Monday, October 20th. BOD meeting
Wednesday, October 22nd. That afternoon at 3:00pm Eastern, the senior executives of the company will conduct a live webcast. You are invited to listen.

“Meanwhile, industry sources said billionaire Richard Branson, founder of London’s Virgin Atlantic Airways, has shown interest in investing in Atlantic Coast and helping the airline maintain its independence.” [story] The point is: United’s lapdog, Mesa Group, has put the stock ‘in play’. There will be others [Skywest?] that take notice and join the fracas. I marvel at the term industry source. Euphemism for rumor.

The car wreck was 3 years ago. Her life ended. Maybe she explains woe to all of her customers. It was the long tissue hair dam destined for my neck that this hair stylist somehow misdirected for it whipped across my open mouth like gag. She giggled at this and I eased her embarrassment by saying ‘ okay I can take the hint — you do the talking then 🙂 ‘ This she did — by proceeding to explain the somehow of that impaired nerve damaged arm, the botched remedial repairs the side effects that ravaged her body, the intolerance to cold weather, the laryngitis caused by medical procedure, the permanent vocal cord damage and lung damage by that medication, the pains killers, the… As a captive audience, I’m taking this all in with eyes studying a framed family portrait on the booth counter top. The picture transformation from her former life was startling. The woman cutting my hair was withered. Frail. A shattered wracked tormented shell of her former self. The framed picture included young children. I wondered if they had been in the car. I didn’t want to go there. In my younger years I would have tuned this downer right out. But, with maturity, comes a discovered sense that life is precious and fragile. Drive safely.

DULLES, Va., July 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ –The Company has been engaged in discussions periodically with United Airlines, Inc. related to the terms of a new agreement to replace the existing United Express Agreements between the parties. Although the Company and United have recently exchanged proposals, the parties were unable to reach an agreement onterms the Company believes acceptable during their last discussions on June 30. The Company continues to develop contingency plans to allow it to establish an alternative to the United business in the event that satisfactory arrangementsfor future United Express service cannot be agreed with United. The Company would pursue such an alternative if it is considered by management to offer more favorable prospects than offered by United. The Company cannot predict the timing or outcome of any decision by United with respect to the Company’s code share arrangements.

More negotiations (in public) via press release. Aside from attempting to calm the investors and prevent stampede, this latest was certainly directed at bunkered UAL negotiators on the other side of the card table. With their best poker face ACA hints that there is an ‘alternative’. While I like to think that there IS a contingency plan(s) for ACA, this gem could have been pure bluff. (See your hand and raise you ____ ) ACA does not wish to accept new adverse terms forced by UAL’s bankruptcy advantage. Is ACA posturing for escape or extracting their best deal. Great struggle! The stakes?: UAL looses – route network takes big hit, emergence from Ch. 11 postponed. Or ACA looses – negative growth, slow death… Do they have the cards??

So, who won the debate? The French and Germans were vocal in saying that we had no business invading Iraq and that the imperialistic US was out of line. The administration was adamant anyway that we go in and wipe out the WMD. It was a hard sell as you recall. Plenty of exaggerations and hyperbole from both sides. Those who didn’t subscribe were chastised and scolded, embarrassed, labeled cowardly (traitorous ?)

You’d think that those who were then against US policy would now have something to say. Like to rub-it-in. e.g. Ya see! We told you so! – It WAS all about the OIL afterall, eh? – Where then are the WMD? I spoke with an actual French Citizen today and I asked: “Why have the French not seized the moment?” Their national pride is at stake. What an opportunity to restore huge face. The consensus reply was that ‘they ARE jumping up and down… Just read the foreign press and you will see. The US media has ignored that spin on the story…’ Wait a minute. I don’t subscribe. Is this right? Can this be?

A news reporter is standing amongst a throng of local visitors inside an (empty) palace. The corespondent points out the well manicured grounds, the luxurious indoor pool. It’s like a surreal, albeit dusty, Parade of Homes. The local site seers are gazing around. The camera pans and captures a guy, eyes fixated on the ceiling. Staring. I realize that he is not admiring the architectural details rather — trying to figure out a way to get the chandelier down or perhaps remove a glass stain window skylight.

