Pretty

Ugly

Susan, I can relate. I went through a few years of not just fear, but terror of flying after having to fly through a thunderstorm. And I developed my own rituals. Among them is a set of songs that I run through my head as we taxi. Ending, as we start speeding for takeoff, with "Shall We Dance?"

Golden Globe noms:

Lee Pace, Anna Friel and PD were all nominated. On the movie side, I haven't seen that many nominated films.

Link: [link]

I have been to none of the pretty or the ugly universities. The only universities I know are Oxford (canonically pretty), McGill (pretty except when ugly) and the University of the West Indies, Mona.

Well, the fact that driving is actually far more dangerous than flying has soaked deep into my brain, as when I'm driving I'm aware that I could be killed at almost any moment, but I have no fear of accidents while I'm flying. (My big flying fear is "I hope there's no severe turbulence and I don't have to throw up.)

I dunno - maybe because I have a good understanding of aviation and its history. Modern airliners represent the culmination of many decades of expertise in their design, building upon previous generations' experiences and successes. The same can be said of flight crew training.

I suppose many people who are aware of this suffer fear of flying anyway, but... I dunno - I just find commercial aviation to be such an amazing achievement, and the odds of accident so small that it doesn't produce fear in me. Yes, accidents still happen, but they are extremely rare given the number of passenger-miles flown. Also, if you look back even to the '60s, commercial aviation accidents were far more common then. Accidents were far more frequent still (per passenger-mile flown) in the '50s when most everyone was flying piston-engine planes.

(Bah, I wrote the above without the benefit of caffeine....)

Huh, I didn't go to any of the schools on the prettiest/ugliest lists.

The campus lists seem to be ugly buildings and beautiful views or landscaping.

Whatever. I went to school online and I think my computer is the sexiest thing EVAH!

My morning. 2.5 miles on the treadmill, made the kids' lunches, got kids their breakfast, shower and shave, assembled kids backpacks, made sure kids got dressed, walked kids to bus stop where daughter informed me that we forgot her glasses, took old clothes to donation center, took daughter's glasses to school, and finally drove to work.

I just find commercial aviation to be such an amazing achievement, and the odds of accident so small that it doesn't produce fear in me.

Yes, but when your car crashes, you don't subsequently fall screaming for 30,000 feet.

Actually, I justify my flying fear with the fact that there are perfectly cromulent cognitive reasons for it that overwhelm the rational accounting. Like: most people know how to drive, so even being a passenger in a car is more of a familiar, in-control situation than being a passenger in a plane. Car deaths are usually one or two at a time, and constant, which makes if much easier for them to fall into the background of one's attention, whereas 300 at a pop, major news coverage, makes plane crashes have much more attentional impact. And most of all, I know people who have had car crashes and survived. Although people do survive plane crashes, more often what you hear about is the whole plane, creamed into tiny bits at the bottom of Long Island Sound.

Mythbusters did a whole bunch of airplane/skydiving myths last night, including dumping Buster out of a plane at 3000 feet. It did not go well for him.

I expect you wouldn't do much screaming if you fell out as 40,000 feet as the lack of oxygen would probably render you unconscious immediately. But I'm not volunteering to try.