He used his own dying and death to help others

 

Now and then one comes across a story that really touches the heart of what it means to be human, and to live - and sometimes die - as positively as possible.  Dr. Richard Scolyer appears to have been such a man.

Richard Scolyer, who has died aged 59, was a surgical pathologist who, with his colleague Georgina Long, revolutionised the treatment of advanced melanoma (skin cancer); in 2023 he became his own "guinea pig" after developing glioblastoma, one of the most aggressive brain cancers.

As co-directors of the Melanoma Institute Australia, dedicated to researching the lethal skin cancer that afflicts Australia more than any other nation, the two scientists pioneered a treatment which involves administering immunotherapy drugs before surgery so that the immune system is triggered by the whole cancer rather than the few remaining cells after tumour removal. Their work lifted the survival rate for advanced melanoma from less than 5 per cent in 2010 to more than 50 per cent today, saving thousands of lives.

But by 2024, when the pair were named joint Australian of the Year, Scolyer was facing his own cancer battle. It began during a visit to Poland in May 2023 when he found himself convulsing on the floor of his hotel room. An MRI scan carried out in Kraków showed a mass in his temporal lobe, and he knew immediately that it was bad news. A subsequent biopsy performed in Sydney diagnosed an aggressive grade 4 IDH-wildtype glioblastoma and Scolyer was given six to eight months to live.

"I didn't want to die. I loved my life," he wrote in a memoir, Brainstorm. Only three weeks earlier Scolyer, a keen sportsman, had represented Australia at the World Triathlon Multisport Championships. Now he had been given a death sentence: "It didn't sit right with me… to just accept certain death without trying something. It's an incurable cancer. Well bugger that!"

Under a team led by Georgina Long, Scolyer became "Patient Zero" for a radical form of treatment based on the approach developed for melanoma, which involved delaying surgery for two weeks while immunotherapy drugs were administered, allowing the immune system to train on millions of cancer cells. Scolyer decided to go public with his treatment, gaining thousands of followers on social media.

The regimen carried many dangers. Even a short delay in surgery could allow the tumour to grow, and there was a high chance the drugs' side-effects could kill him. "There was understandable resistance from some in the medical community," he recalled.

But early results were promising. When the tumour that had been removed was analysed, Long's team found that there had been an explosion of cancer-fighting immune cells. Then in May 2024, an MRI scan revealed that the tumour had not returned, though it did not mean the cancer was cured: "It's just nice to know that it hasn't come back yet, so I've still got some more time to enjoy my life," Scolyer said.

But in March this year, days before Scolyer was due to part in a charity cycling event in Tasmania, a brain scan showed that the cancer had progressed. "Not the best day ever," he told his followers on Facebook.

His death, three years after diagnosis, far exceeded the life expectancy for his tumour, and a clinical trial based on his treatment is now underway at Duke University in the US.

There's more at the link.

Effectively, Dr. Scolyear allowed his own body, and the process of his own dying and death, to be used for treatment and further research.  As if to acknowledge his self-sacrifice, he survived his cancer for far longer than the norm for gioblastoma sufferers, thereby allowing a great deal of research to be conducted that will benefit others in future.  Sadly, it couldn't benefit him, apart from giving him longer to set an example to the rest of us.

A tribute to him has been posted on the home page of Melanoma Institute Australia.  There are many replies to it from those who remember him with love and kindness.  I'll let this one speak for all of them.

If it were not for his brilliant work, I too would not be here today, having had lifesaving Immunotherapy for my late stage Melanoma diagnosis.

Words alone cannot express my gratitude and thanks, together with the sadness that you too were not able to have been afforded the opportunity of a second chance of life.

May you rest in peace Professor.

Indeed.  May choirs of angels sing him to his rest.

Peter

Shocking news - except to Africans

 

I note the following news report.

A South African hotelier is believed to have been eaten by a 15ft crocodile after human remains were found inside the swollen reptile.

The animal was shot from a helicopter and airlifted from the crocodile-infested Komati River in a daring police operation before a post-mortem examination was carried out.

A ring was found inside the belly of the 500kg apex predator and is thought to have belonged to Gabriel Batista, 59.

The businessman was swept away in floodwaters while trying to drive across the Komati River in the north-east of the country a week ago.

Investigators will carry out DNA tests on the bones and flesh found inside the crocodile.

. . .

 As well as the body parts, six different types of shoes were found, according to Capt Potgieter.

There's more at the link, including images.

The comments from friends and acquaintances in the USA have been amusing.  A surprising number are absolutely horrified that a man who'd just escaped drowning had promptly been eaten by a wild animal.  It's almost as if it was unfair, somehow.  They weren't comforted by my assurance that in large parts of Africa, that sort of thing happens on an almost daily basis.  As for the "six different types of shoes" . . . yeah, I'd say Mr. Batista was far from the only human meal that croc had enjoyed.  Local tribespeople were doubtless greatly relieved by the news that it had been caught.

