Tag: Good News

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Business, Management, Marketing / Advertising

This, I think, is Good News:

Long-defunct airline Pan Am is inching towards revival more than three decades after going out of business.

AVi8 Air Capital and Pan American Global Holdings, which owns the intellectual property rights to the Pan Am brand, have begun the certification process with the FAA. AVi8 announced they have completed a business plan for the brand’s revival efforts.

“Avi8 has assembled a world-class team to lead the certification effort and has received strong initial support from aircraft lessors and key vendors,” the company said on Thursday.

If all goes to plan, the company will be based out of Miami with a fleet of Airbus aircrafts*.

Right off the bat, let me say that I loved Pan Am, both the airline and its philosophy — well, before Juan Trippe chased after the lower-income market and cocked up the brand (as documented here).

I just hope that the New Pan Am doesn’t try to be another Spirit or JetBlue (joint motto:  We invented cheap ‘n nasty travel, and we never fail to rub your noses in that ), because that way lies utter, abject failure.

As I said earlier, Pan Am’s road to aviation success and profitability is not through the mass market, but by catering to the affluent traveler, with peerless customer service and spotless aircraft.  Like they used to.

Despite Pan Am’s earlier demise, their brand might still have some cachet left over, even now.  And if they relaunch and re-brand the airline back to its heritage and strengths (including — gasp! comely flight attendants and not grab-a-granny / tattooed slatterns, some overlap), I can almost guarantee they’ll do well.

Go for it, guys.  I for one look forward to your trip [sic] with great anticipation, and I hope that future passengers won’t be able to beat the experience…

And by the way:  resist the impulse to change your old logo.  It was wonderful then, and will serve you well now.

*Ummm… it’s aircraft not aircrafts — “aircraft” is both singular and plural, like “sheep” or “deer”, but let’s not have that interfere with the good news.

Piling On

Architecture

I don’t know how much more of this I can stand:

The White House on Tuesday reportedly fired members of Washington, D.C.’s Commission of Fine Arts, which advises on architectural developments in the capital, including the White House.

The White House has fired all six commission members who were installed under former President Joe Biden, and whose terms were expected to end in 2028.

“We are preparing to appoint a new slate of members to the commission that are more aligned with President Trump’s America First Policies,” a White House official told The Hill.

So… does this mean no more government buildings that look like this?

Fire away, then.

Well, Now

Immigration, Legal Stuff

Seems as though there’s a teeny hole in the Constitution after all:

Twenty-five Republican attorneys general have filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court, challenging birthright citizenship.

“The idea that citizenship is guaranteed to everyone born in the United States doesn’t square with the plain language of the Fourteenth Amendment or the way many government officials and legal analysts understood the law when it was adopted after the Civil War.

“If you look at the law at the time, citizenship attached to kids whose parents were lawfully in the country. Each child born in this country is precious no matter their parents’ immigration status, but not every child is entitled to American citizenship. This case could allow the Supreme Court to resolve a constitutional question with far-reaching implications for the States and our nation.”

I have to say that this little feature always nagged at me (despite being a one-time immigrant myself).  The idea that anyone born in the U.S. had automatic citizenship seemed on its face to be unreasonable — I mean, I think that we are the only country in the world that allows for this in our legal system.  (There might be a couple of others, but I suspect that these might be countries where nobody wants to live anyway.)

Whatever, I’d like to see this whole “anchor baby” situation disappear.  The child should be a citizen of the home country of either the mother or the father (if known).  If nobody knows who the father is (a regrettably-common feature of modern-day life) and the mother were to die during or soon after childbirth, then I might be prepared to accept automatic citizenship for the baby, if only for humanitarian reasons.

Anyway, I’m glad to see that the issue may soon be resolved one way or the other.  I’ll leave it to your imagination to figure out who might oppose this initiative by the various attorneys-general.

Dept. Of Righteous Shootings

Righteous Shootings

When you hear news like this, you just know it’s going to have a happy ending:

“10-4 units responding to the burglary in progress, 22nd Avenue caller now advising it was a black male wearing a white shirt armed with a firearm. The caller now advises she has shot that male; he is currently laying on the ground.”

Ignoring the grammar — it’s “lying”, not “laying” — the rest of the story appears to be that a choirboy broke into an Alabama woman’s house armed with a gun, only to discover that said Heroine was likewise armed and quite prepared to defend herself.  Which she did, to his detriment.

Of course, the choirboy was just some innocent kid — not.

