Shawnee Hills – April 22, 2014 – The drowning of a 63-year-old man at Shawnee Lake on Tuesday is under investigation. Here’s the full story from WHIO-TV, Newscenter 7 :
http://www.whio.com/news/news/local/search-missing-boater-shawnee-lake/nffcy/
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Drowning at Shawnee Lake under investigation
In Local News, Uncategorized on April 23, 2014 at 9:52 amMore family advocacy needed for elder care
In Children and Family, Health, Opinion, psychology, Religion, Senior Lifestyle, sociology, Uncategorized on April 16, 2014 at 1:31 pm
Caring for an aging parent is, in my opinion, one of the most difficult and often painful experiences life throws our way. Providing a safe, healthy environment for an elderly family member is just as taxing as doing the same for a child.
What makes this process even harder is when the parent is resistant to help or simply won’t accept that they are no longer in a position to take care of themselves. Poor decisions, an inability to recognize when driving has become hazardous and, worst of all, when they will listen to anyone’s advice but that of their children, complicates the care process and causes serious damage to the parent/child relationship.
It’s hard to watch parents age and knowing you’re headed the same direction only solidifies the reality of it all. It’s harder still when they resist every attempt to maintain their health and sometimes doctors undermine your efforts by telling them they don’t have to do anything they don’t want to.
I understand that people need to make their own choices, but some shrink in a hospital cannot possibly know an individual’s mental status by talking to them once for three minutes and asking a half dozen pointless questions. “Do you know where you are? Do you know what day it is? Can you draw this box? Write your name.” “Draw this box,” are they kidding?
How about we ask them what their checking account number is, or the name of their insurance company? How about asking when they last paid their phone bill? These are vital questions to someone who is supposedly “competent” and yet this is not what is included in a psychiatric evaluation for a senior’s ability to make his or her own decisions.
Then there are those who are intent on taking advantage of the elderly person’s desire to feel “needed” and useful. These individuals worm their way into the lives of the elderly, showering them with compliments and creating a rift between the senior and his or her family. These unscrupulous people are trying to get money and property away from the senior and alienate children and others who are trying to protect their interests.
Deer In Headlines author Gery Deer is helping his brother Gary Jr and sister Cathy to take care of their father, Gary Sr. and it’s rarely easy work.
Laws addressing the rights of seniors, as well as those regarding patient rights, seem to take no account to dementia and speak only to protecting them from family members bent on securing money or locking them away in a nursing home. What about those of us who are trying to protect our parents and provide a safe, secure life for them in their own home as long as possible? Where is our protection and support? There is none.
Preserving a person’s dignity is difficult enough without being able to handle even the most basic decisions absent a mile of legal documents in place only to provide more money for lawyers. Power of attorney documents are meaningless unless the person is thoroughly incapacitated and no one will help without signing over deeds and financial statements.
Believe it or not, sometimes money has nothing to do with it! There are actually situations when families are trying to preserve an aging parent’s lifestyle, dignity and financial security. Someone should be out there advocating for us, not making it harder. Unless you’re loaded with money, there is just no support for people dealing with this kind of problem.
So what is to be done? Good question. I am all for protecting the rights of the elderly and maintaining their ability to make decisions, but there are many degrees of incompetence between fully cognizant and Alzheimer’s dementia and that should be taken into account.
My mother lost all of her reasoning ability as Alzheimer’s set in and it nearly bankrupted my family to get her under a guardianship so we could keep her safe and well-cared for. But when a senior has some competence but not all, that needs to be addressed and the family should be able to have some advocacy for protecting the interest of that individual without so many roadblocks.
Legislation should be put into place for the varying degrees of dementia and stop relying on the ‘one size fits all’ psychiatric evaluations that prove nothing more than the person can read a calendar.
Gery L. Deer is the editor and publisher of The Jamestown Comet.com an independent columnist and business writer based in Jamestown, Ohio. More at http://www.gerydeer.com.