Rural Africa remains a very dark continent, filled with very deadly animals.  Actual examples:

• A man visits a neighboring village, gets drunk, and decides to walk back to his village along a deserted path at night.  Halfway there, a passing leopard finds him and decides that he'll make a satisfactory supper.
• A man goes looking for a lost cow along a river bank.  A hippo, grazing on long grass a short distance away, decides that she doesn't want him (or anyone else) getting between her and the water, which is her security blanket.  She bites him in half.
• A hunter gets too close to an elephant, which promptly tramples him into pink slush in the mud.  He isn't able to shoot her in time to save himself, and in the stress of the moment, only wounds her.  While she's recovering from the bullet wound, she kills several local villagers who get too close to her, on the general principle that if a man did this to her, she's going to presume that any man she sees is going to try to do likewise.
• An armored personnel carrier is driving through thick brush and trees.  The vehicle commander is standing with his head and shoulders outside the turret, trying to see through the thick growth to plot his course.  A boomslang (tree snake) is jarred off its branch by the APC as it brushes against the tree.  It falls onto the vehicle commander, bites him (injecting a full dose of poison, which proves fatal) and then falls through the turret hatch into the interior of the vehicle, biting two other soldiers before it's killed by a rain of rifle butts.  The two survive, but only because it had already injected much of its venom into the vehicle commander.  They're sick for several weeks.

All those incidents were personally known to me.  I was nearby when they all happened.  That's the norm in wild rural Africa.  The cities can be a lot tamer, but not always.  A few decades ago, I remember two leopards who set up house in the concrete basement and utility spaces of the biggest soccer stadium in Soweto, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people.  They lived off local cats and dogs.  When their presence was deduced (due to the rapid decline in other local pets and wildlife, and the presence of their tracks after rain) the local police were asked to hunt them down and shoot them.  Freely translated and interpreted, the local cops' reply was along the lines of, "You want us to go into a concrete labyrinth, with no light at all, to hunt two big cats that can see in the dark?  Oh, hell, no!  Here, take our rifles and show us how it's done.  We'll watch.  In fact, we'll sell tickets on pay-per-view!"

I'm very sorry for Mr. Batista, and for his family, of course . . . but that's Africa:  and in Africa, the good guys don't always win.  It goes with the territory.

Peter

Preparing to die

 

Ben Sasse, former US Senator and former President of the University of Florida, announced last December that he'd been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer.

In a wide-ranging discussion with Ross Douthat, Mr. Sasse discusses his current state of health (parlous), and how he's preparing for his approaching death.  I found it a very moving discussion, particularly his courage and openness in speaking out about the end of his life and how he's trying to fill every remaining minute of it with important things.

The New York Times published an opinion column about this interview titled "How Ben Sasse Is Living Now That He Is Dying".  At present, it's not behind a paywall.  If you prefer to read rather than watch or listen, I highly recommend clicking over there to read it.  It's long, but well worth your time.  If you'd rather not read it, here's his hour-long-plus interview with Mr. Douthat.

I can only admire Mr. Sasse's faith, and his willingness to be so open about a subject often regarded as taboo among many people today.  I hope and pray that his example will inspire many to think about their own futures, and how "in the midst of life we are in death", to quote the ancient funeral ceremony.

May God be merciful to Mr. Sasse, and welcome him home to eternity when the time comes.

Peter

A very sad morning, and a fond farewell

 

Regular readers will know of Ashbutt, our farm kitten that we adopted back in 2016.

He would have celebrated his tenth birthday in the second half of this year . . . but sadly, that won't happen any more.

We have a couple staying with us, along with their two cats, which we've segregated in a room behind a closed door, because Ashbutt is very territorial and possessive.  Last night, it got much worse than that.  He was trying to open the door to the guest cats' room, yowling loudly, and behaving very aggressively when we tried to stop him.  Finally, when one of our guests came out of the spare bedroom too close to him for his comfort, he must have been startled, because he attacked her, biting and clawing, drawing blood.  When I ran over and tried to shoo him away from her and the closed door, he tried to attack me!  He's never behaved that way to us before, but once was more than enough.  (Last weekend we had a family staying with us, including an eighteen-month-old infant.  We segregated our cats to avoid issues with small children, but even so, what if Ashbutt had got out?  The thought of what a big, aggressive cat could do to a toddler is just too scary for words . . . )

With my wife's help, Ashbutt was shut in the garage for the night.  She and I talked about it, but it was obvious what had to be done.  We simply can't risk the injuries he might inflict on our next guest, or even on us, if this sudden violent, aggressive streak continues.  With great sorrow, I took him to the vet this morning and arranged for euthanasia.  His body will be sent for rabies testing (which is apparently a legal requirement in cases like this), and his ashes will then be returned to us.

