an overall anti-family effect. For now, a judge has said that the four children can remain with their mother’s uncle – for their sake, let’s hope that they prevail in this.

It’s been almost two years since Wray resigned as Greensboro Police Chief, being essentially forced out by City Manager Mitch Johnson. This whole time we’ve been told that if we only know what the city knows, we would understand why the city did what it did.

The general consensus seems to be that we would love to know what the city knows.

The Greensboro blogosphere is divided on just about everything, but nearly everyone is united on this one aspect of this one issue. Tell us everything that went into the city’s decisions on the Wray matter, and let us decide if the actions taken were justified. City leaders are going to be dogged by questions and accusations until they do that – or until they’re voted out of office.

Someone just emailed me saying that my blog isn’t accepting comments anymore. I tested it, and there does indeed seem to be something wrong. I apologize to anyone who’s had problems, and I’ll try to fix it as soon as I can. Very strange, since I don’t think I’ve changed anything recently…

Update: Ok, it should be working now. I actually had changed something, but it was to my server configuration, not my WordPress install. I used to have the server set to allow use of either “www.pleadthefirst.com” or “pleadthefirst.com” (with no “www”). I recently changed it to redirect the “www” version to “pleadthefirst.com”, so the www never gets used. However, in my WordPress options I still had the blog address entered as “www.pleadthefirst.com”. Apparently, that discrepancy is not good. Please let me know if you have any problems. (And a big “thank you” to meblogin for bringing this to my attention.)

According to Cara Michele in a comment on Ed Cone’s blog, the Greensboro City Council has voted 9-0 to release the recording and transcript of the Wray/Johnson conversation that preceded Wray’s resignation:

Council just voted (9-0) to release the tape and transcript of the conversation between David Wray, Mitchell Johnson and the City’s personnel director, on January 6th. Mike Barber made a substitute motion to release everything about the Wray investigation (with info that would violate personnel law redacted), but it failed 3-6. Sandra Anderson Groat and Yvonne Johnson also voted for that motion, along with Barber.

It’s ridiculous that they aren’t releasing everything, especially with the provision that sensitive personnel info would be redacted. I’m interested in hearing the justification for that.

Previously: A brief overview of the events surrounding Wray and the RMA report.