Listening To A Stranger

I’m listening to rushes from my first recordings from 2003.  It’s strange to hear material from a version of yourself you don’t associate yourself with anymore.  Sure I can still play these songs, and I have a certain level of attachment to them because I wrote them and can hear that they’re decent, but I hear a very young man obsessed with sadness.

That can perplex a many 30-something.  Especially if it’s the same guy.

Ebay

Would you like to know where the value of a teacup that Lincoln himself could have drank from lies?

Less than five dollars on eBay.

That’s why I’m not listing anything there anymore.

Wind Shear

The events of this past week (including myriad illness, cramiotomy, strange cats, and the looming failure of my business) have led me to reconsider my priorities. With every year I exist, I become slightly more aware of how temporary and fleeting that fact is, and even more confused on how to deal with it.

Great. Another project.

An Observation On Colgan Air 3407

While QT is still waiting for the Health Care interview to be approved by the interviewees, Ms. Twain supplies this post on another dear topic to Quarter Twain:  Aviation.

 

 

A Top-Fuel Dragster On Each Wing

 

 

 

I spent the other night reading through the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) transcript from Colgan Air flight 3407 that crashed in Buffalo, NY this past winter.  While it does provide valuable information regarding the accident sequence, I think the flying public should find it elucidating for a different reason.  The flight crew candidly discusses their concerns, difficulties, and aspirations for their careers.  The troubles weighing on the minds of this flight crew should concern the American public who entrusts their lives to these aviators.

The First Officer’s story, in particular, exemplifies the life of a regional airline pilot.  On tape, the she discusses her commute from Seattle, where she lives with family, to Newark, which she makes every week to fly her trip.  She mentions that her income was only about $15,000 the previous year, but that she is grateful for the flight hours, which are a major factor in being upgraded to a more lucrative captain’s seat or being hired elsewhere.  In aviation, flight hours equal experience, and this pilot knows she just has to crank them out for a while.

She would have to have a multiengine commercial license with an instrument rating to fly for an airline.  We know from the CVR that she also had her flight instructor license for the purpose of building hours.  Assuming $120 per hour for flight time, this training probably cost her around $40,000 for time in an airplane alone, not to mention the cost of ground school and other college classes she probably took.  Pilots come out of top aviation schools with debt nearing $100,000.  And after that much investment, she had fewer than 700 hours total time when she was hired with Colgan Air.

The First Officer’s flight time is low but not atypical.  Most air carriers advertise 1,000 hours minimum time, but expect 1,500 to be competitive.  However, in a market where pay is so low and fewer military pilots are filling out the supply, pilots are being hired with lower total time.  The First Officer trained at a flight school in Arizona, where she subsequently gained flight time as a CFI.  She mentions that she saw more actual IFR (time spent in the clouds flying by reference to instruments) on her Initial Operating Experience (IOE) than she did in her entire time in Arizona.  No matter how good the simulated training, no experience can substitute for experiencing the sensory illusions that happen when one has no visual reference to the ground.  In addition, her lack of first-hand knowledge of icing proved to be a major factor in the crash.

A lot has been made already about the crew’s level of fatigue, and much should be made of it, not because the flight crew was necessarily doing something wrong, but because the industry is doing things wrong.  The First Officer commuted across three time zones to get to work, and once she got there, she decided to fly even though she was feeling sick.  Why?

As previously mentioned, she made only about $15,000 a year to start with Colgan Air.  Her husband who has a position in the Army made more in a weekend of drills than she did in a month.  She clearly cannot afford to live in Newark, and she and her husband chose to live in the Northwest near their families.  She can commute from there for nearly free (she mentions a $25 pass benefit).  Pass benefits are great for airline employees and are used to commute to work and for personal vacations; they allow employees to live in cities with lower costs of living and commute, but there are drawbacks to this lifestyle.

She mentions feeling sick, and there are sniffles and coughs caught on the CVR to support her complaints.  She knows that if she calls in sick after commuting to Newark, she cannot use her pass benefits to fly home.  She would have to pay for a hotel room in Newark for a few days.  This is industry standard.  Since pass benefits may be used for pleasure as well as for commuting, companies assume that when an employee calls in sick prior to using their benefits, they have taken vacation.  This is considered an abuse of employee benefits and employees are fired for it.

So this first officer took a long flight across multiple time zones while feeling under the weather.  That would be enough to make the best of us feel fatigued.  She has to fly her trip congested which, due to the effects of changing pressure, has much more consequence while flying than while working in an office, for example.  Then at the end of her day, she has to wait in line for an hour and a half on the taxiway before departing for Buffalo.  She has multiple reasons to be fatigued which affect cognitive functions, reaction time, and attention to detail, all of which played a part in the accident sequence.

She is also plagued by numerous concerns regarding her employment: seniority, use of vacation time, etc.  Her body is tired and her mind is preoccupied.  The concerns she mentions and her state of fatigue are fairly normal.

