"Actions are judged by their results, not by their intentions." Jean-Francois Revel
"To live is, in itself, a value judgment. To breathe is to judge." Albert Camus
Gentle Readers and Loved Ones,
I have often said here that I don’t want this to be a political blog. This entry will skirt the limits of that intention. I apologize in advance.
This article got me to thinking about flying, judgment and responsibility. Please click the link and familiarize yourself with it. It’s another story of Education and Zero-Tolerance run amuck. (Note, when I awoke this morning, I found this story has been overcome by events - the clue bird has landed on the school board. Still, I think I will post anyway.)
At present, I am sitting in the left seat of this MD-11. We are flying at 31000’ somewhere out in the middle of the Pacific, hauling 133 thousand pounds of freight from Osaka, Japan to Oakland, CA. Weighing in at a gross weight of 530,000 pounds of metal, plastic, freight, kerosene and pilots, we are cruising at .82 mach or 488 knots True Air Speed, with a tailwind of 120 knots. This means that effectively, after you account for the tailwind, we are traveling faster than the speed of sound over the waves below. Or, if you will, I am traveling about the same speed as 45 caliber pistol bullet but I’m a whole lot bigger.
On the other hand, this airplane is so automated that this is really just another milk run. The autopilot is on and connected to a set of cross-talking Flight Management Computers and maintaining my speed and altitude much more precisely than I could dream of doing. Through the Global Positioning Satellite system, we are maintaining a 95% statistically accurate position within 0.07 nautical miles of the required course. The Ground Proximity Warning System is armed and ready to tell ‘Bitchin’ Betty’ to scream at me if we should come in danger of hitting the ground. ‘Bitchin’ Betty’ is also watching the Hydraulic, Electrical, Pneumatic and Fuel systems and controlling their required parameters much more precisely than any Flight Engineer of times past could have hoped for.
I haven’t touched the controls in hours and the airplane really requires very little from me right at the moment.
But….I am most definitely not a passenger. I am the Pilot in Command and the Captain. If something goes wrong and I do not correct it, it will be my fault and no one else’s. My whole point of existing right at this moment is to sit above all the automation, all the organization and agencies on the ground that exist to keep me safe and watch it all. There are voluminous books that tell me how to do this and every 6 months I get classroom training and a check ride to prove that I am familiar with it all.
That familiarity includes this line in the Federal Aviation Regulations (
Sounds like Zero Tolerance doesn’t it? But the next line is: “However, no policy or regulation shall be interpreted as a substitute for the exercise of sound judgment.”
So there you have it. It's my job to follow the rules unless the rules are wrong - in which case I'm expected to violate the rules. Said another way, my job is to step in and prevent buffoonery. I get paid a lot of money for this....and I don't know that I am all that special. Most of my gentle readers have jobs that require the application of judgment.
Tying this back to the news article: School boards and school principals also get paid a lot of money to prevent buffoonery.
I think back to Mrs. Britton, my First Grade Teacher in 1960. Had she perceived a danger from me taking my multi-tooled Boy Scout knife to school – I had one too, boy was it cool! - and using it to eat, she would have handled it thus:
“Hi, Geoff, that’s a nice looking knife you have there. May I see it please?”
(Little Geoff would be a nervous wreck at this point, Mrs. Britton had him cowed.)
“I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to it. I’ll keep it for you.”
(Little Geoff could no more say ‘no’ than fly.)
She would have either given it back to me at the end of the school day and told me to leave it home in the future or called my folks and asked them to come get it some time. Her choice would have depended on how she viewed the ‘danger’ of me having it.
Problem solved.
Instead, the kid in the news article gets a 45 day suspension and gets sent to reform school?
"Say whut?", Geoff asks, sarcastically.
I do not understand Zero Tolerance but I am firmly of this opinion: we taxpayers pay school officials pretty good bucks to administrate our kid’s education. If you have made the effort to get the PhD in Education and "paid the dues' to get the experience required to become a school administrator, why in the world would you want to give up your authority and experience and pay obeisance to some Zero Tolerance rulebook?
It’s just a matter of time until a knuckle-dragger like me stands up in a School-Board meeting and asks: “If you educators have an all-encompassing rulebook that knows all and sees all, why do we need you? Why don’t we get rid you and your payroll and just pay some dumb flunky to read the book and do what it says?”
I can’t wait to see that townhall video on Youtube.
On that happy note, I remain,
Dad / Geoff
p.s. I see that the School Board thought about this and reversed their ruling. They were idiots for putting themselves in the public eye in the first place.
p.p.s. Make sure you click the first 'Bitchin' Betty' link. I never knew what she looked like until I researched this.
2 comments:
This from an old friend:
I think that the first "Bitchin' Betty", AKA "Our Lady of the Dashboard", was in the B-58 Hustler. The theory was that a soft female voice would be an attention grabber. Alas, the B-58 was an expensive maintenance nightmare and had the unfortunate habit of coming apart if one engine failed when it was supersonic (engine failure caused yaw, q forces from the side ... you get the picture).
In one of W.E.B. Griffin's books someone told a general that something was against regs and the the general exploded. The gist of his commentary was that regulations are guides, not absolutes. I think that the inability to make a decision has sunk a lot of careers. Unfortunately, much of government (including too many schoolteachers and administrators) hide behind rules and zero tolerance so they won't have to make a decision. Same applies to our beloved congress, which finds it easier to vote party line FOR BILLS THAT DON'T EXIST YET AND WHICH THEY WON'T READ BEFORE VOTING TO ENACT THEM. Same logic applies .... if we're not paying them big bucks to think and make decisions, why do we need them? If the Republicans had balls they could really use this theme in the next election ... but guess that they're afraid of making waves.
"People who think by the inch and talk by the yard deserve to be kicked by the foot."
anon.
Post a Comment