I absolutely hated having to say goodbye to Ashbutt.  He's always been a "daddy's boy", as opposed to our older cat, Kili, who's definitely my wife's cat.  He would jump on my lap at every opportunity and snuggle for a while.  That won't happen any more, and I know I'll miss him very much . . . but . . . there's the "but" for you.  When an animal turns aggressive towards you, you absolutely cannot take the risk that he'll do the same towards others.  The injury aspect is only part of the problem:  there are legal exposures involved when it comes to damages, reimbursement, etc.  Tolerating that sort of behavior could cost a whole lot of money down the road.  (Our current guests have been very gracious in assuring us they understand, so that won't be a problem in this case;  but that doesn't prevent possible future recurrences.)

Goodbye, Ashbutt.  We'll miss you very much.

Peter

A good letter

 

Kudos to CDR Salamander for sharing a letter from Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll in preparation for the holiday season.  Mr. Driscoll addresses a long-standing problem, and offers hope.  Click the image below for a larger, more readable view.

I had some experience of that sort of stress during my own military service, decades ago.  Back in 2011, I wrote in these pages about a friend.

I remember Gavin, who was a member of a patrol that found a baby, too young to walk, sitting in the middle of a dirt road in a township, crying. As the point man and a couple of others walked up to see why the baby was just sitting there, the terrorists waiting in ambush blew up the landmine they'd buried beneath her, killing the point man and savagely mutilating the other two soldiers. Bits of flesh and blood from the soldiers, and the baby, splattered all over Gavin . . . across his face . . . in his eyes, nose and mouth.

For years, Gavin would start awake in the small hours at night, a scream of horror on his lips. "They blew up a baby! A baby!" Gavin's wife eventually left him, because she couldn't handle the strain of living with his nightmares. Psychiatric treatment couldn't break the cycle; nor could alcohol, or drugs (legal and illegal). Gavin took his own life at last, too tormented by what he'd seen to endure any longer, in the small hours every night, the parade of images across his closed eyelids. He was a hero in my book . . . and I'll always remember him as such.

There's more at the link.

There are too many like Gavin who never receive the help they need - not just combat stress and trauma, but the quiet accumulation of too many incidents, too much angst, too few friends.  I hope Secretary Driscoll's letter will help to reach them before it's too late.

Peter

A "long drop" indeed!

 

In Africa, when one digs a latrine for use in the bush, there are different ways of going about it.  A "scrape" is literally that - scrape away the surface dirt, do your business, and cover it with the dirt you'd previously removed.  If you're planning a longer stay (e.g. overnight), or if multiple people want to use the same facilities, a "short drop" is called for - digging a hole a foot or two deep, using it (with each successive user scooping a little dirt over his or her "deposit" to control odors), and then filling it in before departure next day.  A "long drop" is for longer-term use, several days or weeks in the same camp.  A hole is dug at least four or five feet deep, sometimes more, depending on whether the soil is firm enough not to collapse into the cavity.  It's often surrounded by a thatch shield, so that ladies can use it in greater privacy.

(I could tell a rather embarrassing story against myself involving a long drop, a snake, and a double-barreled 12ga. shotgun . . . but I shall refrain.  Ahem.)

At any rate, it seems an unfortunate resident of Mumbai in India inadvertently discovered another meaning to a "long drop".  In fact, it's probably the longest drop of all . . .

A 52-year-old man with an upset stomach died after falling from the 18th floor of a building in Mumbai on Sunday while defecating from the edge of a shaft, an official said.

The incident occurred at the 18-storey Matoshree Sadan building, Wadala, in central Mumbai, said the official from RAK Marg police station.

The man, a resident of the high-rise, had been suffering from dysentery for the past few days.

"The victim, who was jobless, lived with his sister on the 18th floor. Someone was using the toilet in their house when he lost control of his bowels and rushed outside," an official said.

He sat to defecate on the edge of a shaft near a lift but lost his balance and plunged into a pit on the ground floor, the official said.

There's more at the link.

A tragic situation, and I'm sure his family is devastated . . . but I can already hear the jokes around campfires the length and breadth of Africa!  Unfortunately, Indians are not popular in Africa because they run many of the local stores that are regarded as interlopers and profiteers, so the jokes will be rather barbed.

Peter

Scott Adams is suffering from (probably) terminal cancer

 

I was saddened to read that cartoonist Scott Adams is suffering from prostate cancer.

The 67-year-old made the announcement on his podcast “Coffee With Scott Adams” just one day after Joe Biden announced he has prostate cancer that metastasized and spread to his bones.

. . .

Adams said he has weeks or maybe a few months to live.

“I have the same cancer that Joe Biden has,” Adams said. “I also have prostate cancer that has also spread to my bones. I’ve had it longer than he’s had it – well, longer than admitting that he’s had it so my life expectancy is maybe this summer.”

“I can tell you that I don’t have good days,” Adams said describing the cancer as “intolerable.”

