Monday, March 30, 2015

Andreas Lubitz, GermanWings and the French Alps

In the early hours and days of this tragedy, a Prosecutor was stating to the world's news services that the co-pilot crashed the plane on purpose.  I don't know the Prosecutor's name or if it was a he or she and if (I'll call it a "he") his nationality was german or otherwise.  In the days that followed, the Prosecutor alluded to depression, that  Lubitz lied to his company, that he was seeking the help of a shrink,  then they found that doctors told him he was unfit to work but he tore the Doctor's note up.

The effort, I guess, was to make sure that the world knew, even before the first black box dried, that the Airbus plane was totally not at fault.  To keep the parent company pure as Mother Theresa, a huge effort was undertaken to tell that this 28 year old co-pilot was capable, trained and qualified  up to the highest Luftansia standards.

Since then, Andreas Lubitz took a leave of absence in mid training maybe because the psychotic drugs were slowing him down. There were articles that he became a Muslim, and he lived with a girl friend who is pregnant.  Someone wrote that he could have been Jewish. I'm shocked that this theory took so long to emerge. After all, the Europeans are hard wired to swallow a Muslim or Jewish connection.  Now I understand that the Prosecutor says Lubitz was suicidal.  Now, why would anyone think that?  Someone told me that the Governor of Indiana said Lubitz was Gay, but I rejected that notion out-of-hand as  the tell came from a Republican in the locker room of my gym.

The CEO OF Luftansia, Germanwings parent company stated that they didn't need two people in the cockpit at a time as zis vaz only von incident.  I detected an underpinning of arrogance reminiscent of B rated war movies. OK, maybe I'm just not a nice person.  Now they have the two rule.

Anyway, I think pilots, conductors, ship captains, et cetera, should undergo periodic lie detector tests snd psychiatric evaluation. As well as blood and/or wee wee analysis.






Sunday, March 15, 2015

The Koch Bros. Are Advertising

The Koch brothers have joined such notables as BP and GE with institutional TV ads.  Institutional advertising is unlike most TV ads that are designed to sell products and services.  It generally has the purpose of making the public feel better about the corporation. It can be thought of as a public relations ploy to build reputation that has been tarnished owing to the way they operate.

I believe the GE ads were most likely to overcome the fact that the avoid paying taxes in the U.S.A.  The BP's handling of the Gulf spill put the disdain for their name probably on a par with those on the FBI's most wanted.  Adding insult to this, they apparently failed to rebuild, repay and clean up as promised.

Now the Koch Brothers, the champions of the 1%; the billionaire oil Barron's that also own a number of national branded products have spent many millions to influence legislation and the outcome of elections.  They are champions of the Republican Party at the state and national level.  I would venture that they are amongst the most hated by the majority sector of voters.

There has been a concerted effort to ask citizens to avoid their brands.  Just Google Koch Industries brands.  I think you'll find Northern toilet paper, Brawny and many others.  It must be hurting them else they wouldn't resort to institutional ads.

They're very smart. They show how many jobs they create, how innovative they are, how they build America.  I'm not fooled. I stay away from their brands and ask others to do the same.




Friday, March 6, 2015

Jodi Arias Before the MurderI

I looked at a collection of pictures of Jodi and her ex-boyfriend Travis.  Pictures of them taken by each other as well as by a third party.  All of these were pre-trial.

I did not read much, did not see any film, did not follow the trial, yet was still showered with words and graphics.  Thirty times stabbed, almost beheaded it seems more than self defense. It seems she wanted to kill him over and over.  For this brutality, the overwhelming comments demanded the death penalty.

So, I looked at their pictures.  Her poses were not particularly pin-up, not suggestive, but what you'd normally see fom a person committed through love to a boyfriend.  Her smile and body language seem to say that this guy is the one.  Her non smiling pictures still seemed sincere in this relationship.  A few looked less happy than the others but not in a way to diminish him.

Then I looked at his photos.  Of some two dozen shots, he smiled in only one picture - the one where he was giving, presumably, a business talk to his audience. In all other pictures, when he was with Jodi,  his face and gestures were either somber, making childish faces, disdain perhaps, and devoid of a man happily in love. In one picture he gave a "brotherly" kiss on her cheek. In just about every shot, his expressions may have been polar opposite of what he said to her, and his declarations during intimacy with her.  

I don't think she is a monster. If he really loved her, they'd be married with a bunch of rug rats. I know what transpired was monsterous. My pea brained opinion is that the day of his death was the last straw.  I think it may have been rejection growing and festering for some time.  Possibly, the feelings of being lied to, of cheated on, of just being used when she may have told her world that this was the one. Did it all make her snap?  She should have claimed diminished capacity.