The (Sur)real Cupcake War

cross-posted at C&L

By now, the story of Rebecca Hains's frosted cupcake confiscated by an overly zealous (or possibly just hungry) TSA Security Officer at a Los Vegas airport has gone viral, leading to asatirical song, and the sudden burst in popularityat the bakery which creates this 'traditional style red velvet cake with Madagascar Bourbon vanilla cream cheese buttercream frosting' cupcake in a jar, now redubbed the National (Security) Velvet Cupcake (with the packaging redesigned to make it safe for air travel). Possibly the only dangerous thing about this cupcake is what it might do to your cholesterol levels.

The rationale - if one can use that word here without sniggering - behind the confiscation of a cupcake is the Transportation Security Administration's rule enforcing the 3-ounce limit for gels in carry-on luggage, ostensibly to prevent terrorists sneaking explosive aboard an airplane. But once we're finished with shaking our heads in disbelief and having a bit of a laugh... it might be advisable to look at this incident from a slightly more serious angle.

The Transport Security Administration was created as part of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act sponsored by Republican Congressman Don 'Bridge to Nowhere' Young, signed into law barely a month after the 9/11 attacks, and transferred out of the US Department of Transportation and into the Department of Homeland Security itself in 2003. The stated missionof the Transport Security Administration is to protect 'the Nation's [sic] transportation systems to ensure freedom of movement for people and commerce.' Yet since its inception, the TSA has been the focus of one idiotic bungle after another, supposedly in the name of fighting terrorism, making freedom of movement for people and commerce far harder than it's ever been - for everyone, including politicians.

Rand Paul is hardly the first US politician to finally start objecting to the TSA's intrusive security searches, although he might be one of the most hypocritical, as he was on his way to Washington DC to speak at an anti-abortion March for Life rally. Don't anyone dare even think about touching his body, but he has no problem with government telling women what they can and cannot do with theirs. Representative Sharon Cissna (D-Alaska) endured far more than what Mr Paul suffered, after refusing an 'enhanced' full-body pat-down last year after the TSA in Seattle decided her mastectomy and gel-filled prosthetic breast insert required further investigation, the second time Ms Cissna was subjected to a pat-down. She took a ferry instead from Prince Rupert, BC to Juneau rather than fly, and had been a champion for the rights of travellers since. 'The freedom of travel should never come at the price of basic human dignity and pride,' she said.

So far, Congress's only idea of a solution is to pass the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) Business Travel Card bill, allowing security-vetted businessmen, politicians and other such more important people than the general public to use special designated immigration lanes to fast track their entry and exit at airports (currently only designated for flight crews) along with special visa exemptions as well But for the rest of us mere mortals, the examples of TSA affronts to normal human dignity and pride are copious.

How about the Kafkaesque incident of a confiscated knife... taken from the pilot of the airplane, a small butterknife from a set of silverware he'd routinely carried in his flightdeck carry-on... issued by the airline itself, the same silverware that accompanies meals on long-haul flights. It even had the airline's logo stamped on it.

Or how the TSA completely missed a fairly hefty four-inch knife locking Swiss Army knife in a passenger's backpack, too busy confiscating his potentially life-threatening unopened packet ofHunts Pudding Snack.

Or Jill Flipovic, travelling from New Jersey to Ireland, who discovered a note in her baggage left by the TSA agent who found a 'personal item' - the battery operated kind popular with ladies - which read, 'Get your freak on girl'.

No weapon is too small to consider potentially lethal, either, as British tourist Judy Powell found out when she tried to bring an 11-inch GI Joe action doll, a gift for her grandson, still in its unopened box through security at LAX. The TSA confiscated Joe's 2 inch plastic gun, and actually asked if there were any toy plastic grenades with the doll. Little George was not impressed, who declared his nana's explanation of events as 'silly.' Out of the mouths of babes.

And then there's the Dallas hairdresser incensed by TSA security officers digging their fingers into her scalp, searching her Afro for weapons.

But far too many incidents are not quite as amusing. The frantic mother of 17-year old Virginia Gibbs didn't find it very funny to have to drive from Jacksonville to Orlando to pick up her daughter after the girl was held as a security risk so long she missed her flight, all because the TSA took exception to Virginia's leather handbag with an embroidered handgun on it as decoration, a handbag the girl had carried through the airport several times before without incident.

Nor was the 88-year-old great-grandmother of seven amused when two TSA agents demanded to know what the suspicious bulge in her trousers was - and told to drop her jogging pants to show them her colostomy bag . Or the 66-year old diabetic strip searched after the insulin pump on one leg and the glucose monitor on the other set off the metal detector. Or the woman forced to pull down both her slacks and underwear after she asked to forgo the full-body scan out of concern it would interfere with her heart defibrillator. Or the former bladder cancer patient soaked in his own urine when a TSA agent burst his urostomy bag during a pat-down - not once, but twice. Or the 95-year-old woman stricken with leukaemia forcibly stripped of her 'suspiciously wet and firm' Depends adult diaper at a Florida airport, leaving her without a spare, or any other underwear, with which to travel.

Not too funny, is it?

There's the couple with a 10-month old baby travelling in winter between two cities notorious for weather delays who brought extra baby food, just in case, only to be told they'd brought too much. The TSA confiscated a jar of potentially lethal prunes, one of hazardous mashed bananas, and a bottle of suspicious baby formula. To bring that much food on board, they would need a doctor's note. Both parents are doctors.

Of course, Monica Emmerson had to do them one better; her 19-month-old toddler's sippy cup was confiscated by the TSA at Ronald Reagan Airport because it contained... water. To prove it was only water, Ms Emmerson offered to drink from the sippy cup herself, and spilled it. TSA security officers demanded she clean up the mess, which she did on hands and knees, and threatened her with arrest, mostly for 'disrespecting' the officers, and held her so long she missed her flight. The kicker? Monica Emmerson is a former law enforcement officer herself with the US Secret Service.

How about 14-year-old Elliot Gosko, who was forced to drink pond water he was carrying for a school science experiment, who unsurprisingly became quite ill afterwards - not to mention the possibility he could contract giardia in the next twenty years as a result, as those parasites are hard to diagnose in the early states.

Or the tired 57-year old Haitian who had just arrived at Kennedy airport and was looking for a cab, mistakenly opening an emergency exit... setting off alarms and sirens, which one assumes a real terrorist would have been keen to avoid. The entire terminal was evacuated for more than two hours while police swept the building with dogs and SWAT teams, stranding inbound planes and delaying departures for several hours. Jules Bouloute was arraigned on charges of first-degree criminal tampering and third degree criminal trespass, punishable by up to seven years in prison. For opening a door.

Those are just the stories that are reported in the news. It doesn't take a very extensive search on the internet to find one anecdote after another on forums and in comments about the asinine treatment and confiscations being routinely done by the TSA. A group of tourists who had taken a tour of the Louisville Slugger factory, who were prevented from taking souvenir mini-baseball bats on board - so gave them away to a couple of National Guardsmen on security detail, bemused by what possible Punch and Judy hijack scenario the TSA imagined possible with teeny tiny baseball bats.