Morgan County Coroner Jeff Chunn identified the male as 46-year-old Narado Brinkley, and WZDX said his criminal past includes drug and burglary convictions.

State records show Brinkley served time for offenses, including first-degree robbery, third-degree burglary, possession of a pistol by a convicted felon, and distribution of a controlled substance, WZDX noted.

His records also indicate multiple probation violations, and he most recently served five months after a 2023 conviction on drug and burglary counts, WZDX added.

So maybe not some pore lil’ choirboy, but a total asshole not worthy of any sympathy whatsoever.

There should be some reward — I mean actual money — offered to people who end up ridding society of such scum.  Feel free to disagree with me, but you’d be wrong.

Lifestyle Choices

Food & Drink, Lifestyle

From some Spanish chick SOTI about her country’s lifestyle:

‘Everything slows down in the afternoon heat. Between 2pm and 5pm, shops close, streets empty, and we like to rest up.

‘Embrace our slower afternoons and you’ll have more energy to enjoy dinner the Spanish way; late, leisurely, and alfresco at 10pm.’

I have to say that when I went to Chile — where they have the same outlook — I grew to love that way of doing things.  Granted, it’s not the best business practice, and you can mock it all you want, but it sure as hell is more restful.  I loved that when we Americanos  went out for dinner at 7pm, we found most restaurants still closed or at best staffed only with people cleaning the place.  Two hours later and there’d be a queue of hungry Chileans with their families waiting for a table.  Then after the meal — which would end at about 10.30pm — the streets were filled with people strolling about the streets, or going home.  Bedtime, I would guess, was no earlier than 11pm, maybe later.

Small wonder that their workday only begins after 9am.

One of the worst aspects of our Murkin work ethic is that nonsense about eating lunch at your desk.  Apart from being a filthy habit — sauces and crumbs scattered all over the place — it denies the necessity of taking a break from work. When I was working for Big Corporations, I never had a lunch break of less than an hour, unless there was a deadline looming in which case I just didn’t eat at all and worked through lunchtime.  But those situations were few and far between, because I planned my workload efficiently to account for a long lunch.  I might have worked late — sometimes past midnight — but only during crunch times.

Over Here?  Don’t ask.  Work, work work, even for a shitty wage, and annual vacations that are totally inadequate for allowing people to take a proper break from the grind.  Ten working days / two weeks?  What a load of crock.  Whenever I hear about some asshole saying proudly that he hasn’t taken a break from work for ten years, I want to kick his ass.

And we wonder why some people burn out.

I don’t want to hear that our relentless work ethic is what makes our economy the powerhouse that it is.  What causes that is not the number of hours we work, but how efficiently we work.  (Europeans and Latin Americans are the worst:  they work less time and only at about 60% of our efficiency, so it’s small wonder their economies lag behind ours.)  There must be a happy medium somewhere between Euro sloth and American drive, and we should try to find it.

To quote the best summary ever:  Nobody ever lay on his deathbed wishing he’d spent more time at the office.

Cutting The Fat

Good Stuff, Military

SecWar (how I love that new title) Pete Hegseth has apparently read the Riot Act to the fat cats at the upper end of the chain of command:

“The era of politically correct, overly sensitive don’t-hurt-anyone’s-feelings leadership ends right now at every level,” Hegseth said at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia.

He also announced at the meeting new directives for troops that include “gender-neutral” or “male-level” standards for physical fitness as well as an end to “woke” culture in the military, according to the Associated Press.

Hegseth also said he is changing fitness and appearance standards for the military, while setting the “Golden Rule” test.

Hegseth began his speech by saying: “Welcome to the War Department.”  He also said: “The era of the Department of Defense is over.”

The secretary said the mission of the Pentagon is “warfighting: preparing for war and preparing to win, unrelenting and uncompromising in that pursuit.”

“Our warfighters are entitled to be led by the best and most capable leaders,” he said. “That is who we need you all to be.”

“We lost our way, and we became the ‘woke’ department, but not anymore,” Hegseth also said.

The secretary said that he is sending out 10 new DOD directives regarding physical fitness and grooming requirements, including a return to “the highest male standard” for combat positions.

“If you do not meet the male level physical standards for combat positions, cannot pass a PT test, or don’t want to shave and look professional, it’s time for a new position or a new profession,” he said.

Hegseth added that “it’s tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops. Likewise, it’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon and leading commands around the world. It’s a bad look.”

Everyone agreeing with Pete, raise your hands…

Watch what happens to recruitment numbers…