Being without power all day yesterday while Edison worked on lines the temp here inside my cottage in Bodfish reached 100 degrees and the outside temp was 115. I’ve lived without either A/C or swamp cooler in this place for fifteen years now, but to be without even a fan really made it miserable at my advanced age. The paramedics were kept busy with people that couldn’t handle the situation, and I was reminded once more of living on the mining claim those decades ago without any utilities, of how my great-grandmother and grandmother especially endured the harsh temperatures both summer and winter without complaint. But having become accustomed to the many conveniences provided by electricity, I know how the sudden loss of this can impact us, sometimes catastrophically. We are no longer a nation prepared to live as so many of us did back in the 30s and 40s. Ice boxes, wind-up phonographs and wood cook stoves for example are now “collectibles.”

The oppressive heat wave we are presently suffering here in Kern County makes it difficult to think, and sometimes even difficult to see. But even without the heat as a factor, sometimes we look but we don’t see. You can take a small child to the corner of a street to teach them about the hazards of cars, warning them how important it is for them to always look both directions before crossing the street. The child will dutifully do as directed; but if they are too young to understand the hazards, if left alone they will look both directions as warned to do and then step right in front of an oncoming vehicle. The lesson to be learned from this has many applications to adults. And though having failed in my own attempts at a Darwin Award, some that have attained this distinction were the victims of failing to learn the lesson.

Having had a lifelong love affair with airplanes from building models as a boy and eventually becoming a pilot, and owning two planes when it was not quite the hobby for the wealthy it has become, I was distressed when I read of this incident last year: AP August 3: “An experimental plane crashed, killing two people, because the ailerons were incorrectly connected to the control stick, federal safety officials said… The flight was the first since the plane’s aileron linkage had been disconnected and reassembled during a maintenance check, the NTSB said.”

First, I will repeat something I wrote at the time following this incident: Every month I would devour the AOPA publication, especially the section of the magazine having to do with accidents due to pilot error. In many such cases the accidents were the result of a lapse in performing essential preflight duties. But in the case of the cited crash it was caused by the failure of the pilot to do one of the most fundamental tasks of all. Once you have taxied to your takeoff position you do a run-up for an instrument check, then you do a visual of your control surfaces to make certain they are responding correctly. Had the pilot done this latter he would have noticed immediately the incorrect action of the ailerons. The omission of performing this essential and most fundamental of tasks cost the life of him and his passenger. When a pilot becomes apathetic to the point of failing to perform the most fundamental of tasks before taking off the result is too often catastrophic. But it is human nature to become apathetic about such things. After you have had a thousand successful takeoffs without accident, a false sense of security can lead to becoming merely perfunctory in your preflight duties...

It occurred to me some time later that an experienced pilot, especially one with high time, might look out of the cockpit while moving the controls and see the ailerons responding, but fail to notice they were not moving as they should. How is such a thing possible? Because if you have done something a thousand times and there has been no other result you may only see what you expect to see. And a high time pilot especially would not expect to see his ailerons moving incorrectly; all he would see is they were moving in response to the yoke or stick, and though rigged incorrectly there may well be no difference felt by the pilot to the control actions. As inexcusable as it is, the pilot of a DC-3 failed to remove the elevator chocks before taking off, this despite a “walk-around.”

A momentary lack of focus on things of importance is all that is necessary to cause disaster. The use of cell phones or other distractions have accounted for many accidents, even deaths because of their being distractions from being focused on the most important thing, driving the car. There may even be a failure to exercise caution or respond correctly when faced with imminent danger because of a momentary befuddling of the brain for any number of reasons.

One of my closest friends, a pilot who had flown fighters in WWII and Korea told me of the time when he was coming in for a landing and saw the red light flashing from the tower while his radio was blasting a warning and the horn was sounding in the cockpit, all of this because he had not lowered his landing gear. But none of this registered in his mind. Fortunately at the very last minute his brain kicked in and he narrowly avoided a disaster.

Once he landed an explanation was demanded of him, but the only explanation he had to offer was there was so much commotion and noise going on all at the same time none of it penetrated his consciousness. The constant drill of repetition over and over of performing some tasks can lead to apathy, even stupefaction in an emergency. And while this does not always result in disaster, airplanes are most unforgiving of any delinquency in performing dull but essential tasks. In the case of politicians and others giving lip-service to “concern” for children, most of it amounts to little more than noise and commotion in the face of impending disaster. And though the noise and commotion, “sound and fury signifying nothing” may be well-intended, these alone do not get the needed attention to the reality of an impending disaster, but may even become a kind of “overload” obscuring, even defeating their purpose.

The blasting noise from TV accompanying so many programs and commercials are the result of those that believe this is the only way they can get the attention of viewers. What they do not seem to comprehend is such noise drives away sensible people who want to maintain their sensibility.

There is an imminent danger America is facing because of terrorism, but when politicians are clearly motivated only by their own selfish self interest how are We the People to know what dangers are really threatening us? Scare tactics in the face of such selfishness and refusal to do even the most rudimentary thing like securing our borders only amounts to noise from DC, but it is the kind of noise that can confound and confuse, that prevents focus and critical thinking.

I’m gratified to read my friend Kathleen Parker finally coming out in favor of legalizing marijuana; but as she points out the issue needs legitimate debate removed from the politicians that profit from drugs, both legal and illegal. There is a host of issues We the People had better begin raising our voices about and those with a bully pulpit like Kathleen Parker, Lou Dobbs and others can certainly help. But it is still going to be We the People alone that can make the real difference. Small wonder some politicians are afraid of talk radio. In the words of Scripture, “None dare come into the light lest their evil deeds be exposed.”

Even as we suffer from the heat wave here in Kern County I realize we Americans have far less to fear from climate change for whatever reason than we have from those in DC deciding what is “best” for We the People. The Bush/Libby affair as with Clinton’s wholesale pardons for the crooks that supported that infamous couple is a cancer that has spread throughout our government, one that thrives and threatens because of the hypocrisy of politicians that are so corrupt none dare hold any of the others accountable for fear of exposing themselves.