A woman with a three year old at Ronald Reagan airport, stuck on a plane for over an hour waiting to take off, who asked a flight attendant her child could go to the bathroom. She was told it was not allowed, and offered a blanket for the child to pee on instead, in her clothing, in front of other passengers. The girl refused and cried until the plane finally took off and she was allowed to use the restroom.

A snowglobe given to a five-year-old as a Christmas present from her grandparents confiscated from the distraught child's backpack and thrown away, while the TSA scolded the child because it could be used to 'make a bomb.'

The frequent-flyer woman, concerned about the possible ramifications of radiation to her fertility, who refused to submit to the back-scatter x-ray machine and opted for the pat-down instead... and was shocked when the TSA officer pulled on the waistband of her pants to peer down into her clothing front and back - she won't be wearing a thong again to the airport.

The passenger who'd forgotten to drink everything in his $15 drink bottle, and told by a TSA security officer that he couldn't just drink what was left and go through, but he could leave the security area, then drink the water, and return to the back of the line where he'd probably wait so long he'd miss his flight.

One of our own staffers on C&L had her child's apple-scented hand lotion confiscated on a flight from California to New York, and her toothpaste confiscated on the way back. But the pepper spray keychain at the bottom of her handbag sailed through unnoticed.

I could go on and on and on, and that's sort of the point. Just about anyone who flies in the States ends up being able to tell their own horror story with the TSA, some funny, some very much not so funny. TSA agents have been accused of sexually harassing passengers during invasive screening procedures, including touching the genitals of children and forcing a woman to remove her nipple ring with a pair of pliers. Same-gender pat-downs are no guarantee against sexual molestation, and parents are finding it increasingly distasteful to have to chose between their families being digitally naked, irradiated, or physically groped. While I'm not a big fan of celebrity gossip, I also find it somewhat curious how many 'random' searches end up being on people like former Miss Americas, or the Khardashian sisters, or Donna d'Errico, former Baywatch actress and Playboy pin-up, who when she asked why she, rather than her husband or son, had been selected to go through the full-body scan was told by the male TSA agent at LAX airport, 'because you caught my eye.' She noticed that the agent who pulled her out of line for the scan then smirking and whispering with two other TSA agents. How professional.

The 'Terror Watch List' has more than a million names on it, many of them absurdly in error, such as the late Senator Ted Kennedy. Or Daniel Brown, a Marine Staff sergeant, who found himself on the no-fly list when returning to the States from serving in Iraq, still in full uniform. Or Robert Johnson, a former US Army lieutenant colonel who ran as a Democrat against Republican John McHugh. Or US Representative John Lewis (D-Ga), or Ozzie and Harriet actor David Nelson, or Jesselyn Radack, a former ethics advisor for the US DoJ, or even Nelson Mandela, of all people. Or, perhaps most absurdly of all, James Robinson, a commercial airline pilot mistakenly on the no-fly list.

As a result, in the past decade since the creation of the TSA, the public has increasingly become less safe than they were before, terrorists or no terrorists. Cornell University studies have shown that road fatalities have risen as a direct consequence of travellers preferring to drive long and tiring distances rather than risk unreasonable airport security. A 2007 study concluded this draconian airport security is costing the airline industry $1.1 billion a year as people are choosing not to fly if there are any other means available. TSA airport security is directly responsible for the decreasing numbers of tourists to the US, not just those who would come and visit the United States, but those - like myself - who quite deliberately book any necessary lay-overs in any other country than the States. Why fly via LAX, where I was kept standing for hours with fellow transit passengers flying from Heathrow to Auckland, in a sweltering corridor, without water, without seats, without being allowed to use the restroom, while TSA agents fingerprinted and photographed passengers who weren't even disembarking in the United States, when I can fly via Singapore instead, with an airport that caters to lay-over passengers with a swimming pool or a relaxing Chinese massage?

The TSA itself is quite aware the department and its security officers have become not only objects of ridicule, but despised and hated by the general public. A few do understand real security depends on the good will and cooperation of people being screened, and some progress is being made to counteract this 'security theatre' of the absurd.

The TSA is now working to replace all 241 offensive millimetre-wave body scanning machines currently in use at 40 US airports that digitally strip search passengers with pornographic precision with stick-figure androgenous representations of a generic human body still capable of detecting guns and knives, etc., by the end of 2012. It also probably doesn't help the reputation of body scanning machines that the German government recently announced they are stopping the use of the machines due to far too many false alarms, as high as 49%, caused by nervous sweaty armpits. The machines are not only intrusive, they're practically useless.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has announced US passengers will soon see future travel that doesn't require removing their shoes. 'We are moving towards an intelligence and risk-based approach to how we screen,' she said. Great - I can stop wearing flip-flops to the airport in winter, then.

But while that's a good start, it's hardly enough. Given the TSA's incredibly poor record for its handling of searches, its notorious lapses in security, and its complete failure to catch a single terrorist, this will be an uphill, if not impossible battle to win. While I'm not quite so gung-ho about abolishing the TSA outright, perhaps the department should scrap its current rulebook and start over from scratch, hopefully with a bit more common sense and civility applied to airline travel security.

A Clear and Present Danger: Tom Clancy and Occupy Xbox

(cross-posted at C&L)

Tom Clancy’s fiction has never really been my cup of tea, and his rightwing ideology even less so. Clancy, a gun-toting NRA member who famously blamed 9/11 on left wing politicians, has made a vast fortune writing military thrillers. But like a lot of rightwing military fans, Clancy never served in the military, enrolling at Loyola College at the height of the Vietnam War to earn a bachelor’s in English Literature before becoming an insurance broker. His wife of nearly thirty years divorced him after she discovered his affair with Katherine Huang, an assistant district attorney in New York he’d met on-line. He then married Alexandra Llewellyn, twenty years his junior and a cousin to Colin Powell who introduced them when Clancy was still married to his first wife while having an affair with his mistress. Charming.

His personal ethics are reflected in his fiction, not only by its literary content but by the questionable professional practices of its author. His novels gleefully espouse torture such as waterboarding and inducing heart attacks, where every liberal character is an idiot and a buffoon snorting cocaine, scarfing tofu, and determined to raise taxes on the wealthy (the bastards!), and all the conservative characters are heroic patriots with impeccable principles. Then again, Clancy can’t actually be considered a real writer anymore, since he’s far too busy milking his various cash cows to ever sit down at a keyboard. It might be because since 2002 and the release of Red Rabbit the quality of his novels has greatly deteriorated. “If you haven’t read the new Jack Ryan novel yet, do yourself a favour. Don’t,” read one particularly acrid critic. The following year, his book, The Teeth of the Tiger (where the so-called “good-guys” are an FBI agent who murders a suspect in cold blood, and his cousin, Jack Ryan Junior, a lacklustre foul-mouthed frat-boy with the intellectual acuity of roadkill) was likewise savaged in reviews; the Washington Post calling it a “bloated, boring, silly novel” with “inane dialogue, gossamer characterizations, endless repetition and bumper-sticker politics.”

Ouch. On the other hand, Putnam paid him a cool $50 million for the two new books, which I’m sure did much to assuage any bruising to the ego.

