I was not going to compose an entry for today. But an issue piqued my ire. And when your ire gets piqued, you need to do things. A gun control advocate actually said that if there were more guns on campus, the Tech shooter would have been stopped! The professor who had survived the Holocaust and blocked the door so his students could get out should have been packing heat so he could take out the shooter.

I can see it now. On campusses (sp?, campi?) all over the country, students and faculty get issued a computer and a Glock. Mac or PC ? Revolver or automatic? 9mm or 45 ? And each student gets permission to carry a concealed weapon. In your bookbag? Purse? Tied down on your hip (I like that best, myself)? And to use it, you need to clear leather fast. We can have target practice and quick-draw as required courses.

There are folks in this world whose brain power – lack of it, that is – astonish me. The Holocaust did not happen. There is no God. The Earth is flat. Evolution did not happen. Firearms do not need more stringent control. Duh!

But, that is not the worst of it. The power of lobbyists to manipulate our government and us! The gun control lobby ranks right up there (should be down there) with the pharmaceutical lobby. See my 2 April, 2007 entry.

Of course, the Tech shooter should not have been permitted to buy those guns. The policies in Virginia are deplorable. There are a number of breakdowns that led to this tragedy, the most obvious being in communication policies. Between the mental health services and the school administration and public safety. And between them and the gun control listings. A bureaucracy failure cused the death of over thirty people.

I was a decent pistol marksman in younger Navy days, made national ranking. When the children started appearing in our family, those guns quickly were disposed of. And I am glad I did that. It was the right thing to do.

The news is full of the shootings at Virginia Tech. Today, the package sent to NBC was made public. Some thoughts.

Of course, the news media have a responsibility to report this in as much detail as possible. And to seek answers as to who is at fault or what could have been done better. In the scramble for attention grabbing and viewership augmentation, however, they tend to go too far. In particular, finding someone to blame and publishing the pictures of the shooter.

The shooter's goal was to make himself the center of attention. He had it all planned and carried it out beautifully. With the help of the news media. Both the police chief and a mental health type took the news to task for making so much of those pictures the shooter took of himself. Will there be copycats spring up? The mental health man told how some of his patients will watch “Natural Born Killers” for yours. Now they have something else to watch. Or even emulate. Those pictures should have been mentioned but not spread over the news for hours.

The administration at Tech did what they should have done. Of course, the events did happen and they should have been prevented. In retrospect, it is easy to judge. But, if an incident of domestic violence happened in my neighborhood, I would not expect the police to lockdown the whole town. I think they, the University and the police, acted properly and promptly.

The psychiatric community, if anybody, should be taken to task for not identifying the dangers and preventing the outbreak of violence. Mental illness in this country takes too much of a back seat in both our understanding and funding. And, it seems as if the shooter did not give any clues about his designs. He should have been monitored better, certainly. In all reality, they should have done better but they were far from negligent.

And now starts all of the lawsuits. Someone will have to make money from all of the grief and hardship. There are always the hyenas.

Remembrances of the Navy and my younger adventures, plus some emails from another blogger (http://watchingtheparade.blogstream.com/), have brought back images from my little bit of Naval aviation experience. See my previous Navy blog entries on 5 and 11 April, 2007.

My first flight experience was in a Yellow Peril, an N3N (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N3N) with floats. I sat in the second seat and communicated with the pilot through a rubber tube that ran to the front seat. We flew alongside the Chesapeake Bay Bridge (http://www.roadstothefuture.com/Chesapeake_Bay_Bridge.html) and the cars on the bridge were faster than we were. The pilot flew around for a few minutes, blew on the communications tube – it whistled when you blew on it – and told me to take the stick! It was the experience of a lifetime. The plane pretty much flew itself. What a thrill. I would love to have one of them now.