Adams said he is in excruciating pain and uses a walker to get around.

There's more at the link.

Cancer is a pretty horrible way to go (although I'm not sure there are many good ways).  I'm sorry that Mr. Adams must endure it.  He's made an enormous contribution to American workplace culture over the years, and his cartoons brought many a smile to my face, even before I moved to this country.  He will be sorely missed.

Say a prayer for him, and for his loved ones, if you're so inclined.

Peter

A Malibu liberal loses his California cool

 

From Francesco on X, after the Los Angeles fires.  A tip o' the hat to the anonymous reader who sent me the link.

Look at me. I’m a Malibu Liberal. 

I believe in climate justice. Can you believe I actually said those words?! I’ve posted those words. I’ve whispered them into quartz. I ate kelp-based protein and offset my flights to Tulum through an app made by annoying Stanford kids. I composted at scale. I did all of the things. 

Our home was solar-powered, LEED-certified, AND tastefully non-invasive—except for the footprint, which was enormous. But it was *intentional*. And even though it cost a fortune, I STILL did all of the things. We marched. We meditated. I once cried over a Greta Thunberg speech in my Range Rover outside Nobu. But nature doesn’t care about ANY of that. It just burns—helped along, of course, by decades of political incompetence.

And when it burned, the city sent not one, not two, but THREE lesbian fire chiefs with not a single hose between them. Look, DEI is important, I get that. But not when the hillside’s ON FIRE. The mayor showed up three days later from Africa, only to take a selfie and mispronounce “Malibu.” And I’m all for representation, but that [REDACTED]. 

We lost EVERYTHING! And when we tried to rebuild, we met the final boss: Democrat bureaucracy. Six months for a soil report. A year for coastal variances. Our rebuild “disrespected the ridgeline.” Whatever that means. I met with the Architectural Review Board while on mushrooms and I still don’t know if that meeting was real.

Our contractor was approved, then unapproved, then deported. We got a violation for sandbagging our own driveway. We’ve spent $120,000 just to *not* live in our house. I asked a councilwoman for help. She sent me back a workbook titled ‘Rethinking Home’ and a notice from the county asking us not to disturb owl mating zones while our lives are literally ash.

So **** it.

**** the permits.

**** the endangered sand beetle.

**** the Architectural Review Board.

**** the Democrats.

Where is my MAGA hat.

One can only sympathize, and suggest Francesco moves to someplace that treats him like a human being!  Of course, he'd have to leave his liberal California values behind, or he might get rather short shrift in his new location . . .

Peter

Unspeakable tragedy - but it's not the first time

 

News of a police shooting in Missouri has shocked many readers.

Chilling body camera footage captures a Missouri mom holding her baby as she lunges with a huge kitchen knife at cops who then shoot them both dead.

The newly released footage shows officers — called to a reported family assault — initially talking calmly to mom Maria Pike, 34, as she holds her 2-month-old daughter Destinii Hope while standing inside a closet at her home in Independence.

Eleven minutes into the footage, Pike can be seen suddenly grabbing a large knife from a bedside table and lunging toward an officer.

There's more at the link, including video footage.

I'm sure the police officers are just as traumatized by what happened as the deceased lady's husband.  Sadly, they had no time to think, no time to plan - particularly for a situation like that.  They could only react, and defend their own lives.

It's not the first time I've come across something like that.  I've mentioned before on this blog an incident in South Africa, one where I was an eye-witness.

I was present when a vehicle-mounted patrol was passing through a very volatile area.  A woman rushed out from behind a hut, with a baby strapped to her chest in the typical African manner.  She charged the lead vehicle, holding a Molotov cocktail in either hand, their fuses lit.  The soldiers on the vehicle had a very simple binary choice.  Shoot her - which meant snap-shooting, probably through the baby on her chest, because there was no time to take careful aim and avoid it - or be immolated when the gasoline bombs exploded inside the load bed of the patrol vehicle.  You can imagine their feelings . . . but they were left with no other options.  She, and her baby, died.  Whose fault was that baby's death?  Not the soldiers', I would argue.

Again, more at the link.

What causes a mother to "snap" like that?  How can she even think of endangering her own child in order to attack others?  I don't know . . . for that matter, I don't suppose anyone knows.  For the deceased mother's sake, I can only hope that there was some sort of mental illness or aberration involved - because I can't imagine any mother making a sane, rational choice to act like that.  It's beyond comprehension.

Say a prayer, if you'll be so kind, for the souls of that mother and her child - and for the sanity of her husband, who had to watch that happen.  I don't know if he'll ever be the same man again.  Also, of course, pray for the officers involved, who have to be carrying all sorts of emotional guilt, even though they must know intellectually that she left them with no choice.  Believe me when I say that, even if one hasn't pulled a trigger, the emotional guilt of such an experience takes decades to subside, and is never completely forgotten.