Even so, Clancy didn’t come out with another Jack Ryan novel until 2010, which he didn’t even write – instead, it was written by Grant Blackwood, with his two follow-up novels, Against All Enemies and Locked On written by Peter Telep and Mark Greaney, respectively. That the true authors’ names appear on the cover in squintingly teeny-tiny print dwarfed under Tom Clancy’s name in huge typeface is actually quite remarkable, since Clancy didn’t even previously acknowledge his novels were being ghostwritten by other people past a brief mention in the acknowledgments to their “invaluable contribution to the manuscript.” Raymond Benson and David Michaels wrote the first two books in his Splinter Cell franchise, for which Clancy received millions from his publishers. No idea how much Benson and Michaels got for their work-for-hire hackery. The only thing Tom Clancy has to write these days to ensure a bestseller is two words: his name.

Clancy has instead spent much of his creative energy (if that’s what you want to call it) working on producing video games based on his franchised universe. In 2008, software publisher Ubisoft bought his Red Storm video game business in a mega-deal that has been estimated to be around $100 million dollars. Clancy is definitely a card-carrying member of the 1% club. Which makes his newest video game both morally repugnant and enormously hypocritical. The upcoming version of his long-running video game series, Rainbow Six, is a thinly disguised revenge fantasy against American bankers, but with a bizarre and loathsome twist. The terrorists are… Occupy Wall Street activists. In suits and ties, with shaved heads, and carrying Kalashnikovs. Yeah, right.

In Ubisoft’s Press Release, Team Rainbow (good guys) face a new threat called True Patriots (bad guys), a “highly-trained, well-organized group of militias. The True Patriots are capitalizing on the growing sense of frustration and anger in a modern day America that they feel is irrevocably corrupted by greedy politicians and corporate special interests. Lead by a calculating figurehead named Tredway, this grassroots, homespun, terrorist organization will stop at nothing to overthrow the government and financial institutions to reclaim their country. Capturing the reality of modern-day terrorism, players will take on the role of a new Team Rainbow member as they face critical scenarios that will require them to make tough ethical decisions in order to stop this new breed of terrorists.”

Got that? It's all about making “tough ethical decisions.” Like this one: In the video game’s trailer, Occupy Wall Street operatives murder Wall Street fat cats, kicking down the office door of a banker who looks remarkably like Jamie Dimon, beating the crap out of him before strapping explosives to him and tossing him out the window of a New York skyscraper, detonating the bomb just as the banker smashes into the traffic many stories below.

“This is for the jobs you’ve streamlined, the debts you collected,” the Occupy Wall Street baddies mutter. “This is for the homes you foreclosed on, the bailouts you took. You may not answer to the governments, but you will answer to us. We are the true patriots.”

A conceptual video released by Ubisoft to give potential punters an idea of what the game might be like to play (while containing no actual gameplay footage) is quite revolting enough. A banker about to enjoy a sexy birthday treat from his wife is interrupted by home invaders, Occupy Wall Street terrorists/True Patriots. One of them, threatening to field-dress the banker’s wife like a deer, and his baby too, tells the banker, “Very nice place you’ve got here. You really did cash in on everyone else getting foreclosed, didn’t you?” The banker is strapped with an explosive belt and told to hold down the deadman switch or he’ll explode, then driven into the city toward Times Square. The terrorists and their victim are stopped on what looks like the Verrazano Bridge by the so-called good guys, one of which I gather is the player as the first-person shooter. The good guys kill the OWS terrorists as well as cold-bloodedly shooting a police officer (the moral justification apparently being you have to kill the cop who is about to shoot the suicide bomber/banker to prevent even more deaths) along with any other random civilians who happen to be in the way. When they finally reach the banker, realizing the Bomb Squad won’t arrive in time, they bodily pick up the banker who’s begging them to save his wife and baby and toss him into the river where he explodes. They do have the courtesy to apologise first, of course, being good guys.

And this, it seems, is what is passing for moral ambiguity and complex ethical dilemmas in video games. Right-wing style.

Don’t get me wrong, I play video games myself. I’m a long-time fan of Lara Croft, and up until recently played World of Warcraft for a bit of mindless relaxation and fun. Tomb Raider has its fair share of shoot-em-up storylines, but there’s also quite a lot of humour and puzzle-solving. World of Warcraft, up until the last few expansions bored the crap out of me, likewise was based largely on the concept of kill silly monsters and steal their stuff. But being a MMORPG, part of the attraction of the game was playing in teams and chatting with other players. I’m not sure how ethically challenged I might find killing a three headed giant wasp with a magic wand so I can bag myself a Dwarven Helm of the Twilight Moonpie, or some such imaginary treasure only useful in a make-believe world. Sure, I’m aware video games, particularly violent games, are designed to be addictive and too often create harmful emotional arousal while decreasing self-control, inhibition and attention spans. But adventure games, strategic games, puzzle games can have positive effects, teaching logic and problem solving skills. Engineering.com is a favourite site for just such games, such as Cargo Bridge or Fault Line. There are game designers with intelligence, a sense of fun, and a moral conscience. That doesn’t seem to be Ubisoft, however.

Rainbow Six – Patriot pays scant lip-service in trying to qualify for any of these more beneficial results. It’s an unabashed blood-fest, with zero ethical content – worse, it’s blatantly morally depraved. I seriously doubt Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes could have imagined this in his wildest dreams back in 1919 when he insisted only a “clear and present danger” could justify Congressional interference with freedom of speech. Clancy has gone a step beyond simple rightwing wingnuttery in his badly (largely ghost) written fiction. Rainbow Six – Patriot seeks to twist the reality of a peaceful protest movement, cynically subvert public perception of OWS activists from ordinary Americans exercising their constitutional right to dissent to a sinister fantasy where terrorists are increasingly defined anyone who threatens the status quo of the 1%, and tap into that latent ersatz bloodlust in violent video games to advocate this despicable and corrupt political agenda.

There’s not much to like about Tom Clancy. Or his fiction. But Rainbow Six – Patriot really scrapes the bottom of a morally bankrupt soul, and exposes at its black heart the greed, rage and inhumanity inherent in so much of the right-wing’s political perspective. Ubisoft doesn’t give a toss – like most profit-driven corporations, they’re just out to make money, and it doesn’t matter if that means casting innocent and well-meaning peaceful protesters as villains and encouraging players to murder them, at least on a video screen.

There is indeed a clear and present danger, and Tom Clancy and his warped video game couldn’t provide us with a better window into that right-wing mindset.

Dead Tired

cross-posted at C&L

Since the Bush administration’s legacy left the country suffering the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the number of unemployed has increased by 7.6 million to 15.1, and the official unemployment rate is just under 10%, For so many, just having a job – any crappy, horrible, badly-paid job – is better than no job at all. So few people are paying much attention to what is happening, and has been happening for quite some time, to those who are employed in what should be ‘good’ jobs; the increasing pressure on workers to work longer and harder, for less and less. Or else.

But sometimes the ‘or else’ isn’t just about losing your job. Let’s face it; there are some jobs where chronic fatigue and burnout are more hazardous than others. Flying for an airline for one. A few days ago, Northwest Flight 188 from San Diego to Minneapolis overflew the airport by more than 150 miles, out of radio contact with air traffic controllers for 80 minutes. Something sure as hell went very wrong 37,000 feet in the air with 147 unsuspecting passengers sitting in the back seats, and speculation is running rife about how two experienced and highly qualified pilots could possibly fly past their destination without either noticing. The chatter on just about every airline pilot forum is the same – suspicion falling on the most likely reason – the pilots simply… fell asleep. Luckily, no one died, except possibly two pilots’ careers.