Crafters Lodge to host two-day t-shirt quilt workshop
In Business, Children and Family, Education, Entertainment, Health, Holiday, Local News, Senior Lifestyle, Uncategorized on April 16, 2014 at 1:20 pm
Sugarcreek Twp., OH – Nearly every event a student attends as he or she goes through school is commemorated by a t-shirt. Crafters Lodge in Sugarcreek Township, is providing a two-day course on transforming those keepsake tees into a cherished family heirloom – the t-shirt quilt.
On Sunday April 27th and Sunday May 4th, Crafters Lodge, located at 6056 Wilmington Pike, just behind Fazoli’s, will host a t-shirt quilting class. The two-day class will provide complete instruction, from start to finish, for a fee of $35 for both days, not including materials. Participants must purchase their own supplies and costs vary based on the materials chosen.
A t-shirt quilt is made up of the artwork from cherished t-shirts commemorating everything from a student’s first day of school or high school prom to concerts and extracurricular events. The artwork is cut from the fronts and backs of the shirts and sewn together to make a quilt. Jo Beth Bryant is co-owner of Crafters Lodge.
“Registered students should stop by the store at least two or three days prior to the first class for instruction on how to prep the T-shirts,” Bryant says. “Having the shirts prepped prior to class will allow the student to begin the layout and design process sooner and thus finish the quilt in a shorter amount of time.”
Teaching the upcoming class is life-long needleworker, Wendy Crawford. A veteran of 4-H and Girl Scout sewing competitions, Crawford started making baby quilts while in junior high school. She turned to hand quilting after inheriting a quilter’s estate and is now a certified Gammill (Long Arm) operator with more than 350 quilts under her belt. Today, she enjoys sharing her knowledge with the local community after an absence from teaching.
Crafters Lodge opened in September of 2013 and offers high-end supplies and expertise to the serious crafter. In addition to the t-shirt quilting course, the store also offers classes in fiber arts (knitting, weaving, tatting, etc.), tole painting, stained glass and more.
Registration for the t-shirt quilting class is limited and participants are required to bring their own sewing machines. Crafters Lodge is open Tuesday through Saturday 11:00 am to 8:00pm, Sunday noon to 6:00 pm and closed on Monday. For more information and a schedule of classes, visit the store’s website, http://www.crafterslodge.com or call (937) 470-2649.
Campaign educates drivers about distracted driving
In Children and Family, Education, Environment, Health, Local News, Technology, Uncategorized on April 2, 2014 at 7:19 pm
XENIA, OH – In an effort to make our roads safer, the Greene County Safe Communities Coalition announced today that it has joined the “One Text or Call Could Wreck It All” campaign to stop distracted driving. April is National Distracted Driving Awareness Month and the Coalition has pledged its support to help spread the message that distracted drivers are not only a danger to themselves, but everyone else on the road.
“We all know that talking on our cell phones while driving is distracting, but that doesn’t stop most people from continuing to do it,” said Laurie Fox, Safe Communities Coordinator. “This effort is intended to educate our community about the dangers of cell phone use and other distractions while driving. We hope that once people see the statistics and realize the danger involved, they will change their driving habits to help protect themselves, their families, and others on the road.”
In 2012, 3,328 people were killed in crashes involving a distracted driver and an estimated additional 421,000 were injured in motor vehicle crashes involving a distracted driver. That same year, eleven percent of fatal crashes were reported as distraction-affected crashes.
While anything that takes your eyes off the road, hands off the wheel, or mind off the task of driving is a hazard, there is heightened concern about the risks of texting while driving because it combines all three types of distraction – visual, manual and cognitive.
The national distracted driving effort focuses on ways to change the behavior of drivers through legislation, enforcement, public awareness and education – the same activities that have curbed drunk driving and increased seat belt use.
“Every driver in Greene County has a role in this effort,” said Fox. “However, we especially want to reach out to parents with teen drivers because we know that statistically, the under-20 age group had the highest proportion of distracted drivers involved in fatal crashes.”
