As most of you probably know, "random thoughts" is usually another way of saying, "I don't have enough material for a good story, so I'm going to string together a bunch of unrelated ideas." Fair enough, but I'm going to ask you to bear with me anyway, for some interesting odds and ends.
First off is
this fascinating series from Hell's Bible (That's
The New York Times, in case you were wondering), on a piece of history I really didn't know much about: the December 16, 1960 plane crash over New York City that killed 134 people - at the time, the deadliest plane crash in American history, and the first to involve a passenger jet aircraft. The death toll might seem modest compared to, for example, the World Trade Center bombing, but as this picture suggests, the horror on the streets was every bit as real. I happened on this while following a link to another story altogether, and it was an hour before I could stop reading. The overview is
here, but be sure to follow the link to
this affecting story about Barbara Lewnes, the nurse who stayed the night with Stephen Baltz, the young boy who for an all-too-short time was the only survivor of the crash.
Next up is
this piece from our loyal reader Suzanne, who thought it was something we might want to put on the blog. Gross? Disgusting? Probably. Free speech? Without a doubt. An accurate description of politicians? Can't say about the specific case, but in general,...
We've talked before about Bernie Ecclestone, the major domo of F1. (I probably ought to trademark that description.) A few weeks ago the 80-year old Ecclestone was mugged and roughed up a bit, but Bernie being Bernie,
he's turning it to his advantage.
So what do you know?
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