Would be nice to think this was a one-off aberration. It’s not. A couple weeks ago, a Delta 767 with 195 passengers and crew landed in Atlanta on a taxiway instead of the runway, and investigators suspect fatigue as a factor; the crew had flown 10 hours and was landing at night. The third pilot, doing a checkride, had become ill during the flight, and was being cared for in the cabin as the other two pilots, distracted and tired, landed the jet on the wrong strip of asphalt. Not exactly the checkride they were hoping for.

Nor is it the first time a flight crew has fallen asleep at the controls. Both the pilot and co-pilot of a go! airline flight dozed off at 21,000 feet while flying to Hilo last year, with air traffic controllers trying to contact the plane for 25 minutes before the pilots woke up, realized they’d overshot the airport and were heading out to sea. Both pilots lost their jobs. Yet complaints of pilot fatigue is not new for go!’s parent company, Mesa Air in Phoenix. Dallas television station WFAA-TV reported as far back as 2006 that flight schedules were so tight pilots were exhausted, some even camping in their aircraft to catch a few hours of sleep.

Last year, after a Shuttle America regional jet slid off the end of a snowy runway in Cleveland, investigators cited the captain’s fatigue as a crucial factor. The National Transport Safety Board criticized the captain for not removing himself from duty, despite suffering from fatigue… but as we’ve read here before, Michael Moore was handed a letter sent to the F/O on his flight, the airline warning the pilot he’d taken three sick days in the past year, and had better not take another. Or else. It isn’t just financial need forcing pilots to fly past their physical limits, it’s their bosses.

It seems the industry is still struggling with the lessons of Colgan Air Flight 3407. 24-year-old co-pilot Rebecca Shaw had travelled all night as a passenger on FedEx planes from Seattle to Newark – she was so tired she complained of feeling ill, but with only earning $15,800 the year before, she couldn’t afford not to fly. Even while working as a pilot, she had moonlighted as a waitress in a Virgina coffee shop. The captain, Marvin Renslow, had napped on a sofa in the airport crew lounge before the flight. Both pilots were overtired, underpaid and unprepared for the weather conditions as the airline had considered the simulator training too expensive. Shaw, Renslow and 49 passengers died when the plane’s wings iced up and dropped them onto a house in Buffalo, New York.

Would be nice to think this might just be a problem for pilots. It’s not. In March, 2006, an air traffic controller in Chicago with only four hours sleep between shifts cleared two jets for take-off on the same runway. The pilots managed to spot each other in time. In 2004, an ATC in Los Angeles with only five hours of sleep between shifts did the same thing, with the plane on approach pulling up 12 seconds before it would have collided with one on the ground. In Denver, two weeks after 9/11, an ATC with less than two hours sleep between shifts cleared a Boeing 757 for take off… on a runway that had been closed for construction. Three months before, an ATC working his third shift in two days cleared two planes for the same runway, the pilot in the landing plane slamming on the brakes to avoid colliding with a jet crossing the runway. No one died.

But it was only a matter of time. In 2006, a lone air traffic controller in Lexington, Kentucky with only a two-hour nap between shifts cleared Comair Flight 5191 for take-off. He wasn’t watching when it turned onto the wrong, fatally short, runway. In the dark, the pilot didn’t realize and crashed into trees, killing 49 people on board. ‘Controllers are absolutely more tired now than they have ever been, and it's because they are forced to work overtime,’ said Doug Church, spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. ‘This is an understaffed system, and the FAA is lying when they say it's not.’ Record numbers of ATCs are quitting, with the remainder making up staffing shortages. A GAO report cites ATC fatigue as a major reason for the sharp increase in near catastrophic mistakes.

It would be nice to think this is just a problem for the airlines. It’s not. MTA bus drivers are moonlighting with second jobs, working over the allowed 10 hours a day, getting traffic tickets without their employers finding out. Four drivers were involved in incidents on days they worked over 10 hours. Three drivers who held second jobs had avoidable crashes. And in April this year, a bus crash in California’s Sierra Nevada killed one person and injured twenty-four, with investigators suspecting driver fatigue may have contributed to the fatal accident.

It would be nice to think maybe it’s just the transport industry in general with the problem. It’s not. Doctors, unions and other medical experts have been urging hospitals to cut down on the compulsory hours for residents working at least 80 hours a week at most training hospitals, many 30 hours straight without a break. Doctors in training who fall asleep during surgery or while examining patients make four times more errors that cause deaths than their better-rested colleagues. ‘The evidence demonstrates that academic medicine is failing both doctors and patients by routinely requiring exhausted doctors to work marathon shifts,’ says Charles Czeisler, Baldino Professor of Sleep Medicine. ‘The human brain simply does not perform reliably for 24 consecutive hours without sleep.’

It’s not just doctors. University of Pennsylvania researchers tracked 393 hospital nurses and found about 40 percent were working shifts on average in excess of 12 and a half hours, every nurse working at least 55 minutes longer than scheduled, and a third working overtime every single day over the four week study. Fatigue in nursing staff considerably raised the risk of dispensing the wrong medicine or the wrong dosage.

But the crushing hours worked by doctors and nurses in hospitals is unlikely to change any time soon. A study commissioned by the Rand Corporation has claimed that giving new doctors enough rest to avoid chronic fatigue while they train would cost hospitals $1.6 billion dollars, as extra personnel would have to be hired to fill in for them. It’s just not ‘cost-effective.’ Besides, says Dr. Teryl Nuckols, most errors don’t actually harm a patient. I guess she didn’t read the U.S. Institute of Medicine report in 1999 on between 48,000 and 98,000 Americans dying each year from preventable medical errors ranging from drug overdoses to nosocomial infections, due in large part to resident doctors exhausted and overwhelmed by long hours, mental fatigue and high levels of stress.

Emergency dispatchers are also falling asleep on the job, the most notable public scrutiny falling on dispatcher Ron Kronenberger, who answered a 911 call from Ryan Widmer, accused of killing his wife. In the 911 call, Kronenburger sounded as if he were groggy, at one point asking Widmer if he were his wife’s mother. The county’s investigation found Kronenberger habitually slept on duty, as did another Warren County dispatcher, Shawn Mason. People don’t normally sleep on the job because they’re lazy, or they’ve got nothing better to do. They fall asleep because they’re tired.

And it’s a problem for the police. A survey of police found 85 percent have inadvertently fallen asleep while on duty due to lack of sleep. The normal 8-hour shift is rare in any police force, most police officers working ten, eleven, even twelve hour shifts, often without a break. A sheriff’s deputy fell asleep at the wheel during a 12 and a half hour shift, veered across a lane to run into and kill two bicyclists in Cupertino and severely injure a third. ‘Our cops are ticking time bombs for lack of sleep,’ says retired CHP captain Gordon Graham.