The FAA dictates a maximum duty time for flight crew members of 16 hours out of 24, a minimum of 8 hours off between shifts, and a maximum of 8 hours on-duty flight time.  8 hours of flight time for a transoceanic crew is one flight.  For a regional crew, it could be as many as 8 flights (the legal limit), with the associated up and down and changing cabin pressures.  Most unions are able to negotiate better work rules, but when all else fails – like an hour and a half wait on a taxiway, considered outside of airline control – the companies reserve the right to use the limits set forth by the FAA.  In fact, Captain Sullenberger mentioned in a recent speech at the Museum of Flight in Washington, D.C. that in this economy we are seeing an increasing progression (regression?) toward the legal minimums for flight crews.

Why is all of this important?  Numerous studies over the last several decades have demonstrated the effects of fatigue on cognitive functions.  More so than many other professions, flight crews have enormous physical stresses imposed on them in addition to other typical work-related stress.  In many cases, they work long days and short nights for very little pay for the first several years of their careers, and it is these people to whom the flying public entrusts their lives.

The closest parallel I can draw is to the medical profession.  There has been public outcry about the amounts senior doctors make, as well as the amounts senior pilots make.  What the public does not seem to understand is that only an elite few make the amounts they complain about.  A senior captain may make $200,000 a year, but considering the investment mentioned earlier, I can’t imagine that that pay scale could come quickly enough.  In both professions, the majority of customers entrust their lives to people who are severely fatigued and underpaid.  It’s remarkable the accident rate is not higher than it is.

Captain Sullenberger, in his comments to Congress a couple months ago, related that his salary had been cut 40% since September 11th, and that he was concerned that current trends in the industry will not attract the best and brightest pilots.  Consider: his ability to glide his aircraft to relative safety in the waters of the Hudson came from years upon years of experience both in the cockpit of an airliner and in the front seat of gliders in his spare time.  You don’t get that level of experience out of an employee you are paying $15,000 per year.  It isn’t possible, and if passengers want to pay rock-bottom fares, they should understand the risks they are taking.

There is only one way out of this mess, short of more mishaps and crashes.  Airlines need to start taking pride in the service they offer, and demanding that passengers pay a reasonable amount for a ticket – and by reasonable, I mean an amount that actually covers the costs of operating an airplane.  Passengers need to take greater pride in their lives and their money, and start demanding better service and better safety performance out of the airlines they fly.  I haven’t seen an airline say this since September 11th, and it’s the only thing any of them should have said: “Yes, we’re expensive, and it’s worth every penny.”

Colgan Air 3407 CVR Transcript

A preview…

While we’re hard at it transcribing last week’s interview (we like to do things ourselves here), I direct you to this article for a preview of the highlights of our discussion.

Working Through The Quiet

QT isn’t dormant; I’m working on a couple of pieces on health-care reform, and yes, these things take time. Over the long weekend, I took about 2 hours to interview a pair of doctors on the subject of said reform, average physician pay, the dynamics of contract-based and private practice, and the nature of the reform question in the first place.

A Modest Proposal For Juicing Baseball Players

In the grand scheme of American life, nothing is so inconsequential yet invasively significant as Major League Baseball.  My educated guess is that the game receives its elevated stature at the behest of admiring children, who frequently see big league baseball players as their first representation of physical and competitive excellence.

As a result of this added gravitas, much has been made of the recent spate of Major Leaguers (and their Minor League cohort) who have tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs either currently or in the past.  Although there has been hand-wringing over whether we can trust our children’s heroes, unlikely world series championships, or once-innocent-looking star-bound statistics, one thing came to light during Manny Ramirez’ 50-game suspension that still bothers me.

Ramirez conducted himself in a very jovial, aloof manner (as is his way in the public sphere) about his punishment and return, and I started thinking about the nature and purpose of a baseball suspension for doping, and how it doesn’t quite address the real issue: money.  Suspended players are not paid for their time away, but return in due time to their astronomical (and guaranteed) salaries.  This brought me to an idea: what if Major Leaguers were made to live like the fans who pay their salaries in exchange for drugging themselves into superhumanity?

The basics are these:  if you test positive for controlled substances, your contract term is still enforced as are all of its provisions regarding trade and salary, save one.  Your salary will be exactly equal to an American male’s median income for the remainder of your contract term.  At this time, your annual salary would be $45,113.  Of course, after your contract term is up you can negotiate a new one for your market value.

These terms, which have no hope of being ratified by the MLBPA (EVER)  bring true fairness to those who cheat.  Players still make a working salary, albeit one that reflects their adjusted market value.  Many MLB fans make less than the median American income.  It also takes the heart-rending of tens-of-thousands of American youths into consideration, and curtails a cheater’s income to the point where spoiled, irresponsible cretins can stop smiling so exuberantly about defacing their profession.