The Sunday front page pictures a minor verbal confrontation between disgruntled Iraqi civilians and an American Coalition force. They are upset about the law and order void. The locals are healthy, young, strong – b i g guys. They are prime to have been regular if not elite militia conscripts. Do you suppose they ditched their rifles – went home and changed clothes?

Our side glued, to the ‘latest breaking’ in IRAQ, marvels at the naivety of Baghdad when the minister of dis-information proclaims optimistically and with all seriousness that the US Army is “being thwarted in the streets of downtown — the war is going well!” Pretty funny that it works both ways. Take a look at ourselves… Our official propaganda (CNN) loves to perpetuate the demise of SADDAM after a few bunker-busters. After the smoke and dust has cleared a bevy of DNA experts fill otherwise dead-air time to confuse us with the intricacies of identifying his corpse. SADDAM makes a video to say you missed me you S.O.B.s and we are taken in by the postulation that it’s been pre-recorded. A fake. The character in the lo-res picture may not be genuine. “It’s a body double — the war is going well!” The proof? New heavy black framed ugly-ass eye glasses. Order up former mistresses (experts) to count moles on his face. So much Hollywood. We’ve been duped.

Rachel’s got the U.N. resolution summed up in a single, neat little blog entry.

I take offense to the front page photo (USAToday) picturing the Washington Sniper(s). It shows the two of them mano y mano, clean cut shaven, and rather father and son wholesome handsome. I don’t want to see that. I want to see mug shots. I want to see the real deal — how they looked after sleeping in that Chevy sedan beater for the past two weeks. Any glorification only serves to encourage other nobody psycho copycats who might like to have a little (twisted) recognition. I predict it will only be days before news articles try to understand these two and get inside their heads. “What made them do this…” “Was it society’s fault…” Meanwhile those who were ,at one time or another, close to these individuals will be interviewed and quoted as saying, “They were the nicest you ever met.” They played chess you know…
I say we start with Tar and Feathers.

After sharing a rather harmless email funny fwd with the flower child, the other youngin’ appears with a printed copy of same. (guilty — I forwarded it). The jokes, “learn chinese in 5 min.” poke fun at the translation and you have to read them aloud. e.g. + Did you go to the beach? ……..Wai Yu So Tan + Your body odor is offensive …….Yu Stin Ki Pu + He’s cleaning his automobile ….. Wa Shing Ka.

Older sibling cautions younger sibling not to take those to school and young guy nods understanding. I realized that these kids have been fully indoctrinated on issues of racial sensitivities. Heck, when I was a school type we were just then getting the clue that laughing at black jokes was taboo. Italian and Pollack (er, uh — polish) jokes were okay though.

The topic dovetails nicely with my current nightstand read. (see my blog on Aug 31) In about 1860, Chinese peoples were performing nearly half of California’s low end menial jobs. Subsistence wage seasonal farming, ditch digging and railroad work. I remember my father showing me an early California livestock fence, constructed entirely of loose stone and rock. ‘The coolies built this…’. My book is giving me a flavor taste of what the climate was like. The economy or job employment at time was cyclically tough, as it is today. These laborers took the heat for it by whites and politians alike. They were recognized as a ‘problem’. I’m reading an excerpt from page 166 of an early Bureau of Labor Statistics report commissioned by the U.S. government circa 1883. The Chinese were thought to have been stealing jobs from whites, as they would eagerly work for less. The twisted logic of the author suggested: “Again, a protective tariff of the kind that I have referred to would affect the American laborer most beneficially. It would raise the Chinaman’s cost of living, thereby causing an increase in his pay, and in that manner the difference between the Mongolian’s and the white man’s wage would be lessened, and the latter would be the better able to compete with him.” (!)

Much of this kind of talk became actual law on the books. Witness: The Chinese Exclusion Actof 1892. The 1913 Alien Land Act. The 1922 Immigration Act. The verbiage contained therein is absolutely pathetic and unbelievable. It becomes clear why the backlash and furor over racial jokes and humor. Political types learned about 20 years ago that it is now political suicide to make raciest jokes in any context. This lesson has been passed on to our children. + That’s not right ……… Sum Ting Wong. + And yet, we still silently laugh at them, albeit with a tinge of guilt and remorse.