commentary

Over/Under

~ Lee Swanson ~ 2 Comments

Here’s something curious.

On Tuesday, the President of the United States took credit for there not having been any commercial aircraft deaths in his first year in office, give or take 18 days. Specifically he said – well, no he didn’t say, he tweeted, so let me back up – Specifically he thumbed “Since taking office I have been very strict on Commercial Aviation. Good news – it was just reported that there were Zero deaths in 2017, the best and safest year on record!”

That’s interesting on several fronts. One is that “commercial aviation” is not a proper noun. Nor is “zero,” except in the case of Mostel.

Another way this is interesting is that the President of the United States, no president, has anything to do with airline safety. No pilots check in with him to get their flight plans. No airline gets its schedules from the president. Although apparently most people in the administration have to pledge their loyalty and fealty to the president, airline pilots do not, and therefore they and their auto-pilots are not beholden to his demands that they exercise caution while flying.

A third way that the president-who-shall-remain-nameless taking credit for airline safety is interesting, is that there has not been an accidental death on a domestic commercial airline in the United States since February 2009. That means that, with the exception of the first 22 days of the Obama administration, there has not been an accidental death on a U.S. airline on his watch. Not that it’s relevant to the actions of either one of them.

Give him his due. The airlines operating during the first eleven months and sixteen days during the administration of the president-who-shall-remain-nameless have a better airline safety record than the administration of the foreign-born, non-Christian president who preceded him and who he detests and with whom he is, apparently, locked in fierce competition.

But wait.

There’s another, even more interesting way that this claim by the president-who-shall-remain-nameless is worth noting.

That is that 2017 set another record. It not only had the same number of commercial airline accidental deaths of every year since 2009, but it also had the most coal mining deaths. There were a record low of eight coal mining deaths in 2016 when the foreign-born, non-Christian president was in office. But, 15 coal miners died in the first year of the administration of the president-who-shall-remain-nameless.

As with airline safety, this is not to the credit or blame of any president, except that the president-who-shall-remain-nameless has championed the coal industry and promised to put coal miners back to work.

In March this year, for instance, surrounded by unemployed, but alive, coal miners at the Environmental Protection Agency, the president-who-shall-remain-nameless signed an executive order vowing to roll back climate change policies of the foreign-born, non-Christian president, including the Clean Power Plan limiting carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants. “C’mon fellas, you know what this says?” the president-who-shall-remain-nameless asked. “You’re going back to work!”

He did not mention that, although they haven’t yet gone back to work, those who are working in coal mines have died at a rate 15 times higher than people on commercial airlines.

The conclusion seems obvious. It is safer to be in an airplane with which the president-who-shall-remain-nameless has no control than in a coal mine that he has promised to save.

Coincidence?

~ Lee Swanson ~ 2 Comments

Time was, if I told someone I grew up in Minnesota I would get one of two reactions; either, “Oh, Min-n-ne-s-o-h-t-ah” in what they thought was a Scandinavian accent or, “B-r-r-r, it’s cold there.”

I had answers for those; “ya-a-ah” a three syllable word in what truly is a Scandinavian accent or, “nine months of winter and three months of bad sledding.”

Times were simpler then. Now, if I mention Minnesota, people invariably say “Ooh, Michele Bachmann.”

Rather than roll my eyes and shrug, I have decided I need a snappy comeback.  Something that will explain that a geographic quirk of fate is the only thing she and I could possibly have in common.

After all, I have one “l” and two “e’s” in my first name and two “n’s” in my last name.  She, on the other hand has….ONE “L” AND TWO “E’S ” IN HER FIRST NAME AND, OH MY GOD, TWO “N’S” IN HER LAST NAME.  But I have ten letters in my name; she has fifteen letters in her name.  I’m five years older than she is.

Five, ten and fifteen are all divisible by five. Coincidence, or conspiracy?  We could be twins.

But really, that’s all there is to it. I swear.

When she announced she was running for President, she confused John Wayne and John Wayne Gacy.  I would never make that mistake.  Serial killer Gacy lived in a city where I worked for a time – Waterloo, Iowa – where Bachmann was born.  That can’t mean anything.  It’s just a quirk, a fluke, an accident, a mistake, a total embarrassment to me.

Is it too late to claim I was born in Kenya?

-0-

Funny little side story about Waterloo Iowa.  After Gacy was tried and convicted of murdering 33 teenage boys, someone sent a pen to the television station newsroom where I was working.  It was one of those cheap promotional pens, probably very similar to the pen that’s nearest to you right now.  And it was imprinted “John Gacy for President – Waterloo Jaycees.”

I guess when he (and Bachmann) lived in Waterloo in the sixties he was active in the Jaycees and was named “outstanding vice president.”  So he decided to run for president and had those pens made up.  For a day, I had that pen in my desk drawer.  The next morning it was gone.  I’ve regretted it ever since.

So you want to talk about coincidences?  Michelle Bachmann of Waterloo Iowa mentioned John Wayne as being from her hometown when it was actually John Wayne Gacy who is from Waterloo Iowa, and both Bachmann and Gacy ran for president.  And the happiest coincidence:  neither of them wins.