And it’s a problem for firemen. Fire Station No. 203 at Standage and University Drive is one of the busiest in the country, but like too many firestations have seen the city cut services as the budget tightens, firefighters stretched longer hours and doing more with fewer resources, leading to chronic fatigue. ‘When you get overstressed with your resources and are extended you are going to lose,’ Mesa fire Capt. Ralph Churchman said. ‘And in this business, it is lives.’

And it’s a problem for the military. Recently, the Navy had a ship run aground because the captain had barely slept in days and the two qualified lookouts who were supposed to be with him were busy elsewhere helping out a woefully undermanned crew. Sailors are routinely standing a watch, then going to work, then standing another watch, with most junior officers getting only three to four hours of sleep a day.

Actually, it’s a problem for all of us. Nearly 40 percent of all US workers are fatigued, costing billions of dollars in lost productivity. For U.S. employers, the overall cost for lost productivity due to fatigue is more than $136 billion per year, with 84% of that lost productivity not due to absenteeism, but simply reduced performance while at work. Employers squeezing more work out of their employees, and employees willing to work harder, for longer, and for less, have resulted in 70 million U.S. workers being clinically exhausted. The estimated cost of accidents where workers could not remain alert or awake ranged from $50 billion to over $100 billion annually. For some, the cost is more than money - in one incident, a worker fell asleep in a crane cab while working the third of three consecutive 13 hour shifts. When he woke up, he exited from the wrong side of the cab and fell 35 feet to his death.

You’d think that business might understand that overly tired employees are hurting their bottom line. But times are tough, jobs are scarce, and big business is not in the business of seeing human beings as anything more than interchangeable cogs in a machine to be used and discarded at will. Worker protections hard-won by unions – minimum wages, maximum hours, health and safety on the job – have been systematically dismantled, from Reagan breaking the spirit of air traffic controllers in the 1970s to WalMart breaking the backs of workers not allowed to unionize today. So while I have the greatest sympathy for the growing number of those with no jobs, it’s possibly more critical that we recognize there’s a lethal cancer invading the vast majority of those who do have jobs, as the top 1% of the Have Mores wring more and more blood out of those Americans who actually make things and make things work. And that’s not just making us tired.

It’s making us dead tired.


Update: The NTSB has issued an update on the investigation into Flight 188 that overflew the Minneapolis airport. The pilots were extensively interviewed, denying they had fallen asleep, or were involved in any altercation; instead, it appears both pilots were using personal laptops to discuss the new monthly crew flight scheduling system in effect as a result of the airline merger, and became so engrossed that they lost track of time. The use of personal computers on the flight deck is prohibited by company policy. The co-pilot, Richard Cole, has since made yet another error in judgement, attempting to downplay the incident as ‘innocuous’. Personally, I'd rather not be a passenger with pilots so busy trying to figure out a complicated company schedule that they forget they're actually flying a plane, which I think goes slightly beyond 'innocuous'; on the other hand, what sort of scheduling is so complicated it baffles even the people who have to use it? But any way you slice it, these guys are toast.

Surviving Mom Jeans

Life is hard enough and the mainstream media has a lot to answer for in making it so much harder –financial ‘experts’ like Jim Cramer spreading Wall Street rumours and urging viewers to buy Bear Stearns stock just before the investment bank collapsed, the Investor’s Business Daily’s scare-mongering with false claims the health care reform bill would make private medical insurance ‘illegal’, Lou Dobbs and his incessantly silly conspiracy theory over Obama’s birth certificate, Hardball’s collaboration with Karl Rove in the intentional misleading coverage of the Plame CIA leak, the non-stop maudlin eulogies for Michael Jackson drowning out any other more boring news like, oh say, more soldiers killed in Afghanistan, Glen Beck’s high-pitched hysterical assault on our (largely medically uninsured) eardrums, and now...

… Mom Jeans.

This is big news, according to Greg Gutfeld and the immaculately bleached and botoxed and blown-dry Laura Ingraham on Fox’s O’Reilly Factor as the first ‘dork’ President of the United States has appeared in public wearing Mom Jeans, bought with a gift certificate, apparently, from the now bankrupted Mervyn’s. Americans should be scared – scared, I tell ya – that the POTUS dresses like a band teacher. Greg Gutfeld barely cracks a smile as he warns us ‘this isn’t going to intimidate Putin’ and ‘our adversaries in Iran will not take [him] seriously,’ especially since he also throws a baseball ‘like a little girl’… all symbols of something ‘deeper and more sinister’…

I kid you not. I wish I did. CNN’s Jeanne Moos has also had a good laugh at the President’s expense as well, linking Mr Obama’s fashion faux pas to that other political heavyweight, Jessica Simpson, who was even shown being hounded by the media for her stylistic stumble. Moos brings on celebrity fashionista Robert Verdi (wearing horizontal orange striped shirt, wrinkled khaki chinos and a pair of oversized white rimmed sunglasses down low on his forehead) for an in-depth queer eye for the straight guy study of the President’s pants. ‘Too short, frumpy, two big tree trunk legs, terrible – they’re Mom Jeans, for sure.’

All in good fun, right? Well… maybe not so much.

Karl Frisch of Media Matters sure isn’t amused. ‘What is being brought to the table here?’ he asks. ‘Conversations about candidates’ names and cleavage? Or things that people actually care about, like health care and the war in Iraq? Funny or not, when Jeanne Moos does these types of fluff pieces, she is advancing these attacks, doing real damage. This is CNN, not Comedy Central.’

It’s also a matter of who is yucking it up over the Barack O’Mama jeans to understand the why. The last time a fashion icon spit the dummy over a President’s lack of style, Manolo Blahnik called for Dubya to be impeached for the unforgivable High Crime of wearing crocs. (Check out this photo - why he didn’t mention these hideous baggy shorts, I have no idea, not being a fashionista myself). But that particular gaffe went nearly unnoticed…

…at least in the official reality proscribed by FOX and like-minded conservatively slanted news organizations, who had their hands full on a daily basis just trying to manage the damage control for this poseur POTUS.

Barack Obama epitomises the kind of class, intelligence, self-respect, and stately dignity that the White House has not seen in a very, very long time. The message always has more power when the messenger is seen to be trustworthy and honourable, which makes fighting the message a lot harder for those whose ideology can’t stand competition on a fair playing field.

So the MSM – in order to undermine the message – undermines the messenger. Ridicules him. Mocks him. Yucks it up. Pokes some fun. Oh, c’mon, lighten up, it’s just for a little laugh, folks, nothing serious. Har, har.

Really? Once upon a time, Joseph McCarthy was the most feared man in America. Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, along with a number of other political satirists, defied the House Committee on Un-American Activities with humour – dressing up as Santa Claus and Revolutionary War soldiers, blowing bubblegum, and openly mocking the committee. Zero Mostel before them had fired the first shot, defending his right to portray a butterfly at rest anywhere he chose and making the committee look foolish. It was in large part open mockery that defused the near absolute power of HUAC and led to Joe McCarthy’s eventual downfall and disgrace. The power of humour is still a force to be feared – Jon Stewart may arguable be the most influential political authority in the media today.

