in which I invite Southwest Airlines to dine upon a phallus

I really hate the American propensity for lawsuits. Most folks do, I'm sure, right up until they get their chance.

      There's a suit in the pipeline that I'm watching with interest. Here:

Man sues Southwest Air after carry-on bag falls on him


        Apparently a heavy, oversized bag that got shoehorned into an overhead bin fell out and bonked him in the head, causing a pretty severe neck injury.


 I flew Southwest just about 4 weeks ago, and it was a good reminder of why I'm more than willing to pay a little more to NOT fly Southwest. It's a flying leper colony staffed by unwashed, hung-over-smelling folks who look like they combed their hair with a firecracker.

 Seriously, Southwest can eat a dick, and so can the shitty people I had to fly with. I guess Southwest is the official airline of housing project residents.

      I usually don't carry a checked bag when I'm flying. I keep a full wardrobe of oily, shitty clothes aboard HAWSEPIPER's Afloat Global HQ/House of Style. I fly with my laptop bag and a small gym bag containing my ditty bag, a decent pair of loafers, and a change of clothes. That's it. Meanwhile, everyone around me was stuffing hockey bags and full-sized suitcases in the overhead bins. It was total bullshit, as, since it was the holidays, the flight was full, and Southwest does cattle call random-ass seating, and the stewardess, herself sporting dandruff, a touch of B.O., and wearing a stained, wrinkled outfit that she had obviously slept in, tried pretty hard to get me to check my bag. Rather than make a scene and get fingered by a TSA agent for a second time (I figure one rape-style handjob from a dude per flight is enough), I politely said no, the bag contained medication, and would fit under my seat just fine. But seriously, I guess since I was the only one not sporting prison tattoos on my face and neck, I was the one who was going to be asked to check a bag. 

      Well, at any rate, we left the gate only 25 minutes late to handle last-minute maintenance. I guess doing that shit ahead of time like the other airlines do must be too expensive. I got where I was going, eventually, and the car service my company uses sent me a driver who I know a little, and is real nice, so I didn't lose my shit or anything. If anything, it made me happy(ish) to arrive at the Q and settle into work.

         Still, I cringe whenever I have to fly Southwest. I can handle the sardine-like density, the miniature armrests, the stewardesses who need to go to rehab. It's the passengers that truly kill me. I'm becoming a snob. I swear on Sting's flying metal codpiece from 'Dune' that I'll do all in my power to not fly them again.

Brazil and the 2014 'World Cups" (NSFW)

My wife and kid had to rush out to buy their Team Brasil soccer shirts before we moved, in anticipation of the cup games.

 But, sadly, not every lovely Brazilian lady can afford a team jersey, and of those that can, many find them awful hot in the Brazilian sun. Let's look at how they work around that. You know, for informational purposes.

Finally, some answers- IMPORTANT NEWS FROM BRAZIL

Well, the results are in, and we now have confirmation that Brazil has crowned this year's Miss BumBum, the owner of the most round and lovely backside in the world.
      Brazil has a lot of things deeply, deeply wrong with it. This is not one of them.

 Anyhow, judge for yourself. I'm inclined to think that, despite the controversy (there were accusations of Bribery by the 3rd place winner, which, knowing Brazil, means that she didn't offer to bribe whoever was in charge of security for the judges who she bribed), they chose well. She's pretty- not a knockout by Brazilian standards, but lovely all around, and with a 42-inch bottom, not in danger of being soon forgotten.

NOAA Done Gots Got

As a former commercial fisherman, it's perhaps no surprise that I'm not a huge fan of NOAA Fisheries, the ever-expanding and increasingly powerful agency of unelected Federal officials who are charged with ending managing commercial fishing in the United States.

 I was a fan once. Back when it was still called the National Marine Fisheries Service and guys like Bill Hogarth did his utmost to balance the needs and desires of business, fishermen, legislators, scientists and ignorant environmentalists (but I repeat myself) towards the management of US fisheries policy. This was back in the days when fishermen were allowed to be involved in the political process, and there wasn't a radical environmentalist hell-bent on an insane socialist agenda at the wheel at NOAA HQ.

 Well, I even have a friend who is working for these people. A good friend, one of the most intelligent people I know, who, unfortunately, drank the kool-aid but is currently not working or getting the salary he depends on to survive.

 Ironic. The .gov is doing to NOAA Fisheries exactly what NOAA fisheries is doing to fishermen.

much ado

After the past few days, it was wonderful to settle down here in my own place and get caught up on maintenance, painting and the like. We're still in the process of switching the deck paint from storm gray to deck red (the better to hide the blood!), so getting out there to fling nonskid and roll out the acres of hot steel has been a good opportunity to put my head down and lose myself in some mindless labor. A mini-vacation.