The Coalition’s goal is simple – save lives by getting drivers to remember that “One Text or Call Could Wreck It All.” All drivers are encouraged to put down the phone and arrive alive.
For more information about distracted driving, please visit www.distraction.gov, or you can contact Laurie Fox at 937-374-5669 or lfox@gcchd.org.
Alas, the plight of the plastic shopping bag
In Business, Economy, Education, Environment, Health, history, National News, Opinion, Politics, Science, Uncategorized on March 31, 2014 at 8:42 amDeer In Headlines
By Gery L. Deer
The Jamestown Comet Editor
Take a look around outside after a storm and you’ll see them, clinging to the lathe of a garden fence like barnacles to a ship’s hull – those sad, indigent, plastic shopping bags. They’re everywhere, bouncing along the roadside, hung up in the branches of your backyard tree, even melted and tangled around the undercarriage of your car. Once revered for their strength and amazingly useful handles, these marvels of modern shopping are now the scourge of environmental political correctness.
With humble beginnings in 1950s Sweden, the modern plastic shopping bag was the creation of engineer Sten Gustaf Thulin who developed the simple, one-piece bag for Celloplast, the company which patented the design in 1965. Popularity of the product grew rapidly, for a time even knocking paper bags into relative obscurity.
Never again would husbands need worry about earning a night in the doghouse after losing a gallon of milk to the pavement when it crashed through the bottom of a wet paper sack. But, it was that set of wonderfully brilliant handles that really endeared the bags to shoppers. Since the dawn of time, mothers everywhere have struggled on shopping trips to juggle groceries and family.
With plastic bags, Mom now had the ability to carry half a dozen fully loaded bags on her arms while clutching Junior in one hand and the dog’s leash in the other. Her world now under complete control, at least for one brief moment, thanks to a simple pair of parallel holes in a plastic tube. Once the groceries were put away, she could even re-use them to line the bathroom wastebasket with a water-proof bag that fit both the can and her household budget.
There was no doubt the plastic shopping bag was truly a miracle of modern commerce. By 1982, most major grocery chains, including Kroger, began replacing paper shopping bags with plastic citing cost savings and customer preference. Sadly, however, as with most other success stories, rival jealousy led to ridicule and scrutiny, mostly from operatives of the paper bag industry determined to unseat the plastic bag from its world-wide fame.
By the 1990s, world ecologists became increasingly vocal about plastic’s potentially destructive effects on the environment. Soon, the plastic shopping bag became an innocent by-stander, caught up in the ever increasing fight between good and evil, liberal and conservative, environmentalist and capitalist – or whoever was paying the most lobbyists. More than ever, environmental groups were touting the need for more extensive use of recyclable materials in consumer goods.
Almost overnight, the plastic shopping bag became the poster child for everything wrong with the environment as pundits heatedly debated their recyclability on cable news and in fiercely negative op-eds. As usual, the critics had it all wrong because plastic shopping bags were every bit as recyclable as their paper counterparts, but were, in a way, victims of their own success.
As it turned out, the very innovations that made plastic shopping bags so powerful in the supermarket were like Kryptonite to the sorting machines used in recycling. When put through, they bound up the machinery and left it jammed and inert, and the cost to overcome that problem outweighed the benefits.
For years, rumors of a plastic bag uprising have permeated the media, suggesting that millions of these poor, trodden-down bags were massing a resistance in landfills all over America. There, they waited silently, collectively preparing to strike back against their opposition by refusing to decompose, even over thousands of years.
Sadly, an empty threat, since the structure of a landfill is meant to keep the refuse dry and stable, limiting degradation. Nothing is intended to fully decompose; not paper, not food, not plastic … nothing. In fact, newspapers buried in the 1960s have recently been exhumed intact and readable.
Perhaps one day, the full truth of their story will be exposed and plastic shopping bags will regain their once proud position at the end of the checkout. But for now, these bags exist as second-class totes, drifting like tumbleweeds on the wind, dancing their lament of a time when they were kings of the market.