The next adventure was a flight from a carrier. It was in an F3D Skynight (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F3D_Skyknight). A couple of things I remember about that. The Skynight's ejection system was a hatch that sat between the pilot and passenger – the Skynight was a side-by-side two seater. To eject, you lift the hatch and dropped down through it. Sort of scary. The carrier's catapult does a great job of acceleration, slams your head back against the seat. But it surely seemed inadequate. The plane dropped toward the water like a rock And then, at the last minute, the plane picked up speed and began to climb away from the speeding carrier on its tail. From any decent altitude, an aircraft carrier looks like a tiny little rectangle, just a little dot on the surface of an enormous ocean. There are destroyers on plane guard in front of and astern of the carrier – just in case. Reassuring. And then, the landing. This tiny little rectangle starts getting big – fast. Right in front of us was the carrier's stern with two gun tubs and a tiny little door that I thought the pilot was going to try to squeeze the plane through at a couple of hundred miles an hour. I had seen some of the damage control movies and the documentaries such as Victory at Sea and knew what happens when carrier landings go wrong. And the carrier is moving. Not just going forward, it moves up and down and left and right. On your next flight, imagine landing a plane on an airfield that is moving, seemingly trying to keep you from setting down through evasive maneuvers. It happens so fast. Then a wham and slam against the seat belts and you are back on solid steel. There is no thrill ride anything like carrier operations. I remember a quote from someone that carrier flight operations are four hours of absolute boredom and thirty seconds of stark terror.

Then, a few years later, after high-lining from the Cony to the the carrier (see my 5 April entry), I got an S2F ride back home for our Dan's birth. An S2F is a lot different from an F3D. It had two propellors instead of jets. S2F are often seen today as AWAC planes. Also cargo versions, like the one I was on. There was, back then, a version meant to carry nuclear depth bombs. A job done now by drone helicopters and missiles. Anyway, an S2F is not a particularly big aircraft in comparison to a modern jetliner, unless it tries to take off from a 1950's carrier. It took up almost the whole flight deck. And it moves slow. Once again, despite the best efforts of the catapult and the straining engines, the plane just barely makes it. Can you imagine a plane diving into the ocean right in front of a carrier steaming at full speed? I did. Of course, it made it.

More aviation stories to be told another day.

On this date in 1947, Jackie Robinson played his first major league game. The Dodgers were the favorite baseball team of my youth. Robinson, Reese, Campanella. And Jackie was my most favorite player. I have not paid much attention to baseball since they left Brooklyn.

The small college town were I grew up had only one black family. One of their children was in our high school. I remember no discord or problems about it. The fuss about Jackie Robinson's race was difficult to understand back then. As far as we were concerned, he was a great baseball player and a nice guy.

The fuss is still difficult to understand. Our neighborhood now has had African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, chefs, nurses, farmers, chicken chasers, exterminators. They have been good friends and neighbors.

Sharpton, Jackson, Imus – they are all prejudiced. Making as much money and mileage out of all of this as possible. And, of course, those doing the same include the news programs which keep the fuss going as long as they can. At the expense of the Rutgers basketball team. Are they giving us the news or just what we want to hear? Let's not forget that TV news programs, and Imus and Sharpton and Jackson, are a business. They are in this for only one reason – to make money. See my 7 April, 2007, and 22 March, 2007 entries.

Jackie Robinson was a hero. And the Rutgers team are heroes.

Several points for this date:

First, it is the birthdate of one of my favorite Virginians, Thomas Jefferson. Born 13 April, 1743. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson)

Second, let's keep Imus and dump Sharpton, Jackson, and all the news programs that are taking advantage of the Rutgers women's basketball team. Prostitutes, all of them. There are a lot of villians and one hero, the Rutgers women.

And, third, it is Friday, the 13th. Do you believe? Of course, luck exists. Largely, it is an excuse for why things go wrong. Another word for the vagaries of statistics. The key word is believe and what it means.

Some years ago, some of my students asked if I believed in extra-terrestrials. I said I did but that was the wrong way to ask. If one of them told me that little green men were going to land on the soccer field, which was right outside my front door, at 2 in the morning, would I be there? And my response was that I don't believe that strongly.

Do I believe in women's right to abortion? It is too easy to just say yes or no. Would I pick up a sign and parade in front of an abortion clinic? No. The acid test would be if one of my daughters told me she was pregnant and did not want the baby (I am confident this would not actually happen). I would tell her that we do not throw away one of our own. Then she says she can not raise the child. Now, the rubber hits the road. Do I, in my 70's, take in a newborn? He or she would go to college when I am 90! The cost in money and effort! And, of course, the answer is yes. That would be a true “belief”.

And Friday the thirteenth? Do I believe? OK. Am I changing my habits today? It might be a good excuse for some stupid act. Another good excuse is that the little green men are controlling my brain since I am not wearing my special hat which insulates against counter-oscillating subultracosmic radiation. But I am not going out of my way for either the little green men or Friday the thirteenth.