News for January 16
January 16, 2009 by Barbara
Filed under News and Analysis
‘Miracle on the Hudson’
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Friday hailed the pilot of an airliner that crashed into the Hudson River without any loss of life as a hero. According to the BBC, Bloomberg called Capt. Chesley Sullenberger “incredibly brave,” and also honored everyone who helped rescue US Airways Airbus A3120’s 155 passengers. Bloggers and pilots have lauded Sullenberger for his quick and calm action that brought the plane down in relative safety, and are praising the training system that helped him bring about the landing. Links include:
TAPPED | “For those who are skeptical about organized labor, it’s worth remembering that unions strive for workplace safety and emergency preparedness, with clear repercussions for consumer safety. The individuals who performed heroically yesterday, as well as the passengers, who apparently remained calm and helped women and children off the plane, deserve all the credit for what the tabloids are calling “The Miracle on the Hudson,” but we shouldn’t forget the structural factors that contributed to the success of yesterday’s rescue.”
James Fallows @The Atlantic | “Why is riding a commercial airliner in the US statistically about the safest way you can spend your time? Partly it’s because of the advanced, powerful, and multiply-redundant nature of the machinery, and because of the regulatory standards to which it’s held. But the airlines’ extraordinarily safe record also says something about the skill, responsibility, and judgment of (most) people flying the craft. As it happens, nearly all flights are routine, and it becomes tempting to think of their crews as glorified bus drivers. But they’re conditioned to think, at every stage of every flight, What would I do if XXX went wrong, right now?”
Foreign Policy | “Kudos to Chesley Sullenberger, the US Airways pilot behind yesterday’s “miracle on the Hudson”. Fortunately, passenger jet crashes are extraordinarily infrequent worldwide. But for the aerophobes out there, here are two interesting lists of countries to avoid flying in, and airlines to avoid flying on.”
The Daily Beast | “It was a masterful piece of flying by Chesley B. Sullenberger, and no praise is too much. But let’s hear it for the plane too, the mute partner in what was a double act. Yesterday, plane and pilot were at the top of their game. At the Airbus headquarters in Toulouse they are surely sharing the relief that no passenger was lost. They are also remembering how long it took to get the A320 recognized for the fine machine it is.”
Andrew Sullivan @The Atlantic | “‘Snarge’: A noun for the bloody goo that remains of birds after making their way through a jet engine.”
‘We Cannot Live Without Our Lives Either’: Jews, Privilege and Anti-Subordination | Feministe
Here I have to pause to make an observation about oppression in general. Simply put: it’s complicated. To say that Jews are a subordinated group in the world is not to pass any judgment on the social realities of any other group – including their relationship to Jews. Rather, oppressions cross-cut. I do contend that every non-Jew in the world – atheist, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist – benefits from what we might call “Gentile privilege” vis-à-vis the Jew, insofar as they are not afflicted by the particular nexus of stereotypes, assumptions, prejudices, obstacles and standards that constitute anti-Semitic oppression. But I can say that and still simultaneously affirm that Jews, along with all other non-Muslims, are privileged as against Muslims along the contours of that oppression. In a world where both Jews and Muslims are oppressed, Jews have an advantage over Muslims for not being Muslim, and Muslims have an advantage over Jews for not being Jews. Similarly, one could say that Israel is in a privileged position compared to Palestinians locally (in terms of localized power in the Israel/Palestine conflict), while also arguing that Jews are subordinated compared to Arabs globally (in terms of globalized power to affect the terms of discourse and sanction in international institutions such as the UN). Christianity may have the advantage over Islam globally, while being very much on the bottom in, say, Iraq. Not only are these positions not inconsistent with each other, they are, in my view, essentially to avoiding the easy “oppression Olympics” trap.
The Power of Nonviolence | The Nation
Last spring The Nation Institute sponsored a forum at the Society for Ethical Culture in New York City on “Gandhi, King and the Power of Nonviolence: Alternatives to Force in the 21st Century.” The participants were Jonathan Schell, The Nation’s Peace and Disarmament correspondent, author of The Fate of the Earth and most recently, The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of Nuclear Danger; and Taylor Branch, author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning three-volume history of the Martin Luther King era. The moderator was the writer Suzannah Lessard. What follows is an edited transcript of the discussion.
Obama Goes to China | Hullabaloo
It has been my experience and reading of history generally that politics is rarely a gentlemanly debate about the public good but is rather a struggle between competing interests. And ideology is usually what binds these interests together through common values and worldviews. In our system those interests have historically formed coalitions within the two political parties which fight it out before the public. I’m sorry that’s unpleasant, but it’s usually the best humans can do short of killing each other.
From Jihad to Rehab | PBS’ ‘Wide Angle’
Fifteen of the 19 hijackers in the attacks of September 11, 2001 were from Saudi Arabia. In response, the Saudi government aggressively pursued domestic terrorists, dismantling Al Qaeda cells and rounding up thousands of people for questioning. But after the bombings on its own soil in Riyadh in 2003, the Saudi government adopted a softer approach to counterterrorism – therapy. This new method aims to counter fanatical ideology of detainees. Islamic religious scholars and leaders challenge the detainee’s violent interpretation of the Koran and highlight peaceful and charitable aspects of Islam. Egypt, Singapore, Indonesia, and the United States in Iraq are among the countries implementing similar programs. In From Jihad to Rehab, Canadian journalist Nancy Durham takes us inside a rehabilitation center in Saudi Arabia, where art therapy and religious re-education are being used to reform militant jihadists
Barbara Schwartz is the editorial director at the Xenia Institute. She lives in Oklahoma City, Okla., and currently is pursuing a Master of Divinity degree at Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa.
