Flying
Posted By Carlo on January 17, 2009
On Jan. 16, when I first heard of US Airways flight 1549 landing in the Hudson River off Manhattan, I called my wife into the bedroom to watch the news. It was good. She agreed, and she’s had fear of flying for years. Maybe from now on she’ll travel lighter in her head. I want to travel with her. No problem for me with travel.
No need to recap the “miracle” of the plane that landed in the Hudson, in a perfectly executed maneuver with no lives lost. But there’s need to underline its significance, especially for Karen, who’s been scared to fly since 9/11. I suspect she’ll be better about flying after the story of flight 1549. Everything worked just right. What happened attested to competence, care,. concern, training and expertise.
Which brings me to Tuesday, when Barack Obama becomes president. I watched Dubya’s “farewell address” and begrudgingly acknowledge his discipline and spine. But I’m so glad to see him go; I plan a double toast on Tuesday (at least), heralding Bush’s departure and Obama’s arrival.
The Obamas and Bidens are on the train right now, reprising the journey Abraham Lincoln took to the presidency. God speed. God willing, they augur a fabulous administration. The cabinet choices are good (Geithner seems shaky, however) and what Obama has been saying about what he wants to do rings true. And he has enormous goodwill going into the job, which I’m sure he will do well, remaining human and accessible and true to himself and a family man and eloquent all the time.
The landing of flight 1549 is perfect prologue to what I hope will be a time of uplift, progress, evolution. We’ve been backsliding for years, certainly during the Bush administration (and even, to some extent, under Clinton). Now it’s time not only to catch up but exceed, bringing health to all, an end to discrimination, meaningful work for those who need it, a meaningful, purposeful, environmentally responsible and politically impeccable life to all. Not to mention the closing of Guantanamo, the conquering of AIDS, the end of genocide, the transformation of our penal system…I could go on. I’ll be watching. And, hopefully, visiting the strange with my wife without fear.
Wolffman, you would be hilarious if you weren’t so pathetic. That last paragraph sounds like it was taken right out of the script of the wizard of oz.
Just a quick thought. And I wonder out loud here, what goes through ones mind when asking “God speed. God willing, they augur a fabulous administration.” , when one of Barack’s first order of business was to roll back the federal funding ban on family planning overseas that offer abortion as an option. Again, I wonder what God thinks of a woman’s “Right to Choose”?