Deer In Headlines is available for syndication. Contact GLD Enterprises Commercial Writing – http://www.gldenterprises.net.
Long-running BNI chapter to hold visitors day April 3
In Business, Dayton Ohio News, Economy, Local News, Media, Technology, Uncategorized on March 30, 2014 at 2:18 am
Greater Dayton Professionals BNI Chapter was originally established more than 14 years ago.
BEAVERCREEK, OH – The Greater Dayton Professionals Chapter of Business Network International (BNI), will hold a visitors day event from 7:30 am to 9:30 am on Thursday, April 3, at the Event Connections, 4140 Linden Avenue in Dayton. The free, no-obligation networking event is open to all entrepreneurs, business managers and sales professionals in the Dayton/Miami Valley region.
The Greater Dayton Professionals BNI Chapter is one of the oldest of 23 in the Miami Valley region, having been established early in 1999. Founded in 1985 by professional networking guru Dr. Ivan Misner, BNI has more than 6,400 chapters world-wide. According to the leadership team of the Greater Dayton Professionals chapter, BNI’s purpose is to help members create a wide-reaching, profitable referral network free of internal competition, something unavailable from chamber organizations or service clubs.
Along with the open networking opportunity, each participant will have the chance to introduce themselves to the group and give a one-minute sales presentation. Many of the Greater Dayton Professionals BNI members will feature table displays and there will be a special presentation on referral-based marketing by BNI Executive Director Darrel Bender.
Greater Dayton Professionals Chapter Vice President and Public Relations Coordinator, Gery L. Deer.
Gery L. Deer, of GLD Enterprises Commercial Writing, is the vice president and public relations coordinator for the chapter. “We are interested in meeting highly motivated, professional business leaders who want to increase their sales as much as 30-percent from referral marketing,” Deer says.
“This event provides our visitors with the opportunity to observe the process first-hand and see the success achieved by our members.” He also added that in 2013, his chapter members passed between them nearly a half-million dollars in closed business and just under $100,000 since January 1st of this year.
Using the organizational philosophy called “Givers Gain” members trade in fully-qualified, outside referrals rather than open-ended, unchecked leads. “In order to pass a referral to another member of our chapter, the giver is required to have already communicated with the subject beforehand,” Deer explains. “Qualifying the referral in this way before passing it, rather than giving random leads is what separates BNI from other organizations and nearly assures a closed sale.”
At present, the Greater Dayton Professionals BNI Chapter is looking for applicants to fill a host of classifications including electrician, printer, banker, health insurance provider, property title agency and more. Visitors to the chapter are encouraged to bring plenty of business cards and invite others to accompany them to the event.
A brief visitor orientation will be held immediately following the business meeting. For more information go online to http://www.greaterdaytonpros.com or contact chapter public relations coordinator, Gery L. Deer, at (937) 902-4857 or email gdeer@gldenterprises.net.
It takes a maverick to make a difference
In Education, National News, Opinion, Politics, psychology, Religion, Science, sociology, State News, Uncategorized, World News on March 24, 2014 at 7:59 amAccording to one definition, a maverick is, “an unorthodox or independent-minded person.” But a maverick is also someone who chooses not to give in to the pressures of society, breaking ranks, not for personal gain, but in an effort to improve conditions or expand knowledge for everyone.
In the 16th Century, the now revered scientist Galileo Galilei would certainly have fit the definition of maverick. At a time when the church kept tight control over the public’s understanding of the world around them, Galileo’s challenge that the earth was not actually the center of the universe but instead part of a solar system with our sun at its center was controversial.
Of course he was eventually proven right, but standing against such a powerful entity as the Catholic Church sent Galileo to be tried for heresy. There are countless cases like this throughout history, most related to individuals who chose to challenge long-standing beliefs in politics or religion.