It’s not just humour, however. It’s the jeans. It’s something MSM understands all too well – the insidious power of image over substance. There’s a reason so many female FOX anchors look like Ingraham clones, all those bleached blonde, botoxed, boob-jobbed, blow-dried, braindead bimboes. There’s a reason for so many programmes like Make Me A Supermodel, and 10 Years Younger, and Dr. 90210, and Extreme Makeover promoting clothing and radical plastic surgery as the panacea to women’s (and even sometime men’s) self-esteem. There’s a reason magazines routinely Photoshop already stunning models into inhuman perfection and publish diets and advice for those desperate to fit into a size zero, something the French (who the MSM has told us repeatedly we are supposed to hate, remember) have outlawed. There’s a reason why producers can slap braces and a pair of funny glasses onto the drop dead gorgeous America Ferrara to instantly transform her into ‘ugly’. There’s a reason for the sharp rise in anorexia in women over 40 – it’s not just a teenage disease anymore – when faced with the constant barrage of ultra-skinny Callista Flockharts and Victoria Beckhams and Terri Hatchers.

We have become a nation obsessed with image, and the MSM has profited quite handsomely from it; reality tv rules. It understands the huge power the media can exert over the fragile self-image of viewers who constantly compare themselves to what they see on television as being the ‘norm’ and grieve over falling so short – and rush out to buy the clothes, the make-up, the exercise machines, the drugs they see advertised between that testosterone oozing O’Reilly and Miss America’s Gretchen Carlson. It's a vicious money machine.

It also understands the power of Mom Jeans. I’d never heard of Mom Jeans before Obama threw out a baseball while dressed in what looked to me like a perfectly acceptable pair of jeans, maybe a bit loose but then he’s got all that body armour underneath to worry about. But instantly – instantly! – I started worrying about… Mom Jeans. All my jeans are well over ten years old, and since for health reasons I’ve dropped 20 kilos over the last year and a half – down from 85 to 65 (that’s 187 lbs to 143 lbs, not exactly a size zero) – they’re even more baggy and comfortable than they were before. In an admittedly knee-jerk reaction, I scrambled for advice, finding this website to instruct me on how to wear jeans ‘appropriate’ for my age...

...Yeah, right. If the model in that picture is my age, I’m bloody Angelina Jolie. I’ve come back down to Planet Reality again, thankfully, where I know most normal men of my acquaintance are completely baffled by this obsession over fashion and do not give a toss about my jeans… unless they’re gay. Which kinda defeats the purpose.

Two weeks ago, I’d never heard of Mom Jeans, didn’t give a hoot if my jeans had nine-inch zippers and pleats or made my bum look flat. So why should I care if President Obama wears Mom Jeans?

...Because if I can be so easily seduced into worrying about my own self-image, lured into that quagmire trap of disappointment and dejection, then maybe I can be suckered into believing Barack Obama is likewise not quite good enough as well. He’s not going to be one of those perfect people I only ever see on television with whom I compare myself. He’s going to be like me… aging… unattractive… ordinary and pedestrian. If I can be so easily convinced my hair, my make-up, my wrinkles, my weight, my jeans make me undesirable and unworthy, then maybe I can be convinced that Obama isn’t such hot stuff, either.

But like quite a lot of what you see on MSM these days, this may just backfire. If Obama can survive Mom Jeans…

...then so can I.

Smile When Your Heart Is Breaking… Yeah, Right.

Whatever you want to call it - recession, depression, major economic clusterf*ck - there are very few people anywhere that haven’t been affected, and not in a good way. I’ve been writing and selling novels for over two decades, just had my seventh novel out last year. It’s been increasing tough for mid-list writers for quite some time, and I sold my seventh novel for about a third of the advance as I earned on my very first – to add insult to injury, I was told by my agent that I’m actually one of the ‘lucky’ writers – I’m still selling books when so many of my fellow novelists, all talented and seasoned professionals, have seen their careers disintegrate into oblivion. But this year, pitching a new novel to my agent and editors has been far harder than ever before, and I’m wondering if I’ve now joined the ranks of these erstwhile colleagues.

My books have always been kinda dark. The current novel nearly completed is a black comedy about domestic violence. ‘Nobody wants dark books,’ my agent admonished me in our last conversation. ‘It’s not a good time for gloomy stories. People are struggling with their own lives, they don’t want to read about other people in the same sinking boat. Readers want to escape from their miserable existence right now – they want upbeat escapism and happy endings, they want fairytale historical romance, they want lightweight fluff to read on the beach – think you can write that?’

‘Guess this means the murder mystery with the Neo-Nazi serial killer paedophile as a pharmaceutical lobbyist anti-hero is out of the question.’

‘Quite.’

This insistence on promulgating the ‘feel-good’ factor despite the realities of life seems to be endemic. Catchy little upbeat messages on over a thousand billboards are popping up across the States, dubbed ‘Recession 101’, designed by Charles Robb, founder of Charchin Creative in Florida, on behalf of an anonymous East Coast ‘donor’ – although with Members of the Outdoor Advertising Agency of America donating the space, printing materials and labour needed for the campaign, what exactly the anonymous donor is paying for is unclear.

‘Interesting fact about recessions,’ says one billboard in Rhode Island. ‘They end.’

My, how profound. Most things do. Eventually. It’s that ‘eventually’ that is killing us. So these billboards better have a long shelf life, because Rhode Island’s 12.1 per cent unemployment rate in May tied with South Carolina for third-highest in the country, behind only Michigan and Oregon.

It’s also doubtful these cheery little Pollyanna proverbs are making that much of an impact. Gail Robnett, 53, from Exeter, said she did not know anyone unaffected by the recession. ‘You're not paying attention to stuff like that when you're trying to put groceries on the table.’

‘Bill Gates started Microsoft in a recession’, another billboard reminds us.

Which didn’t do much to cheer up 24-year-old Ryan Korsak, who works for a Providence software company. ‘I appreciate the sentiment,’ he said, ‘but I'm kind of not Bill Gates.’ Exactly. Not many of us are. Or have any hope of ever being – we’re not dreaming of becoming fabulously wealthy anymore; we’re just hoping to hang on to what little we have left.

‘Stop obsessing about the economy, you're scaring the children,’ says another big billboard.

‘That's the overriding concept of the thing,’ says Robb, the brainchild behind the ‘God Speaks’ billboards in 1999 that threatened, ‘Keep using my name in vain and I'll make rush hour longer’. As if it's all our fault for not being Christian enough rather than driving hundreds of thousands of SUVs and not being willing to adequately fund public transport. Yup, why take any personal responsibility when it’s so much easier to blame the ‘godless’.

And why should Americans expect any different? We’ve raised an entire Generation Y of selfish, manipulative, consumer-driven, arrogant children to respect nothing - not teachers, not parents, not crushing debt, not bosses, not global warming.

Kids enter university after a lifetime of ‘esteem passing’ unable to write a coherent sentence or spell in anything other than text – 'trophy' kids rewarded for participation rather than any accomplishment, shuttled through the educational system regardless of ability or effort because not passing the little darlings might hurt their self-esteem.

Oh, wait, Robb has a billboard for that – ‘Self worth is greater than net worth.’ Good thing, then, because we’ve produced a whole lot of people with nothing but self worth and no ability to produce any net worth, believing themselves ‘entitled’ to the world being handed to them on a silver platter.

