By now, we all know about this:
CHICAGO - Tow truck driver Mahdi Abdelqader was driving near Midway International Airport when a loud boom got his attention. He looked around and saw a Southwest Airlines jet that had been trying to land in heavy snow crash through a barrier and come to a stop atop a car on the street. He left his truck and ran to the scene. "The people in the car were screaming 'Help, Help,"' Abdelqader said Friday about Thursday night's accident. He said a man was able to get out of the car but a woman and two children in back couldn't. A 6-year-old boy from Indiana who was riding in the car was killed and at least 10 other people were injured. Abdelqader said he went over to the plane, its nose resting on the ground, and told the captain through a window that he smelled fuel.Flight 1248 from Baltimore touched down at Midway, Chicago's second largest airport after O'Hare International Airport, about 7:15 Thursday night. Though the airport had about 7 inches of snow, aviation officials said conditions at the time were acceptable. The plane skidded off the end of the runway and across a grassy area before it slammed through a barrier and into the street. The plane hit one vehicle and pinned another beneath it. The 6-year-old, who had been in the vehicle trapped under the plane, was identified as Joshua Woods of Leroy, Ind., said Sandra Flowers of the Cook County Medical Examiner's office. Kelly said Friday morning it was the first fatal accident involving a Southwest flight in the carrier's 35-year history. Passenger Mike Abate, 35, of suburban Milwaukee, said he could see from the plane that a man was carrying an injured child and that other people were taken away in an ambulance. "We were safe on the plane," he said. "The toughest part was to realize that someone was under the belly of the plane."
Southwest CEO Kelly said the plane had circled Midway for 30 to 35 minutes because of the weather and the flight traffic before it was cleared for landing on the airport's 6,500-foot runway. The airport, surrounded by homes and businesses, has shorter runways than most major airports, because it was originally built to handle smaller propeller planes. The larger ones land at O'Hare. "There are no indications that there are any maintenance problems with that aircraft whatsoever," Kelly said. He said the plane had a service check Wednesday in Phoenix. The plane, which was delivered to them last year "is practically brand new."
I can't count the times I've flown STL to CHI on Southwest to shop in the Loop, or spend the weekend there so I'm pretty familiar w/ Midway and that area. The street the plane jutted out onto is extremely busy and kinda narrow at that. It's a very sad day for all concerned but could have been so much worse! Amazingly, this accident occurred 33 years to the day after a crash at Midway that killed 45 people, two of them on the ground. In that crash, a United Airlines jet struck tree branches about a mile from the airport, then hit the roofs of a number of bungalows before plowing into a home, bursting into flames. Eighteen passengers survived. And now Southwest no longer has a spotless record -- nearly 35 years of service w/out a fatality.
Despite all that, I still miss the snow. I'll IL born and bred and this mild crap down here just isn't cutting it. It's cold right now, very unseasonably cold but there's never a chance of snow. Sometimes we get sleet. Yahoo. But I dream about this:
Except I don't live on Fifth Avenue in NYC. *sigh*
On the funny side, my sister sent me these:
A woman and a baby were in the doctor's examining room, waiting for the doctor to come in for the baby's first exam.
The doctor arrived, examined the baby, checked his weight, and being a little concerned, asked if the baby was breast-fed or bottle-fed. "Breast-fed" she replied.
"Well, strip down to your waist," the doctor ordered. She did. He pinched her nipples, then pressed, kneaded, and rubbed both breasts for a while in a detailed examination.
Motioning to her to get dressed, he said, "No wonder this baby is underweight. You don't have any milk."
"I know," she said, "I'm his Grandma, but I'm glad I came."
Oh, me.
PHARMACOLOGY UPDATE
In pharmacology, all drugs have two names - a trade name and a generic name. For example, the trade name Tylenol is acetaminophen.
Aleve is known as naproxen, Amoxil is amoxicillin, and Advil is ibuprophen.
The FDA has been looking for a generic name for Viagra. After consideration by a team of experts, it recently announced it has settled on the generic name of mycoxafloppin. Also considered were mycoxafailin, mydixadrupin, mydixarizin, mydixadud, dixafix, and of course ibepokin.
Pfizer Corp. is making an announcement today that Viagra will soon be
available in liquid form and will be marketed by Pepsi Cola as a powe beverage suitable for use as a mixer. Pepsi's proposed ad campaign claims it will now be possible for a man to literally pour himself a stiff one.
Obviously, we can no longer call this a soft drink. This additive gives new meaning to the names of cocktails and highballs. Pepsi will market the new formula by the name, Mount & Do.
The long term implications of drugs and medical procedures must be fully considered. Over the past five years, Americans have spent more money on breast implants and Viagra than was spent on Alzheimer's research. It is believed that by the year 2030, there will be a large number of people wandering around with perky breasts and erections who can't remember what to do with them.
I've not forgotten (or forgiven those responsible) my lost blog and photo album, but I'm trying very hard to live w/ it. But for now, the only thing I'm going to say is
. I keep a lot to myself ... probably why I have an ulcer. I keep a lot inside, always have. Probably no one knows the real me. Trust me, you're better off.Have you heard about the laughing dogs? Now this is for real -- read this carefully because I'm convinced my little wolfie laughs her fool head off:
Researchers at the Spokane County Regional Animal Protection Service in Washington state say sometimes a bark is just a bark — but a long, loud panting sound has real meaning. They say the long, loud pant is the sound of a dog laughing, and it has a direct impact on the behavior of other dogs. "What we found is that it had a calming or soothing effect on the dogs," said Patricia Simonet, an animal behaviorist in Spokane who has studied everything from hamster culture to elephant self-recognition. "Now, we actually really weren't expecting that." Nancy Hill, director of Spokane County Animal Protection, admits she was skeptical at first that this noise would affect the other dogs. "I thought: Laughing dogs?" Hill said. "A sound that we're gonna isolate and play in the shelter? I was a real skeptic … until we played the recording here at the shelter." When they played the sound of a dog panting over the loudspeaker, the gaggle of dogs at the shelter kept right on barking. But when they played the dog version of laughing, all 15 barking dogs went quiet within about a minute. "It was a night-and-day difference," Hill said. "It was absolutely phenomenal." Officials say it works every time, and researchers across the country are taking note. "The laughing sound that they make is something that was not even considered a vocalization until this study was done," Simonet said. Those who study dog behavior have varying opinions about exactly what Patricia Simonet's "dog laughing" sound really is. What they do agree on, however, is that to other dogs, it is at least a sound worth keeping quiet to listen to.
And I'm telling you, Legs laughs herself silly sometimes. Except I didn't know she was actually laughing until I saw this piece on Good Morning America. I knew I was laughing but I thought I was laughing at her, not with her. *sigh* Nevermind.