Today, as in Galileo’s time, society is taught and expected, from an early age, to keep quiet; never to upset the status quo for fear of retribution. Those willing to stand up and be heard shape the most change in the world, but often pay a high price for their contribution to progress. Much of what society deems acceptable is dependent on one’s position and the sphere of influence there encompassed.
For example, it is unacceptable in many religious groups for a married couple to divorce. They are expected to remain together indefinitely for the good of the church, their families and so on, regardless of the situation, even in cases of physical abuse. It stands to reason, therefore, that the first few individuals who challenged these rules were certainly dealt with harshly. Fortunately, over time, this type of censure has eased somewhat, at least publically.
On the whole, it is difficult to greatly influence public perception and alter the behavior of a society or to get people to remove the blinders of ideology and accept the possibility that there are other ways of thinking. Ignorance, prejudice and misunderstanding usually lead to fear and resistance.
It should also be made clear that religious groups are certainly not alone in such ridiculously judgmental behavior. Anyone who challenges established norms can find themselves on the receiving end of some pretty unpleasant retribution, particularly in the workplace.
Often employees are never to question authority or decisions made by their superiors, otherwise face reprisal. But what does one do when superiors are actually breaking the law? In 1989, Congress passed the Whistleblower Protection Act. The law is designed to shield workers against retaliatory personnel action – meaning, essentially, it keeps them from being fired – for “blowing the whistle” on illegal activities perpetrated by their employers.
Unfortunately, there is no such protection for the everyday person who simply wants to do the right thing. From Moses and Lady Godiva to Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, taking a stand to alter deeply engrained social beliefs has never been a task for the weak-hearted.
Most people are discouraged by how much retribution might be taken out on them for going against the grain. Sometimes, however, just standing up for the little things can help to affect larger changes. Making a difference in the boardroom, at school or even in the hallowed halls of church might ruffle some feathers, but if the purpose is worthwhile, it would be wrong not to do something.
So, what about those by-standers who agree with the maverick but are afraid to stand with her? If only one other person supported the cause then another would as well, then another, and another. That’s how revolutions are started in the face of resistance. So the next time you see an injustice being done and you have the opportunity to act, what will it be: Maverick or conformist? Ω
Gery L. Deer is an independent columnist and business contributor to the WDTN-TV2 program, “Living Dayton.” More at www.gerydeer.com.
Possible meth lab explosion in downtown Jamestown
In Dayton Ohio News, Local News, National News, News Media, Uncategorized on March 21, 2014 at 8:42 am
Jamestown home at 10 S. Buckles ripped apart by possible meth lab explosion. Photo courtesy WKEF-22 News Video.
JAMESTOWN – Authorities say an explosion in Jamestown on Thursday was possibly caused by a man in a home-based meth lab.
Firefighters were called to a house at 10 S. Buckles St. in Jamestown around 1:30 pm on Thursday, March 20 where an explosion had rocked the neighborhood. Police say Shaun Minney was air lifted to an area hospital to be treated for severe burns. Minney is suspected to have been cooking meth in the home when the explosion occurred.
Nearby homes were evacuated and streets blocked off as HAZMAT crews were called in to clean up the residue and firefighters are investigating the exact cause of the explosion. Residents were let back into their homes later in the evening.
Jamestown Police Chief Roger Tyree told WKEF-TV news, “They discovered there are multiple propane tanks inside the residence, which we want to err on the side of caution. It’s not a normal situation to find 4-5 propane tanks inside someone’s residence. It’s a very scary thing. We know that he’s doing something in there improper. Normally you don’t have propane tanks inside your home.”
According to authorities, police were not originally called to the home for an explosion. Family members from the home were taken to an area hospital with suspicious burns and police were notified by doctors. Upon arriving at the home, they discovered the aftermath of the explosion.
At last report Minney was in critical condition and a full investigation is ongoing.
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Jamestown native Fred Claire announced as special advisor to Baseball New Zealand
In Business, Dayton Ohio News, Jobs, Local News, National News, News Media, Sports News, Uncategorized, World News on March 18, 2014 at 3:16 pm
Fred Claire
PASADENA, CA – Baseball New Zealand this week has secured the services of Jamestown, Ohio native, Fred Claire, former Executive Vice-President and General Manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers Major League Baseball organization, as a special advisor to the organization.