It is changing, which is good for those of us teaching English at universities, as the smarter of these trophy kids realise real life ain't so kind, and that to compete for the diminishing number of available musical chairs they need real skills. Debbie Bougdanos of the renowned advertising firm Leo Burnett, in charge of recruiting for the creative department, has seen a multitude of portfolios crossing her desk. Many of these Entitlement Generation applicants think they are ready for and deserving of the best jobs at the highest salaries straight out of college, but she’s equally adamant that the most definitely are not. ‘If I sense any of that attitude that arrogance, that expectation, that entitlement, that is an immediate turnoff.’

In a tight job market, getting the most out of your work force is increasingly critical, which ironically enough is starting to benefit the aging Boomer generation as savvy employers are starting to hire older workers over the Generation Y’s. The stereotype of older workers is changing fast - ‘That they're more reliable, sick less often, and have a work ethic bar none? Is that what you mean?" said Stephanie FallCreek, president and CEO of Fairhill Partners.

‘Mature age staff not only bring valuable experience to the workplace but also are more flexible with working hours,’ says an optometrist who replaced two of her younger staff members with two mature women. ‘We find that mature aged staff often have a better work ethic and body of experience,’ says a café owner. ‘This translates into better service for our customers and a better team dynamic.’

‘Peek into the cockpit as you board your next commercial flight. Chances are you are putting your life in the hands of one of the 70,000 airline pilots that are over 50 years old,’ says Steve W. Martin.

Mark Bauerlein of Emory University has written a book, ‘The Dumbest Generation - How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future’, objectively assessing the data to identify that slice of the population that, compared to every other generation, has performed the worst on standardized exams, acquired the fewest educational degrees and been the least attracted to professional careers. Not young college kids in their twenties, much as all too many have exhibited an inherited sense of entitlement. Not those raising families and starting out in careers in their thirties, although too many are learning far too late the dangers of overstretched credit. Not us boomers with fond memories of Woodstock in our fifties and sixties.

It’s far too many of those in their mid-forties - the truly ‘lost’ generation that entered the workforce in the heady feeding frenzy days of Bonfire of the Vanities and embraced the pervasive ‘Me First, Fuck You’ attitude that in very large part contributed to the downfall of the American economy and have shown no shame in flaunting their unwarranted bonuses and flying private jets to Washington to demand government bail-outs in true arrogantly entitlement style. But back in Pollyanna’s billboard paradise, another billboard has been erected. ‘This will end long before those who caused it are paroled’… as if all that many who deserve to be bunking with Bernie Maddoff will ever see the inside of a courtroom never mind a jail cell.

Stop obsessing about the economy, you're scaring the children??

I should bloody well hope so. I hope we’re scaring the holy crap out of the next generation of kids, because we will not survive one more generation of MFFY’s.

The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round

I’ve only recently joined the Twitterati, and not being the most technologically proficient of folks, accidently hit the ‘yes’ button to something that obviously must have read, ‘you don’t have any friends, you loser, so how about adding these twenty random people to your contact list?’ One of them, for some unfathomable reason, was Senator John McCain. I’ve managed to pare down my ‘friends’ list to… well… a few actual friends, but I’ve kept Sen. McCain on the list out of the same morbid curiosity that has me reading Red State’s emailed newsletter on a regular basis.

This morning, my Twitter box had a tweet (give me a break, I’m still learning the slang!) from Sen. McCain which said, ‘Vote on my amendment to eliminate $6 mill in wasteful govt subsidy to private bus companies for GPS systems - need to stop wasteful spending.’

Hmmm… thought I. Let’s go see what this is all about.

Other than the mention on Twitter, I haven’t had much success, even on the senator’s own website, in finding much about an amendment to axe funding for GPS systems in buses. A general Google search pulled up a plea by Peter J. Pantuso, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the American Bus Association, urging his members to petition members of Congress to reject a White House budget proposal that would eliminate $10 million a year to private bus operators from a national security program. The Obama administration considers the cuts justifiable as ‘the awards are not based on risk assessment, and the homeland security investments in intercity bus security should be evaluated in the context of the risks faced and relative benefits to be gained.’

But nothing specifically about Global Positioning Systems for buses.

In March of 2006, Mr. Pantuso addressed the US House of Representatives Committee on Transportation regarding the perceived need for security measures for the bus industry, a transit system that carries more people in two weeks than Amtrak transports in a year, and nearly 800 million passengers a year, more than all the passengers of airlines and rail services combined. Obviously, our nation’s bus transit system, both public and private, is an important component in mass transportation – which I personally would like to see more government support for rather than subsidies and tax breaks for oil companies.

But over the last decade, just about anything to do with government funding or subsidies of anything whatsoever for the benefit of the public sector had to be tied into that enormous sacred cow, ‘national security’: firefighters doing obligatory counter-terrorist training in order to qualify for funding for emergency communication systems or better rescue vehicles, night-vision cameras on police helicopters more useful to picking out carjackers than al Qaeda sneaking through the hedges in our backyards, and even the FBI has had to become creative in linking more mundane investigations like telemarketing fraud or tracking down meth labs or sports bribery to counter-terrorism and the War on Terror.

Our public transportation system, like our health care system, is a sorry joke in comparison to those in too many other Western countries. And Mr. Pantuso is probably quite sincere in his plea for better security on our nation’s buses – but the bottom line is, even our public transportation system has to beg for funding by making that all important six degrees of separation connection to terrorism. So Mr. Pantuso did what everyone else who goes to Washington with cap in hand has had to do – he asked for money to fund training bus drivers, dispatchers and even mechanics in ‘threat assessment’ and ‘crisis management’, communication systems, driver shields, bus stop cameras, ‘wands’ to scan passengers, and – yes – GPS systems.

The amount of money we’re talking about here isn’t all that significant in the grander scheme of things – a subsidy amounting to six cents per passenger in comparison to the subsidies granted to commercial airlines of $4.32 per passenger and $46.06 per Amtrak train passenger. However, I can see where CCTV at every bus stop in America or ‘wands’ to scan every bus passenger is not only unfeasible, it’s an intrusive invasion of privacy. A savings of $10 million may be just a drop in the vast ocean of debt the Obama administration is attempting to navigate, but it’s still $10 million that could be better spent elsewhere…

…except for maybe the GPS system.

Because while it may or may not be useful to national security for bus operators to know in real-time the status and location of all their motorcoaches, it is a significant factor in reducing financial costs to running a public transit system. With a GPS system, precise real-time arrivals at bus stops can be accurately computed, minimizing wait times for passengers, which would well be appreciated for those using public transport shivering at bus stops in winter, 11 degrees below freezing with a wind chill factor of a lot colder. For transit authorities, particularly those who operate on a rural on-demand system, a GPS information system is essential to designing a dynamically flexible bus schedule, improving operational efficiency as well as customer service, saving both time and fuel. GPS is a proven cost-effective way to overcome the limitations of the traditional static dead reckoning and signpost technologies. You can read an excellent study of the benefits of this system in the on-line edition of GPS World, dude, ‘Where’s My Bus?’ The article covers the practical applications of GPS but doesn’t mention counter-terrorism or national security, and is perhaps a bit heavy on the mathematical equations as it’s written by Professor Ahmed El-Rabbany, PhD, of the New Brunswick and York Universities and his research doctoral student, Mahmoud Abd El-Gelil of York University in Canada…

… oh wait. Those are Arabic-sounding names. Even worse, they’re working for Canadian universities. That definitely isn’t going to fare well with the American obsession to tie everything into Homeland Security and counter-terrorism. Scratch that idea.