Peter

A sad, but inevitable end to a great ship

 

The SS United States was the fastest ocean liner ever built.  She snatched the Blue Riband for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic Ocean on her maiden voyage, both east-bound to Europe and west-bound to the USA, and never relinquished it to another passenger liner.

The advent of jet transport aircraft doomed the transatlantic passenger shipping market, and she was too expensive to operate on other routes or as a cruise liner.  For decades she's languished at moorings in Philadelphia while efforts were made to develop economically viable plans for her future.  Sadly, that process has now come to an end.

The SS United States and Penn Warehousing have officially settled their two-year-long dispute and the ship will now be turned into an artificial reef in accordance with a museum in Okaloosa County, Florida.

. . .

The statement continued by saying that since they couldn't save the ship in its current state and were under the time constraint of the court order, they had one of two options: scrap the boat or convert it into an artificial reef. The conservancy decided to go with the latter.

"This next chapter of the SS United States' story will bring tens of thousands of people annually from around the world to experience her," Gibbs said. "Okaloosa County has now allocated more than $10 million to reactivate the SS United States as the world's largest artificial reef in tandem with the conservancy's land-based museum and visitor center."

According to Gibbs, the conservancy is committed to creating a state-of-the-art museum infusing modern-day technology with original artifacts and artwork from the SS United States. They plan to incorporate one or both of the ship's funnels, radar mast and recreate areas on the ship using original materials. 

As for the next step, once the conservancy transfers the vessel's title over to Okaloosa County, the ship will leave Philadelphia's waters and head to Norfolk, Virginia, for extensive preparations for reefing over the next several months.

There's more at the link, and in the video report below.

It's sad that so few of the truly historical ships from the past have been preserved.  Britain has done moderately well with nineteenth-century vessels and a few from the twentieth, but in most other cases wars and catastrophes have destroyed famous ships and left few memories of them.  I suppose preserving the United States wasn't really an economical option, but I still regret her passing.  She was an icon of her age.

Author Stephen Ujifusa has written an excellent book about not only the ship and her designer, but of the entire transatlantic travel era that inspired her.

I have it in my library.  It's an entertaining and informative read for all those interested in ships and the sea.  Recommended.

Peter

Animals can be a darn sight more loving than many humans...

 

Click over to this tweet by Flappr and watch the brief video provided (it's just over a minute long).

Dang, it got dusty in here all of a sudden . . .

Peter

Was yesterday's debate designed to give the Democratic Party an excuse to dump Joe Biden?

 

President Biden's performance at yesterday's debate was pitiful;  a shambling wreck of a re-election bid that must have given great aid and comfort to this country's enemies.  After all, if you were President Xi of China, or President Putin of Russia, or Kim Seriously-Ill of North Korea, how could you not be encouraged to realize that the current President of the USA was supposed to be the person holding you in check?

I can only presume that the Democratic Party, knowing his health to be so poor as to preclude re-election, has been frantically looking for any way to remove President Biden from the election ticket, and possibly from his current office as well.  After seeing that debate, I don't see how a 25th Amendment motion to remove President Biden from office can be resisted, on either side of the political aisle.  Biden's handlers almost literally threw him to the political wolves last night.  (I've been saying for years that the way they've been manipulating him is nothing less than elder abuse.  Last night's exhibition simply made that even more clear.)

The question is, who might take his place in the Oval Office, and on the ticket in November?  None of the usual suspects appear capable of attracting enough positive attention and support to succeed.  Kamala Harris?  Hillary Clinton?  Michelle Obama?  They all have their partisan supporters, but they've also attracted so much vituperation, disgust and dislike that I can't see them as viable candidates.  So . . . if not them . . . who?

Wouldn't it be fun if the Democratic Party chose Stormy Daniels to run against former President Trump?  Bring on those debates, boys!

Peter

That's the way to do it!

 

It was a sad occasion, but marked with honor and community support.

You probably remember 17-year-old Cameron Blasek. He's the Indiana teen who refused to take the American flag off his truck when triggered [school] administrators demanded he do so.

If you recall, he doubled down and covered his entire truck with the flag, thanks to a Cincinnati graphic design company.

He hasn't stopped there.

Last Thursday, out of the blue, Cameron got this heartfelt message from someone in Oklahoma asking for a favor. Turns out, it was from the family of Jaxon, a 13-year-old kid who had decided not to continue with chemo after fighting cancer from the age of two.

Jaxon's last wish?

He wanted to ride to his final resting place in Cameron's truck, decked out in the Stars and Stripes.

Without thinking twice, Cameron and his dad hit the road for that long 16-hour haul to Oklahoma. Cameron's mom wrote on Facebook that this is one of those favors you "drop everything you thought was important and say yes to without a second thought."

There's more at the link.

Here's a TV news report about the incident.

Well done, Mr. Blasek and family!  I wish we had more like you in our midst.

