Thursday, September 06, 2007
Steve Fossett, Addict
So, the ludicrous Steve Fossett is still missing. So what? Why is it that people like this are presented - and even perceived - as heroes. Okay, they push themselves to their limits in various ways - so? They achieve no actual good, but are merely trying to prove something to themselves, and get a mighty blast of adrenalie, endorphins and adulation into the bargain. They are invariably complete egotists (thinking nothing of the spouses and families most of them seem to have acquired), entirely lacking in imagination and often driven by deep feelings of inadequacy. Risking their lives in pursuit of solitary and pointless self-gratification, are they are really any more 'heroic' than drug addicts?
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
wtf? nevada? that is nevada, usa. surely it's not beyond the wit of them to locate a lost man in their own back yard. I assume he wants to be found.
ReplyDeleteon the Bill they can find anyone by doing a ''trig'' on the mobile phone transmitters. easy, innit?
The Right Stuff is wired into us - "because it's there" is all that's required - so like it or lump it. Pretending that it isn't is unmanly, like taking up knitting. Steve Fossett may not be the ideal choice of hero - too much technology involved - but there are plenty of others who are. Sir Robin Knox-Johnson or Reinhold Meissner come to mind. Being sane or a nice guy doesn't figure.
ReplyDeleteI don't think he does want to be found Ian - I reckon he's just offing himself by the most inconvenient-to-everyone-else route. Typical of his kind.
ReplyDeleteCount to ten, Nige...
ReplyDeleteI always thought his surname was the same as that word Americans use for 'tap' - Steve Tap. Very good.
ReplyDeletelike Stiff Tap? don't force it.
ReplyDeleteIan, Nevada is 110,000+ square miles of absolutely nothing (and about 500 square populated miles). That's a land area larger than Great Britain. They are looking for one very small plane, probably crushed into a tiny ball, with no idea exactly where it went. His phone was undoubtedly destroyed in the crash, so it is unlikely to be transmitting a signal, otherwise they would already have found it. While they may find the remains eventually, people who didn't file flight plans have crashed in the deserts or mountain before and the remains not been dsicovered until months or years later (if ever).
ReplyDeleteNige: such people are, as you say, mostly utter jerks who ruin the lives of the loved ones they accumulate between madcap adventures.
ReplyDeleteBut unfortunately, humanity has always relied on such jerks for nearly everything great it has ever acheived.
I suspect alien abduction.
ReplyDeleteHe's a rich man whom we applaud because he found something marginally more interesting to do with his time and money than collect stamps.
ReplyDelete===================
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