Besides his long tenure with the Dodgers, Claire is a longtime mentor for many executives in the professional and international sports communities and Baseball New Zealand CEO Ryan Flynn is one of Claire’s baseball “disciples.”
“We’ve just scored a large victory with the addition of Fred as a key advisor and stakeholder in our program,” said Flynn. “Securing the services of someone with such a lengthy baseball pedigree, someone as respected in the sport as he is a huge coup for the sport in this country.”
Flynn said Claire has been advising the country’s national body unofficially for some time, but added that the program is now at a critical juncture and the timing is right to formalize this key relationship and take it to the next level.
In a distinguished 30-year career with the Dodgers, Claire served the team as a publicity director; vice president of public relations, promotions and marketing; Executive Vice President in charge of day-to-day operations; and Executive Vice President and General Manager in charge of player personnel.
A shop keeper’s son starting out at the tail-end of the Great Depression, Fred Claire was born on October 5, 1935 in Jamestown, Ohio. His mother, Mary Frances Harper, was born and raised in Jamestown where her father operated Harper’s Drug Store.
Ironically, given the town’s modern history, his grandfather’s store was eventually destroyed by fire. Claire’s father, Marston, later opened another drug store on the opposite corner of the village. “My Dad’s drug store was simply known as Claire’s Corner Drug Store,” Claire said.
As a young boy, he lived in the apartment above the store with his parents, his brother Doug and one sister named Lynn. With his family, Claire enjoyed fishing trips to Canada and nearby Indian Lake and began his business career as a young entrepreneur. “My brother and I trapped muskrats,” Claire recalled. “And I had a newspaper route delivering the Xenia Daily Gazette.”
Claire suggested that his passion for sports came from early summer mornings in Jamestown when friends would throw pebbles at his second-floor apartment window. This was, according to Claire, “the indication that it was time to get up, get the baseball equipment and head out to the diamond at Silvercreek School.” He was referring to the historic school at the corner of SR 72 and South Charleston road in Jamestown which was razed in 2013 but, for many years, served as the Greeneview primary and junior high building.
Claire joined the Dodgers in 1969 and he proved to be an award-winning executive at every stage of his career. Claire was directing the team’s marketing efforts when the Dodgers first hit the three-million mark in attendance and established a period of record-setting attendance figures.
In April of 1987, Claire was named general manager of the Dodgers and when the team won the World Series in 1988 he was selected Major League Baseball’s “Executive of the Year” by The Sporting News. Claire became the fifth Dodger executive in the team’s history to win the award, following Larry MacPhail (1939), Branch Rickey (1947), Walter O’Malley (1955) and Buzzie Bavasi (1959).
Since his departure from the Dodgers in June of 1998, Claire has maintained an active schedule as an educator and as a consultant to a variety of businesses in addition to an on-going civic involvement. He is a partner in the baseball analytic company AriBall.com.
“Having someone on board with the experience and expertise that Fred Claire has is a huge win for this country and our fast-growing baseball program,” Flynn said. “Bouncing ideas and strategy off of a man with a great history of baseball experience and successes in the game, plus his ability to bring key people and organizations together, will pay dividends for many years for Baseball New Zealand, and we couldn’t be more fortunate with this development.”
“I’ve always had an interest in growing the game of baseball and to have the opportunity with Baseball New Zealand and to work with Ryan Flynn and his group is very exciting,” said Claire. Claire had made a trip to Australia in the late 1970’s and helped to set the stage for a connection between the Dodgers and the Australian Baseball Federation. Dodger coaches Monty Basgall, Red Adams and Guy Wellman traveled to Australia a few years after Claire’s visit to give clinics and promote baseball.
“I liked the fact that the baseball officials in Australia were growing the game from the standpoint of placing an emphasis on youngsters learning and playing the game and this is what I see happening in New Zealand today,” said Claire.