Peter

Another tragic mistake that took an innocent life

 

I've said several times before that if you're carrying a firearm in a pocket or purse, it needs to be in a holster to avoid things catching in or on the trigger, which might cause a tragedy.

Well, it just happened again.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) - Police said the mother of a teen daughter who was shot Saturday night reports the gun that killed her fired off accidentally ... The victim was taken to the hospital, where she died of a single gunshot wound.

Police said the teen’s mother told detectives her unholstered .40 caliber semi-automatic pistol was inside her purse and accidentally fired while she was attempting to grab her keys. Charges have not been placed.

There's more at the link.

Anti-gun activists will doubtless seek to portray this as yet another incident of "gun violence", and blame the gun - the instrument - for the girl's death.  They're entirely wrong.  The gun was not at fault.  Careless and negligent handling of the gun was at fault.

Tragically, that mother will have to remember for the rest of her life that her daughter is dead because she was careless and/or negligent.  This death was her fault, nobody else's.  I wonder how the rest of her family will handle that?

May we, at least, learn from her bad example, and not make the same mistake.

Peter

A tragic way to die

 

I was saddened to read about the cause of an aircraft crash in Switzerland last month.

In a preliminary report published on 12 March, the Swiss Transportation Safety Investigation Board (STSB) said the aircraft, belonging to Skydive Grenchen, was carrying 11 jumpers and one pilot on the afternoon of 18 February. While all jumpers, one of whom was slightly injured in the incident, exited the aircraft, the pilot died in the crash.

“When parachutists were being dropped off, the reserve parachute belonging to a parachutist who was still on the aircraft unintentionally opened,” the STSB says. “The parachutist subsequently collided with the elevator tailplane, causing it to be completely torn off the aircraft and the plane crashed.”

“The pilot was not wearing a rescue parachute,” it adds.

There's more at the link.

It sounds as if the inadvertently opened reserve parachute pulled one of the jumpers out of the plane, from where he collided with the tailplane.  Nobody could have foreseen this sort of incident, or its outcome.  I'm still trying to wrap my brain around how the impact of a human body could break off an elevator tailplane on one side of the aircraft.  One wouldn't think such an impact would be sufficient.  It would injure the person, of course, perhaps fatally, and damage the leading edge of the tailplane, but not knock it completely off the aircraft.  I'm sure the manufacturers will be investigating that as a matter of urgency.

The death of the pilot was a tragedy, of course.  The skydiving club had apparently bought the aircraft more than a decade ago, and he'd flown it for the club for years.  It just goes to show:  "in the midst of life we are in death", as the classic funeral service puts it.  We never know when or where or how we may come to our end.  That's a sobering thought . . . and it should be.

Peter

Remembering the Lahaina wildfire victims

 

There have been all sorts of conspiracy theories circulating about the Lahaina wildfire on Hawaii last August.  I've seen claims that over four hundred people had died or were "missing", and that this was being hidden because it would reflect badly on the mismanagement of the situation by local authorities.  It was also claimed that homeowners were being forbidden access to their properties, so that they would be forced to pay mortgages in the absence of any insurance payout (which depends on assessors being allowed access to the insured property), and therefore forced to sell their burned-out land to those wanting to develop it.

It turns out those claims were overblown, to put it mildly.

Hawaii officials said Friday that they have identified the last of the 100 known victims of the wildfire that destroyed Lahaina in August.

That victim was Lydia Coloma, 70, Maui police said.

Identifying those who perished in the deadliest wildfire in the U.S. in more than a century has been a long, arduous process.

Forensic experts and cadaver dogs have had to sift through ash searching for bodies that were possibly cremated, and authorities have been collecting DNA samples from victims’ family members.

. . .

The number of those who remain unaccounted for has also fallen — to just a few from a previous high of nearly 400, according to the Maui Police Department.

The victims ranged in age from 7 to 97, but more than two-thirds were in their 60s or older, according to Maui police’s list of known victims. Several were residents of a low-income senior apartment complex.

Authorities reopened the burn zone to residents and property owners who lost homes while urging returning residents not to sift through the ashes for fear of raising toxic dust.

Authorities began clearing debris from residential lots this month.

There's more at the link.

I think many people have little or no idea of how thoroughly a wildfire can destroy a property and its contents.  I've seen it, up close and personal.  Everything flammable - including human bodies - is reduced to ash and cinders, sometimes making it impossible to recognize a cadaver by sight alone.  Many bodies will be completely hidden beneath a thin blanket of fine gray ash, which must be very carefully removed in order to reveal what's beneath it.  Move too quickly and/or too aggressively, and whatever's beneath the ash will be removed along with it, or blown away by the wind, or dissolved by rain.  There's no easy or quick way to do it - and the authorities were dealing with square miles of devastation, not just a house or two.  I'm sure they did the best they could, but in reality there's simply no way to speed up the process over that great an expanse.  That's why access to the area was restricted, because you can't look for bodies while families and insurance companies are trying to clear their properties and rebuild.

