This country incarcerates an insanely high percentage of its population often for insanely long periods, and most of those people are locked up for getting on the wrong side of its lunatic State Religion - which is Christianity (not that you can't find admirable people with that label here and there if you look hard enough).
There are, however, genuine dangerous sociopaths who have proven at every opportunity that they need to be put behind something very thick, solid, and high - permanently. And if you open the door and try to find something good in these people there will be a lot of genuinely good people who will immediately pay very big prices before the SWAT teams get there.
One of Jim Rooney's Queenstown tandem ride predecessors has a felony conviction for manslaughter as a consequence of him not making sure everyone was connected to the glider IMMEDIATELY before it started moving. The only reason Rooney doesn't have a felony conviction for manslaughter is 'cause his victim was a lot luckier a little bit under three years later.
In the absence of further information I feel sorry for Steve Parson. And I'll bet if I told him I was gonna fire up the time machine and hit him with a few five hundred dollar tickets for failing to check connection status IMMEDIATELY prior to a few launches in the days leading up to 2003/03/29 he'd throw his arms around my ankles and kiss my shoes soggy.
DarthVader - 2011/08/28
I did not feel sorry for him when he was in the hospital.
Even though I had an extremely strong dislike for that asshole at the time - I did.
Is that wrong?
No. I was. And that is NOT a mistake I'll be making again.
Try to find ONE WORD of apology to his victim, her family, or the hang gliding community. He didn't do anything wrong - just matter of shitt happening, coulda happened to anyone, just another highlight on his pilot resume, makes him an authority on the subject.
And he uses that authority (which, insanely, he DOES have) to kill the "JUST PRIOR TO LAUNCH" message/regulation...
Christian Williams - 2006/09/19
Joe Greblo teaches a hook-in check the instant before launch. To him, a hang check is part of the preflight and has no value in confirming that you are hooked in at the moment of launch.
...every chance he gets.
Tad's biggest downfall (in my opinion) is that he continually tries to label the people rather than their actions.
If someone you didn't hate were about to enter into a relationship with Jack and you only had time to yell six words before the train pulled out of range, what would they be?
Goddam right I've got huge database of labeled glider divers - think I'll put it up on my website. Wish I had had one thirty-one years ago - but three by five cards were expensive, bulky, and difficult to sort.
And elephants have really great memories so's they can differentiate the wildlife biologists and filmmakers from the ivory poachers.
My biggest downfall was that I really sucked at labeling people - BASED on their actions - thirty-one years ago.
But most of the time...
But - trust me - not THIS time. We're talkin' pure unadulterated sociopath. And we're mixing pure unadulterated sociopathy with - in effect - a complete absence of regulation and accountability.
His attitude, to me, seemed to be the exact opposite of Rooney's...it was quite a contrast.
I guard real heavily against having heroes in this sport but damn near everything I've ever heard from, attributed to, and about Joe makes me think very highly of him.
And Zack's saying Rooney's the polar opposite.
And Sam's singing in harmony with Rooney.
Do the math.
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