Way to go, Sauron! I agree.
Ignoring for the moment the many “issues” about missionaries and what they hope to accomplish…
Don’t Peruvians have and raise kids, too?
I guess since my husband and I adopted our son as a newborn baby in a “third world country” while we were in the Peace Corps there (read: no money, no car, etc.) and lived there with him the first year of his life, I’m missing the big point here.
How often do planes get shot down? I mean shoot, you could say never take your kids to work in Oklahoma City, too.
Jill
And we’d take our kids overseas again in a second.
[Edited by JillGat on 04-28-2001 at 12:04 AM]
You mods know that I am SICK with jealousy that you can edit your posts and I can’t. Not that I’d want JUST ANY bozo to be able to edit–I know and understand the reasoning behind the decision–but I would like to be able to do it.
[[You mods know that I am SICK with jealousy that you can edit your posts and I can’t. Not that I’d want JUST ANY bozo to be able to edit–I know and understand the reasoning behind the decision–but I would like to be able to do it.]]
Hey, I screwed up the italics code the first time… what can I say? I do enough stupid things that this option pays off quite a bit. And I know, on top of this moderator salary, such perks don’t seem fair, do they?! (Drop me a line next time you type something stupid while you’re drunk, Drop. Maybe I’ll edit it for you. Hahahhhahahahahahah) - Jill
** I WOULD.**
And, I just deleted the rest of my post, since -DUH- I didn’t read to the end of the thread. I have to say, Jillgat kind of has a great point here, dammit. I had this LOVELY rant all written out here, too.
The Oklahoma City comment kind of struck me. I might not want to put a kid in a prop plane because they fall out of the sky sometimes, but… well- nobody thought that the front of an entire building could be demolished in a terrorist act, until the front of an entire building was demolished in a terrorist act.
I’m really torn here. Viscerally, I’m with Eve. Intellectually, I’m with Jill.
Waffle, waffle, waffle. 
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But say, Eve, you available for babysitting?
Heh. - Jill
C’mon, Jill, whaddya say you leave your adopted kid with my adopted kids, they do the whole group therapy thing, we go out for Nachos Grande? 
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(Stupid error edited at OP request. - Jill)
[Edited by JillGat on 04-28-2001 at 09:49 PM]
Cartooniverse, add a pitcher of margaritas and it’s a deal. - Jill
I am thankful I don’t post drunk. I won’t get the chance to be humiliated by you.
No, thank you. I will die by my errors, if necessary.
No. Just a recognition that the world isn’t black or white but many shades of gray. Also, my post was based on early newsreports which are typically scanty or not entirely accurate. By the time you posted a reply, more information was available.
As I said - I was posting on the basis of what information I had. If you have different information, well maybe you know something I don’t.
Also, what the flight plan gave as his course, and the course as actually flown, are two different things. If he deviated from the planned course then it’s going to take authorities a little longer to be sure of who he actully is and what he is up to.
Yeah, airspace violation. It can be as serious as diving the wrong way down a freeway. Next time you’re flying on a commercial airline into or out of a busy airport like LAX or Atlanta or New York or O’Hare you think about what would happen if the pilots deviated from their assigned courses, or if a private pilot decided to wander into controlled airspace on his own because he just couldn’t be bothered to stay on course. Or think what would happen if the captain of the 747 you’re riding in just happened to wander into military airspace? How about that Korean airliner than violated Russian airspace and was shot down a few years ago? Being in the wrong place in an airplane is a serious offense. Does it warrant death? No, I don’t think so, but apparently certain governments have other ideas.
I’m not saying the guy “deserved” being shot down. I just saying that his actions might (might) have put him at greater risk for being mistaken for a criminal than otherwise. No woman deserves to be raped, but if she insists on getting falling down drunk in bars and accepting rides home from total strangers she is at much higher risk of being raped than if she found a more sober after-hours activity. It doesn’t make her rapist any less a criminal or an asshole, but the fact is she is entering into a potentially dangerous situation.
I’m sure that ATC would have been happy to have him land at the airport, and cheerfully let the fighter land after him for an inspection - but ATC’s are traffic controllers, not the drug police. As for contacting the fighter - to do so directly would require determining which military frequency the fighter is communicating on (there are more than one) which is going to take some time if the ATC hasn’t a clue which particular frequency it is. More time than it takes to shoot down a Cessna. Even if the tower did contact the fighter, just what the heck are they supposed to do to keep him from shooting? Say “pretty please”? It’s pretty obvious at this point that the fighterjock was trigger-happy and was looking for any excuse to shoot.
Truth is, I don’t know if Mr. Missionary screwed up or not. But I don’t buy the argument that because he is a god-fearing church-going missionary out to save the heathens he’s automatically in the right. Interviews with other local pilots flying in that area indicate that the area is well known as being full of military patrols and that interceptions by fighters looking for drug flights is a well-known risk. In short, it’s a dangerous part of the world to fly, especially if you’re in a small plane.
Right now it looks like the Peruvian pilot was criminally over-eager to shoot. A month from now we could have different information. How accurate is the information we get about these things, anyhow?
Standing in kitchen, wearing apron covered with immense close-up of a gorilla’s face ( and, not much else ). Blender, kosher sea salt, big flat glasses, margarita mix…hmm… methinks that’s it…
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