     In the meanwhile, we've been hosting visitors. I forget if I mentioned it, but a scene from the upcoming action movie 'Dead Man Down' was filmed aboard here, and Colin Farrell took his turns around HAWSEPIPER's afloat global HQ/ cinematic backdrop. Executives and functionaries working for the oil major who pulled a whoops on us and dumped sludge in our tanks also came to take a tour- killing two birds with one stone, in that they could see the scene where things went sideways and show some mid-level staff what a tank vessel looks like. They brought several lovely ladies with them, too, which was nice. Of course, everyone was more excited about our tomato plants than anything else. They've certainly been a nine days' wonder here on our steel beach in terms of novelty value, but I'm quickly coming to look forward to watering time, when I can do something a little out of routine in my day, so I can see their point.

The galley. Now featuring paint!

 I never feed Canada's flying rats. Except this time. The chicks were nice, as was the obvious parental care.

 View from atop the mast of an ATB

 Looking down the barge coupling- the gear visible at the bottom is the tugboat's retractable coupling- by extending it out from the hull of the tug and turning it 90 degrees with the hydraulics, the tugboat becomes rigidly connected to the barge.

    Watching a thundehead anvil up right over our heads was neat, as was the 30 seconds of warning we had when it was time to go inside and button up the house.

       

 Other than that, I'm not quite recovered from my adventures last week, mentally, which means that getting out of here early next week is coming at a timely time.

Disposable sailors and the price of piracy

I'm going to repost an op-ed piece that left me furious, regarding modern piracy. You can read the original HERE. Highlights follow.

Anti-pirate strike by seafarers not a good idea

by Greg Knowler.

Seaman’s unions from Hong Kong, China, the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam and even Russia all agreed that their seafarers had the right to refuse to board ships sailing through high-risk pirate areas.

It was estimated at the summit that around 100,000 seafarers man the ships that carry trade between Asia and Europe and if they all refused to board, well … that would be a disaster.

Seafarers are people too, of course, and like most people they don’t appreciate being detained, tortured and sometimes killed. But it is difficult to see any refuse-to-board initiative actually taking hold, even if the move could gain popular support.

Shipping associations and various carriers have described this latest move as a grave threat to world trade, which it certainly is.

In fact, if all the crew of all the ships planning to sail through the Suez Canal stayed on solid ground and refused to board it would do far more damage to trade and industry, and to world shipping, than could ever be wreaked by pirates.

There are so many vessels in operation that port windows are tight and relatively inflexible. Delays quickly snowball into congestion and any coordinated Asia-wide action would result in a mess of biblical proportions.

OK, so far a fairly cogent argument. The author contends that because (in his opinion) there is no immediate solution to piracy, business must continue as usual. Now, damn it, where have I heard this argument before?

THE SPICE MUST FLOW!




Oh, right.

Now, before we all sharpen our pitchforks, the usual pablum must be shoveled down our throats.

Naval patrols are welcome but they need to start boarding and scuttling mother ships that supply and allow the pirates to operate far from shore. Put armed guards on all vessels in danger areas and make sure their rules of engagement give them the authority to shoot to kill.

The Asia-Europe trade lane is quickly falling into the hands of pirates and it is time to take it back.

...and we must have ham if we are to have ham sandwiches. The usual statements are made.

Today's pirate-infested waters (as opposed to other remote places in Africa, the Carribbean and South America where piracy is an unusual, mostly opportunistic, but extant problem) share common geography with the pirate-infested waters of the middle ages. This isn't a new problem. However, the solutions employed two centuries ago aren't politically expedient these days.

I'm happy to see shipowners are starting to get nervous. Seafarers are being tortured and killed in sufficient number to make certain voyage routes unpalatable. The status quo is bad enough for them to make unionization possible, if only remotely so at this point. Now, with news that shipowners are pressuring seafarers to not report pirate attacks to help keep insurance costs down, it becomes blatantly obvious how little regard the well-being of sailors is being considered.
I'm not pointing my fingers at shipowners purely, either. There is an institutional disregard for seafarers, most of whom spend their lives without permanent employment; as such there is little incentive to worry about the well-being of casual employees who themselves owe no loyalty to ship or company. That's just the way it is.

I don't want to part here without mentioning again that I believe that the author is wrong in begging the question as to the issue of seafarers taking collective action in staying out of certain trade routes. The honest truth is that the process of getting a job on a ship, in most coutries, is so full of corruption and criminality, that an expedient solution to manning shortages, should it come to that, would be to simply have manning agents lie about the ship's plans during the hiring process. Once a seafarer is aboard, few of them have the financial ability to walk off a job should they refuse to sign on. The cost of an international flight may exceed the entire voyages' payout. As such, in my own opinion, it may be worthwhile to combat piracy through legislation; making it mandatory to protect the well-being of crew and vessel has always been the only way to ensure that there is even a modicum of protection available. Shipowners aren't going to volunteer to spend money. Who would?