In The News

Two news stories caught my attention recently . . .

The horrific crash of the commuter train outside Osaka, Japan that killed dozens of people is a damning indictment of greed and of the pressures of modern society. The commuter line was owned by Western Japan Railways, a private company providing local train service - not a regional or state public authority. So there was an obvious desire to keep the trains running on time to satisfy the bottom line. And part of that desire for profitability was what led the engineer to run the locomotive too fast; he was trying to keep up with the schedule, and he was running behind.

How far behind? Ninety seconds.

That's right - ninety seconds. A minute and a bleedin' half! I know the Japanese are so punctual they time everything down to the nanosecond, but is risking lives really worth it?

Meanwhile, on the lighter side . . ..  A Georgia woman believed to have been abducted a couple of days before her wedding turned up safe and sound in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Turns out Jennifer Wilbanks pretended to be kidnapped and tried to make it to Las Vegas (and I don't think it was Las Vegas, New Mexico she was headed for) because she had second thoughts about going through with her wedding. Anyway, the wedding itself is off, disappointing the six hundred invited guests. (Six hundred? Thee are still a few small towns in Georgia with fewer people than that!) The good news is that this "runaway bride" story likely won't inspire a BOATS (Based On A True Story) television movie, as a theatrically released movie starring Richard Gere and Julia Roberts that tells a similar tale has already been made. Hollywood, unoriginal as it is, isn't that derivative.

Is it? :-O