During his 12 seasons as the Dodger general manager, the team signed pitchers Hideo Nomo from Japan and Chan Ho Park from South Korea. Nomo was one of five consecutive National League Rookies of the Year during Claire’s tenure, joining Eric Karros, Mike Piazza, Raul Mondesi and Todd Hollandsworth.
For more on Fred Claire, Reference: Fred Claire, “30 Years in Dodger Blue”
Like Earhart, evidence lacking in Malaysian Air mystery
In National News, News Media, Opinion, Science, Technology, Travel, Uncategorized on March 17, 2014 at 9:29 amMore than 76 years after aviator Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, vanished during an attempt to fly around the world at the equator, their fate is still an unsolved mystery. The two were presumed lost somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, along with any trace of their Lockheed Electra aircraft. While many theories have surfaced over the years, no conclusive evidence has ever been found to indicate what really happened to, “Lady Lindy,” a woman who was well aware of the potential dangers she faced as a pilot.
On AameliaEarhart.com, the official website commemorating the aviation pioneer, there are passages from a letter written to her husband, publisher G.P. Putnam, in case a dangerous flight proved her last. One particular section fully demonstrates her bravery and total acceptance of the risks she took in the sky. It reads, “Please know I am quite aware of the hazards. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others.”
Aviation Pioneer, Amelia Earhart vanished in 1937 during an attempt to fly around the world.
Earhart was a ground breaker, driven by a desire, not only to set an example to women who wanted a piece of man’s world, but also to meet a public expectation created by her husband. She was a risk taker at a time when flying was still young. Even now the risks associated with flying are still quite real but there is a reasonable expectation of safety in modern commercial aviation.
Still, no one could have predicted the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Malaysia Air Flight 370. As of the time of this writing, there is still no trace of the plane. One needn’t be an aviation expert or pilot to know that a Boeing 777, one of the most complex flying machines ever built, cannot simply vanish into thin air. As with the Earhart disappearance, conspiracy theories are running rampant. Was it sabotage, hijacking, or might the plane have been shot down by terrorists? So far, there are no answers.
Other than the tragedy and sheer mystery involved, there is little similarity between the Earhart disappearance and this most recent incident, with one exception: the sheer lack of telemetry data in both situations. Like Earhart’s Lockheed Electra, the Boeing twin-turbofan is a well-tested, commercial passenger aircraft. But, in order to stay aloft longer with fewer stops, the Electra had been stripped down to what amounted to a flying gas can, even leaving behind two parachutes and a life raft to save weight.
Earhart also left behind key equipment that might have aided in pinpointing her position when she went down; the equivalent of disabling satellite tracking systems and radio transponders used on modern aircraft. Officials are reasonably sure that virtually every piece of telemetry technology aboard Flight 370 was intentionally deactivated making it, like Earhart’s Electra, nearly impossible to track.
With a possible search area stretching north into Central Asia and almost as far south as Australia, finding a needle in a haystack would be a piece of cake in comparison. Malaysian officials have requested electronic and satellite data, as well as search and rescue assistance, from more than two-dozen countries. What data does exist suggests that Flight 370 most likely crashed, either in the Bay of Bengal or elsewhere in the Indian Ocean.
Whether in pieces at the bottom of the sea or parked on some secret tarmac, someone knows where Flight 370 is and how it got there. The real trick will be to find out who orchestrated the plane’s disappearance and what security flaws exist which allowed it to happen.
The mystery of what really happened to Amelia Earhart may never be solved but the search for answers continues. It seems easier to accept the loss of two people in a primitive aircraft than that of 300 in a modern commercial jetliner, but the lack of information invites uninformed speculation. Until some hard evidence is uncovered, however, all anyone can do is let the investigation proceed … and wait.
Jamestown Comet.com Editor Gery L. Deer is an independent columnist and business contributor to WDTN-TV2’s “Living Dayton” program.
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