Manny Being Manny

Fraud should be punished with more than a slap on the wrist.

Former Elite Health Care Executive Tells All

Wendell Potter, who was the chief PR Officer for Cigna, gave this illuminating and important interview on Bill Moyer’s Journal in February. After adding what he has to say to what I’ve already heard from my father-in-law, I am now persuaded and convinced that the public option is the only viable option for health care in America.  Unless I hear as compelling an argument against reforming health care as this, I now know what my congressman’s letter will say.

This interview is important because Mr. Potter not only provides little of his incredibly informed opinion, but he also shares the script from which the Republicans have been reading (and shows them reading it), and provides a thinking audience with something sorely lacking in the faux-debate over the American health care system: facts.The video is 45 minutes long, and it is vital that you watch every minute.

more about “Bill Moyers Journal . Watch & Listen …“, posted with vodpod

Ten Ways The Minors Eclipse The Majors

Helena P Robert Currie Plays Catch Between Innings

As the Billings Mustangs look to improve on their first half last-place finish (indeed one of the worst first-half performances that I’ve seen in quite awhile in any league), I’m reminded that the purpose of the minors has little to do with winning championships.  Although the experience of winning a championship is fulfilling and valuable, the lower leagues have much more to offer developing young players.

The Pioneer League coaching ranks read like they should; a strong docket of Major League veterans, including Damon Berryhill, Chuck Crim, Delino DeShields, Rene Gonzales, and Jose Bautista.  Pioneer League baseball is an assortment of promise and struggle.  While each player on each team is a professional, the rough edges show readily:  hitters over-swing, pitchers struggle with location, fielding errors are made that baffle major league baseball aficionados.  Uninitiated viewers rarely understand that they are seeing the raw ingredients of the majors; that players like Jay Bruce, George Brett, and Adam Dunn have played here not by choice (all players want to play in the majors), but by necessity.  The professional game is not an all-inclusive business, and even the lowest minor league offers challenges and hurdles to an elite college player, and the existence of these obstacles makes the expertise of former major leaguers essential.  A minor league season offers fans the opportunity to watch young players and prospects mature and prepare themselves for higher degrees of baseball.  Rarely, fans have the opportunity (as I had in Bellingham in the late ’80s) to watch future hall-of-famers take potshots at far-away lands.  I remember watching a very young Ken Griffey Jr. crank batting practice home runs off the roof of a dumped-out apartment complex over the right field wall at Joe Martin Field in Bellingham.  Dehler Park doesn’t quite lend itself to that kind of spectacle–the park is enormous–but watching a younger generation of ball players wrestle with the finer points of hitting with wood is worth the very thrifty ticket price.

It’s easy when you’re in last (or next-to-last) place to wax poetically about the higher purpose of the lower leagues, but it’s easy to see that purpose if you look hard enough; it’s one of the chief reasons I enjoy the minors.  In fact, here are 10 reasons minor league baseball holds greater appeal to me right now than the show:

1. Minor league parks lack television screens.  In between innings, fans actually talk to one another about games.
2. Eager players.  Not one minor league player conducts himself with the asinine aloofness that characterizes major leaguers like Manny Ramirez.  You may be assured that a separate post will address what to do with this type of miscreant.
3. Ticket prices.  For $6, you can take a seat in Dehler Park close enough to have a living-room-volume conversation with the third baseman.  For $6 at a major league park, you can buy a stale pretzel with nacho cheese.
4. The minors are a bit more pitcher-friendly.  The strike zone isn’t the size of a brass cheerio, so pitchers can work the inside corner while hitters can actually learn how to hit.
5. Promotions are scant, and fan-oriented.  A real baseball fan doesn’t really care about bobbleheads.
6. Vast, open-air parks are the rule.  Most open-air MLB parks are nice, but three-tiered grandstands block scenery.  Not so in the minors.
7. Concessions.  Hot dogs in the Pioneer League taste better than the dogs at Safeco, and cost $3.
8. Intimacy.  The players and coaches make their way to the clubhouses by walking through the crowds.  In this fashion, the players become a part of their community, if even for a short while.
9. Kid-friendliness.  A $3 grass berm seat at Dehler lets me watch my kid while watching the game.  The kid has great fun with this.
10. No replay.  The game is as live as it gets.  You can talk about the plays you see without analyzing them to death, let the coaches and players worry about the strike zone, and enjoy the game.

In the majors, it’s a show.  In the minors, it’s a game.  That’s the main (and most compelling) difference.

Midnight On Sunday

It’s more than a birthday. It’s two birthdays in a manner of thinking. My friend had his proper birthday, living only until December, and my wife escaped the clutches of death to survive him and bring me the constant gift that is my every day since.

Thank you, my dear friend. You cannot be missed more, and will never be missed less.