I wish conspiracy theorists were not so prevalent here in the USA.  They destroy their own credibility by their stupid, unrealistic claims, but in the process they "poison the well", so that nobody believes anybody else.  "You can't tell me I'm wrong!  Prove it!" they chant, when challenged about their false claims - but they never bother to prove their claims, putting the onus to do that on those who challenge them.  Another utterly stupid conspiracy theory doing the rounds at present is that the Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce romance is a re-election ploy by the Biden administration, an "election psy-op" being mounted with the active support of the NFL.  How anybody can actually believe such drivel is beyond me . . . it defies logic, reason and sanity.  Nevertheless, it's out there.

I have the deepest sympathy for those who lost loved ones and property in the Lahaina fire:  and even deeper sympathy for those who've had to endure such conspiracy theorizing while coming to terms with the partial or complete destruction of their families, their plans for the future . . . everything.  I wish it were possible to force the conspiracy theorists to pay a heavy monetary burden for the mental and emotional anguish they've inflicted on the survivors.  Sadly, I don't think that will happen, but in simple justice, it should.

Peter

The saddest news I've heard in a long time

 

If this report doesn't bring tears to your eyes, I don't know what will.

A 2-year-old English boy was found starved to death next to the body of his father, who had suffered a fatal heart attack two weeks earlier.

Little Bronson Battersby was found dead curled up next to his 60-year-old father, Kenneth, at their home in Skegness, Lincolnshire, on Jan. 9 — 14 days after they were last seen by family over the holidays.

The pair were last seen alive on Dec. 26 — not long before Kenneth suffered a fatal heart attack, ultimately leaving his son alone with no one to care for him.

. . .

The social worker visited their home on Jan. 2 after failing to make contact with the father on Dec. 27. She returned to the house two days later but was still unable to reach Kenneth.

The social worker contacted the cops after each visit but was only able to enter the home after getting a key from the landlord days later, their family told the outlet.

Authorities in Lincolnshire have since launched a review into the child’s death.

. . .

“It breaks my heart. Bronson deserved so, so much better. He was such a loving, adorable little boy. They found him curled up at Kenneth’s legs,” the friend said. “He was left in the dark and must have been terrified and so confused.”

The boy’s father was unemployed and had a heart condition that led him to become severely jaundiced in the months leading up to his death.

There's more at the link.

Please join me in praying for the souls of that young boy and his father.  For both of them, it was a horrible way to die.  As for the surviving family, may they receive what comfort is possible.  I'm sure, under the circumstances, there isn't much.

Please also let this be a reminder to us all:  if your health is permanently impaired, and/or if you have others dependent on you for care who would suffer if you weren't able to look after them, please, please make sure someone is checking on you regularly (at least daily), and able to get into your home to provide help if anything looks wrong.  Bronson might still be alive today if that had been done.

I realize that warning applies to me as well.  Both my wife and myself suffer from long-term debilitating health problems, and I've had two heart attacks.  I'm living on borrowed time, to put it bluntly;  a third heart attack is more likely than not to finish me off, unless it can be detected and treated very early in proceedings.  That means I need to make sure my wife will be OK if I'm not around when she needs me.  I'll be checking in with a couple of close friends over the next few days, to tell them about this incident and ask them to add me to their "Call him if he doesn't get in touch for a day or two" list.

Food for thought . . . and prayer.

Peter

True dat...

 

Sadly, a very plausible cartoon for this Halloween season.  Click the image to be taken to a larger version at the 'Pearls Before Swine' Web page.

As he so often does, Stephan Pastis nails the current zeitgeist with uncanny accuracy.

Peter

A tragedy for a fallen hero, and for the firearms community

 

I was saddened to learn that a well-known shooter and veteran, Larry Vickers, has pleaded guilty to serious firearms offenses.

Special operations combat veteran, firearms industry consultant, tactical instructor and YouTube personality with more than a million loyal followers, Larry Allen Vickers, pleaded guilty last week to a multi-count federal indictment that accused him of conspiring to illegally import and obtain machineguns and other restricted firearms, and conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions against a Russian arms manufacturer.

Vickers, 60, faces up to 25 years in prison, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Maryland. The judge overseeing the case has not yet scheduled a sentencing date.

. . .

Vickers’ influence on the firearms industry was massive ... [his] expertise was much sought after by small arms manufacturers. He developed improvements, innovations and accessories for Wilson Combat, Aimpoint, GLOCK and most notably, Heckler & Koch. He helped the German firm with their redesign of the M16, which led to the HK416 – the rifle of choice for special operations units around the world ... Vickers was one of the country’s most successful firearms instructors ... he was one of the first Delta Force retirees to train civilians and law enforcement. His classes almost always sold out.

