Two readers wrote to ask what I think about the U. S. Navy ‘rescuing’ a family with small children from a sailboat 900 miles off Mexico, particularly wondering why the husband did not remain aboard even if his wife and children needed to be removed.
My response:
I saw a report on this on the evening news and it caused me to change station halfway though. I disliked it on several levels: the way the press handled it; that the man left the boat--in doing so he proved he shouldn't have been out there; a question as to whether the 'rescue' was even necessary; and the reported outrage expressed in 'social media' that a family would go offshore with small children. A plague on all their houses.
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In THE GUARDIAN today is a piece about a message in a bottle being found in The Baltic 101 years after it was cast there and delivered to the granddaughter of the man who did so.
Think of it bobbing since 1913, the year before WWI began. Of all the ships and boats that passed. All the people who lived and loved and fought and died on the surrounding land.
Ah, if only that bottle could talk.
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I am indebted to Jim on the west coast for a link to dramatic low tide/high tide photos along the British Coast.
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When I went back to check out Steve Earley’s photo that I added yesterday to the GANNET page, I realized that the paragraph above it needed updating, which has been done.
And will soon need to be done again.
