Saving the plane

The USAirways pilot who put the plane down in the Hudson River saved it when he lowered the plane's nose to maintain airspeed and keep it from stalling and falling like a rock. Hesitate for even seconds, and he'd never have made it to the river.

At a time when airplane designers are contemplating passenger airplanes without human crews, policy makers had better consider how quick action by this flight crew saved 155 people.

A computer-piloted or "UAV" jetliner would not likely be able to make such a judgment.

Resolutions for the New Year

1. Stop whining about retirement. It ain't gonna happen.

2. Be glad I have a job (as long as it lasts).

3. Shed some weight.

4. Pay off some debt.

5. Appreciate my family and friends.

6. Tell all my friends to buy hybrid cars and cut their gas consumption in half.

7. Travel abroad at least once in 2009.

8. Leave the world a little better place in 2009 than it was in 2008.

Tallulah Gorge, Georgia

snapshot in time

When Sarah Hammond (right) was born in October 1980, we started a tradition. Each time the President of the United States changed, we made a photograph of the children with the newspaper headline about the election. The first one features baby Sarah in her crib with the Ronald Reagan headline in November 1980. We have continued the tradition and have a full set of these pictures. Thomas Hammond, born in 1984, is on the left. My mother, Callie Hammond, is in the middle. She eagerly voted for President-elect Barack Obama.

Remembering Peter Mackler at Thanksgiving

When Elizabeth, Sarah and I resettled in Hong Kong just before Christmas in 1982, we felt especially alone at the holiday, without our families surrounding us in the the traditional way. The folks at The Asian Wall Street Journal moved quickly to make us feel at home. We enjoyed the Christmas party that year at the home of Robert Keatley, the newspaper's editor. But it took a while for us to settle in to a new routine of family life and develop a surrogate family.

Key among those adopted family members were Elizabeth's new boss, AFP bureau  editor Peter Mackler and his wife Catherine. There were also their children, Camille and Lauren. And the other regular feature of our lives was the Kelly family: Allan, Marie-Therese and Christopher and Charlotte. Our son Thomas was born in Hong Kong in 1984.

This surrogate family group included folks from Scotland, France and America. We melded our customs as the years went by, including the celebration of Thanksgiving, a uniquely American holiday. We quickly learned that the chef at the Foreign Correspondents Club cooked turkeys on special order for people celebrating the holiday, and a fine job he did. The last year we lived in Hong Kong, we had to take a ferry to our home from the central district. That meant picking up the fresh-out-of-the-oven turkey in Central, and holding it on our laps for the 30-minute ferry ride to Discovery Bay. The aroma just about drove the people on the boat crazy.

We all remembered those gatherings in Hong Kong warmly in the years after our families scattered to several continents. One year, when we all were living in America, we gathered again at the home of Peter and Catherine to renew our Hong Kong Thanksgiving tradition. Those gatherings I'll recall as long as I live.

We lost Peter last June, tragically, unexpectedly, sadly, to a heart attack. Life is not fair. We've all said at one time our another that despite all his adventures around the world, Peter would have been especially excited to cover this year's historic presidential election, and the momentous events taking place in our economy.

But most of all, I will miss Peter this Thanksgiving. He was family to me. A dear and beloved friend.

 

http://petermackler.blogspot.com

President-elect Obama's visit to Charleston during the Democratic Primary

A Heavenly Sound

The next time Cellist Zuill Bailey performs in your area, go see him. Elizabeth and I went to the South Carolina Philharmonic Saturday night. He performed two pieces by Tchaikovsky and he was terrific.

http://www.zuillbailey.com/

Good Luck, President-elect Obama

I wish for Barack Obama good judgment, faithful and wise advisors, and fair diplomatic seas for his journey as President of the United States of America.

But above all, I wish him good luck. He will need it. We will need it. The world needs it.

For us all, it will be better to be lucky than smart, any day!

New Hampshire weighs in ...

DIXVILLE NOTCH, N.H. (AP) — Barack Obama came up a big winner in the presidential race in Dixville Notch and Hart's Location, N.H., where tradition of having the first Election Day ballots tallied lives on.
Democrat Obama defeated Republican John McCain by a count of 15 to 6 in Dixville Notch, where a loud whoop accompanied the announcement in Tuesday's first minutes. The town of Hart's Location reported 17 votes for Obama, 10 for McCain and two for write-in Ron Paul. Independent Ralph Nader was on both towns' ballots but got no votes.

Why aren't all our cars made this way?

I got 47.5 miles per gallon yesterday driving from Greenville to Columbia in my new Honda Civic Hybrid car. In my old car, I was getting half that.

Question: If we can make a stylish, comfortable car with good driving characteristics and performance that gets that kind of fuel efficiency, why aren't all our cars made that way?

Imagine what it would do to the oil markets if over the next five years the majority of our car production shifted to gas-electric hybrids. It would be a magnificent transition to cars that run solely on electric power (plug and drive), or on hydrogen fuel. Huge amounts of money that goes today to oil-producing nations would stay in the U.S. economy and boost our economy.

Urge your member of Congress to support federal government policies that encourage a shift toward these fuel efficient cars.

Too much fun at the Football Game

My friend Robert Scott drove 12 hours Saturday from Baton Rouge to Columbia to bring tickets to the USC-LSU football game. Elizabeth and I joined him, sitting in the middle of the LSU student section at Williams-Brice Stadium Saturday night. It was too much fun. We hadn't seen Robert in several years. All three of us wished for a different outcome. Robert is a USC alum, and our two children are South Carolina graduates. There was a real chill in the air, perfect football weather. Thanks, Robert, and I hope the rest of your weekend in the mountains is just as great.

What's Football Got To Do With Getting A College Degree, Anyway?

So, Clemson University head football coach Tommy Bowden has lost his job. He'll get to cry all the way to the bank with his $3.5 million golden parachute.

We really need to take a look at our priorities in this country, when coaches who can't win a conference championship in 10 years walk away rich by any South Carolina standard, yet many South Carolina students can't afford a college education, or go deeply into debt to get one.

Tuition for a bachelor's degree at Clemson is currently about $10,000 a year, or $40,000 for the four-year program. Bowden's bonus for missing his MBO would pay for Clemson undergraduate degrees for 87 young people.

Strange priorities for a state with one of the lowest rates of college education, and one of the lowest per-capita incomes in the country.