There's more at the link.

I'm sad for Mr. Vickers himself, of course.  His record of service to his country, both in and out of uniform, has been exemplary.  It's a tragedy that it's now been tarnished by his admitted involvement in criminal activity.  Some will doubtless argue that his are "victimless crimes", paper transgressions rather than actually harming people;  but the law doesn't recognize shades of gray in most such matters.  It's strictly a black-or-white proposition.

I'm also sad for those of us who own, use and enjoy firearms and related fields.  Mr. Vickers' plea will undoubtedly be used by those seeking to demonize and restrict firearms ownership.  He's such a well-known figure that his fall from grace will inevitably impact the causes, individuals and companies with or for whom he worked.  That's likely to impact us all in some way.

Almost everybody has feet of clay, but most of us manage to conceal that, more or less.  Unfortunately, Mr. Vickers could not, and will now pay the price.  He's already battling cancer, with what long-term success I don't know.  The stress resulting from this indictment won't help that, either.

Peter

The wilful destruction of South Africa

 

My former homeland, South Africa, is in a terrible mess.  Der Spiegel recently ran an in-depth article looking at the state of the country, and didn't hold back.  The original article is behind a paywall, but an unrestricted copy is available here.

On social media, the ANC power apparatus is now referred to as a kakistocracy, government by the least competent. This lack of competence has long since trickled down from the very top to the lowest administrative levels and ultimately encompassed the entire country. ANC Secretary General Fikile Mbalula even admitted recently that "if certain things are not resolved, we will become a failed state." He also added that South Africa was facing high levels of corruption. Neither he nor other senior ANC officials responded to repeated DER SPIEGEL requests for comment.

. . .

About half of sub-Saharan Africa’s total rail lines are in South Africa. But the trains no longer operate regularly, if they run at all.

Furthermore, in the fiscal year of 2021-2022, around 1,500 kilometers of copper cable was stolen, says Transnet, the state-owned company responsible for rail service in the country. Infrastructure theft has become a lucrative revenue stream for organized crime, and they don’t just target the high-voltage lines owned by the railway. In the townships, gangs dig down to the power cables and pull them out of the ground using pickup trucks. The power utility in Johannesburg registered more than 2,000 such cases and similar that same fiscal year alone. Copper wiring is even stolen from hospitals, likely destined for sale abroad.

South Africa now exports more copper than its mines produce.

Behind the walls along the tracks in Jeppestown, the imposing skyline of Johannesburg juts into the sky, a metropolis built on gold and a place where mining magnates used to live in vast palaces. Today, many parts of the city center look little different than a slum. Opulent Art Deco facades are crumbling while homeless people are living in abandoned offices and skyscrapers, cooking over open fires. Just last week, a massive fire consumed one of these illegally squatted buildings, killing more than 70 people.

Large sections of the city lie in complete darkness at night, the result of widespread power outages and because the streetlights on major arterials have all been stripped of anything of value. Hundreds of trains sit motionless outside the train station, rusting away. Rail travel in the city has collapsed.

Fears of crime and violence have grown widespread. Those who can afford it have moved out of the city to the affluent suburbs, living in houses surrounded by high walls and electric fences.

. . .

"9910. That was the train I used to take to work every day. The last one ran six years ago," an aging Black man says in disgust as he walks past the station entrance. He adds caustically: "We used to have work when the whites were in charge, and life was better."

It’s hard to believe: A 60-year-old Black man, who was oppressed and exploited for half his life, misses the Apartheid era?

There's much more at the link.  Recommended reading.

Knowing all the areas described, I find it heartbreaking that a country with so much promise has fallen so far.  Nevertheless, I continue to believe that apartheid, with all its evils, had to go.  It was intrinsically evil - evil in and of itself - and despite being better organized than post-apartheid society, treated people as sub-human, things rather than individuals.  On racial issues, it had a lot in common with Nazi ideology.  I've written about its evils before, so I won't go into them again here.  If you haven't read that earlier article, you might find it informative.

I know I'm going to hear all sorts of ill-informed and racist comments along the lines of "This is what happens when you let black people run the place".  No, it's not.  Consider:

• Venezuela in South America is as bad, if not worse.  The same goes for parts of Mexico, Guatemala and other nations in the area.
• Asian hell-holes like Myanmar are the same.
• West Coast American states (yes, California, Oregon and Washington) have areas and cities that are just as bad in parts, if not worse.  In fact, consider any "big blue" US city and you'll find areas with similar conditions.

Black people are not a majority in most of those countries and places - yet they exhibit the same breakdown of society and social order as South Africa.  It's not race.  It's culture, and the lack of basic education, sound leadership and moral order, that's at the root of all those problem areas.  Remove those aspects, those values, and any society will fall apart, no matter what race(s) is/are involved.

That said, when I remember what South Africa was, and compare it to what it is now . . . it's still heartbreaking.

Peter