A quick look at McCain’s Facebook page ,and this bold, mavericky move to oppose GPS systems in buses is gaining followers, judging by such erudite and rational comments from readers as: “Well after all bus companies tend to cater to certain minorities that happen to be much more taken care of than the typical white person. Don’t you know, it’s a sin to be white,” (thus making GPS somehow a racial issue), and “They have managed for years without them, if they feel they need one, they can buy themselves one!” (the logic here verging on the same mentality that objects to subsidies to fund artificial limbs for Iraqi vets, just because I don’t happen to need one), to the more succinct and pithy, ‘Socialism at its finest!” and that all-time favourite trump card, “Obama SUCKS.”

Yup, all very persuasive, ya betcha.

Frankly, any savings that can be made in the national budget – big or small – is welcome. Cutting the $10 million subsidy for CCTV cameras and security ‘wands’? I don’t have a problem with that. But $6 million that would be spent on GPS systems for our public transportation system?

It’s not glamorous. It’s not terribly controversial, even. It’s certainly not about counter-terrorism, but it is cost-effective and useful.

So sorry, Senator McCain. I’ll keep you on my Twitter list. But on the issue of subsidizing GPS for buses, I’m afraid I’m all for keeping the wheels on my bus going round and round…

update: It appears McCain's opposition has failed, with the good senator twittering, 'Came pretty close, 47 to 51 - too bad 51 Senators (including 46 Dems) voted to keep a $6m program even the President thinks is wasteful.' Oh well. I'm sure there will be some other burning issue for him to be all mavericky over soon enough...

How NOT to Move to New Zealand - Part Three (or 'bloody hell! It's three months later and I've survived! Who'da thunk it?')

To my surprise, and a bit of embarrassment, it’s been months since my last blog entry. In my defence, I have been rather busy, frantically rewriting my doctoral proposal so many times I’ve lost count of how many versions it’s gone through. I also finished a novel I’ve been overdue on the contract for, turned it in last month. It’s scheduled for publication winter of 2009, and I’ve already seen the proposed cover art, quite nice. I’ve managed to write a few posts for John Amato and his much bigger blogsite, C&L, but not as many as I would normally have liked. I’ve become involved in the founding of a local writer’s group, dubbing ourselves ‘Seven Kiwis ‘n’ a Yank’. But mostly, I’ve been waiting to see if I would survive here, and be allowed to stay in New Zealand after all. It’s been a tense and traumatic six months since my world imploded and I found myself tossed out on the street, homeless and scared stiff, my options exceedingly limited. Time was running out, and I’d resigned myself to preparing for the worst – my home in the UK is long gone, and I would have had to lean upon the kindness and hospitality of relatives, which since my aunt is an absolutely lovely woman would admittedly have scarcely been that much of a hardship – I was almost disappointed I wasn’t ‘going home’ to the States when the Kiwi cavalry rode over the hill in the nick of time.

A scant two weeks before the very last extension on my New Zealand Visitor’s Visa was to expire and I would have to leave the country forever, a pleasant young lady from Massey University pasted a blue sticker with a shiny silver hologram of a fern leaf into my passport which took up an entire page. I am now proudly (and with enormous relief) a bona fide holder of a Student Permit to study for my Doctor of Philosophy degree. Multiple entries allowed. Funds and outward passage waived. Part time work permit granted, full time during the summer. Sweating blood and sleepless nights no longer necessary.

It was cutting it damned close, but I’m on safe and solid ground for at least the next year while starting work toward a long-cherished goal – my PhD. It’s a ground-breaker at that, being the first doctorate in Creative Writing ever to be offered in New Zealand. I have to write a novel (hmm, not like that’s something I’ve never done before), and – far more challenging – a supplementary critical component wherein I shall endeavour to examine in proper academic navel-gazing fashion the intellectual process of writing said novel. Should be fun. I actually do mean that.

Meanwhile, my living situation has gone from tenuous vagrancy, periodically reduced to having to live out of my car and sleep in a tent on a beach, to the more stable and long-term decision of flatting with friends out on a small farm north of Auckland. I’ve lived out in the countryside in the UK, but rather than puttering genteelly about in an English style cottage veggie garden, this is closer to the real thing: rolling green hills, black and white Oreo cookie cows, a stroppy horse, a dozen sheep, pet tame chickens that lay eggs on your doorstep. The homekill butcher came out a couple weeks ago to shoot the two pigs, named Bacon and Sausage, now interred in the freezer as… bacon and sausage. This morning, one of the ewes had to be helped to deliver an overly large lamb, which unfortunately was born dead, the perils of winter lambing. The paddocks are a sea of trampled mud after several weeks of atrocious winter weather, two near-hurricane force storms wreaking havoc, some shattered glass and minor flooding, power outages and – since the farm survives on collected rainwater – no toilets or running water without a petrol generator to run the pumps. It made me appreciate how truly self-sustaining my solid stone and brick little 19th century miner’s cottage in Northumberland had been, with a boiler behind the fireplace for hot water, and the wood-fired 1920’s oven inset capable of baking hot casseroles and fresh bread. But the lack of internet access, television or video games brought back the fun of board and card games, charades, candle-lit dinners (albeit takeaway fish and chips) and the old-fashioned pursuit of conversation while the winds howl and the rain lashes down. And in the morning, rainbows and relentlessly cheerful Kiwis abound.

I keep being asked by Kiwis with various degrees of perplexed expressions, of all the places I could choose to live, why New Zealand? Six months ago, I’m not sure I would have had that much of a coherent reasoning, other than one of sheer stubborn defiance – I refused to be cavalierly discarded like so much unwanted rubbish by an ex-employer in the expectation I would be forced to leave the country and thus solve any conundrum. But over the past six months, I’ve met the most amazing people, and made the most remarkable and wonderful friends here. I’ve travelled around the North Island and been astounded by the sheer physical beauty of this country – and I’m told that the South Island is even more spectacular. I’ve been overwhelmed by the innate decency, kindness and integrity of the vast majority of Kiwis.

If I need to quantify it, though, it helped to read this morning in one of the various farming magazines that come in the post that out of 140 countries around the world, New Zealand has placed seventh by Yale and Columbia University’s Environmental Performance Index for its approach to the environment, health and governmental policies, and achieved a perfect score of 100 in water and sanitation. (The US placed a dismal 39th, behind the UK at 14th and Japan at 21st. Australia, surprisingly, ranked an even worse 46th, with low scores for water, pesticide regulation, climate change and emissions. Switzerland, unsurprisingly, came first on the list). On the opposite page from the article was another announcing the greenest water bottle on the planet being produced right here in NZ, made from corn starch but equally possible with potato starch, or rice or beetroot.

This is one clean, green, progressive, healthy country. It’s a little country with a big heart and bigger ideas, full of vibrant, intelligent and creative people. It boasts some of the best scenery to be found anywhere in the world. And it’s allowing me to stay and chase my dream of a doctorate. I’m an extraordinarily lucky person, what more could anyone ask for?