The Value of Lives vs. the Cost of Technology

Yesterday, a devastating train wreck in Dupont, Washington took human lives and caused serious injuries to dozens of passengers when a southbound train on its maiden high-speed voyage was about to encounter a looming, yet preventable, mini-Titanic situation.

Approaching a curve at 80 miles per hour instead of the designated 30-mile per hour limit, the speeding train (Amtrak Cascades 501)  could not reverse the laws of physics as it spilled its passenger-laden rail cars helter-skelter into the woods, off an overpass, and onto an interstate.

A Youthful Contender Aims for the Brass Ring.

Of the three Bridgewater candidates in the race for two open seats on the Bridgewater-Raritan Board of Education (BR-BOE) is Zachary Malek, a recent graduate of Bridgewater-Raritan High School, and a new face in his quest for public service. 

 

Malek is in his first year at Rutgers, where he is majoring in political science.  Should he be elected, he will be one of a few, if not only the second person of his age ever to win election to such a responsibility in New Jersey.

This is not a run-of-the-mill school board election, because the other two candidates are heavily experienced in school board affairs.  One is an incumbent, while the other is a previous board member.

So why consider Zachary Malek? Why place your bet on a young man studying at Rutgers?

Equifax Reports Hack of 143 Million Consumer Records

At a time when the nation’s attention is turned to the hurricane disasters of Irma in Florida and Harvey in the Houston area, Equifax, one of three large credit reporting agencies in the U.S. chose, in true political fashion, to disclose that its customer credit data base has been compromised -- 143 million social security numbers and other personal information records are now in the hands of cyber criminals.

Equifax discovered this breach in July but did not report it until late this week and after certain executives of the company had sold some of their stock.

Company representatives said that the executives had no prior knowledge of the cyber attack.

A class-action lawsuit has already been filed against Equifax, and its stock dropped by 14% in this Friday’s trading.

Camino Island

Captivating Reading

This mystery novel spins a story of romance and local color, effectively weaving them together into a yarn with books, writers, deception, and stolen manuscripts, culminating into a frantic search to find the latter before they quietly disappear into the underground libraries of wealthy private collectors.

Author John Grisham will command your attention as he moves you through this fast-paced drama in a desperate race against time to solve the heist of five original, handwritten works by renowned author, F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Allegedly stored in a rare books vault at an undisclosed location within the Firestone Library of Princeton University, Fitzgerald’s original manuscripts, Tender is the Night, The Great Gatsby, The Last Tycoon, This Side of Paradise, and The Beautiful and Damned are protected by sophisticated technology in a climate-controlled environment.

Dunkirk – The Cost of War.

Credit: Set Photo, Christopher Nolan Movie, Dunkirk

The first and most obvious cost of war is the violent loss of lives and of its aftereffects upon survivors in the form of PTSD.  The other cost, ironically, is to be unprepared for war.

 

Sounds somewhat oxymoronic, does it not? But paying for the cost of preparedness may be the precondition to avoiding or minimizing the former: This concept was demonstrated during the long years of the Cold War between America and Russia.

Dunkirk:  At the onset of World War Two, the stranding of over 300,000 British and French troops who were driven to the edge of the sea on the beaches of Dunkirk, France, by German forces, abundantly underscores the fallacy of appeasement, a disastrous policy adopted by British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain.

FALL from GRACE

Dust cover from the hardback book.

Fall from Grace, written by master storyteller Richard North Patterson, a former trial lawyer turned author, is an excellent choice for summer reading.

The plot is set on Martha’s Vineyard, as are those of the other books in this trilogy, Loss of Innocence, and Eden in Winter. Not coincidentally, the Vineyard is also Patterson’s summer home.

As the denouement of this tale progresses, it tears at the heart and soul of the Blaine family, where intrigue, mystery, and complex relationships rule its days.

Benjamin Blaine, alpha personality, principal protagonist, and renowned author drives himself to success and fame, yet becomes dysfunctional within his own family.

Duty and Honor

From the Paperback Version

Jack Ryan Jr appears once again in this novel that partially owes its success to the fame of Tom Clancy, but which was penned by Grant Blackwood following Clancy’s death in 2013.

It was The Hunt for Red October that propelled Clancy to the best-seller lists, especially after Ronald Reagan’s endorsement of that book as being “my kind of yarn.”

In this more current tale, Jack Ryan Jr, son of President Ryan, finds himself being tracked for assassination.  He doesn’t know who is attempting to find and eliminate him; nor does he know why.

And he doesn’t want his famous dad’s help.

Somewhere Safe . . .

. . . With Somebody Good is the title of Jan Karon’s book, one her latest in the life of small-town Mitford.  Karon is a prolific and easy to read author. 

Nonetheless, her series of tales about the mythical town of Mitford has grown into at least nine books, all of which are better read in sequence.

I discovered this when I purchased Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good at a Barnes & Noble book store in Washington, D.C. during one of my visits there.

It’s much more enjoyable to have read Karon’s books about life in Mitford in the order in which they were written.

The plot lines in Somewhere Safe . . .  resolve around the servant leadership of an Episcopal parish priest, Tim Cavanagh and his wife Cynthia, both of whom become the center of life in their little corner of the world. 

 

Father Tim evokes a time when residing in  and participating with the activities and rituals of a Christian parish was at the core of life for many people. 

The Upcoming Insipid New Jersey Primaries?

Jack Ciattarelli at an April, 2013 Town Hall Meeting

According to an article in Sunday’s The New York Times, the interest being demonstrated by Garden State voters to the gubernatorial primary elections which will be held on June 6, are of little interest.

That’s too bad, but not unanticipated given that rarely do primaries garner much attention.

Moreover, the Times story used up most of its ink naming and discussing the Democrat candidates, giving negligible attention to the other side of the aisle.

The only reference to the GOP was that of Democrat front runner Phil Murphy’s criticism of “the transportation plans of Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, one of two main candidates running in the Republican primary,” according to Nick Corasaniti, writer of the Times report.

The Virus Infecting Political Discourse

In the aftermath of the national elections, rancor continues to rise in a crescendo of ill-will.  It’s happening on a daily basis, hour-by-hour. The civility and mutual courtesy which once existed between and within the Congressional and Executive branches seem to have melted away in the last three decades.

Lately, I’ve recused myself from publicly sharing my views and commentaries on this blog, refusing to wade into the muck.  Yet the Public Square will not go away, and there are no rocks to hide under.

But don’t expect my blog to justify one side of the political argument or the other during your reading of this essay.  Very few people are listening these days except to the sound of their own voices, insisting that they are correct and, therefore, that all others are wrong.  I hope you are different.