Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Support Our President's Spelling Skills -- A New Rolling Eyes Column! ((0) (0))

A Spelling Guide for Obama --  A New Rolling Eyes Column! ((0) (0))

Since President Obama struggled with spelling "R-E-S-P-E-C-T" recently, here is a spelling list he needs to study:

1. M-A-L-A-Y-S-I-A: Since he forgot the first E in "respect," he needs to remember that the Y in Malaysia comes after the second A, not the first. Okay?

2. M-A-L-A-C-C-A: This word may cause trouble for him since the speller must double the C, not the L. He probably saw the Malacca Straits as a child. Right? 

3. V-I-E-T-N-A-M: 58,193 American soldiers gave their lives there during the Vietnam War, according to militaryfactory.com. Easy to remember!

4. C-R-I-M-E-A: Although this word begins with "crime," it refers to a part of Ukraine, not Chicago--and it adds an A after "crime." Simple spelling rule!

5. U-K-R-A-I-N-E: Spelling this word is easy, too. It includes all the English vowels except O. If Putin can spell it correctly, the American president better, too! 

Will I-Phones Resolve the Missing Malaysian Airliner Mystery?

Alexander Graham Bell may have jetted out of his grave this morning. The Washington Post reports that some relatives insist they are achieving ring-tones on missing passengers' I-phones!

Could any message ever be more vital than the first one he sent on the telephone?

"Come here. I want you!"  

This is the very same message now ringing through the world for the passengers and crew of the missing Malaysian airliner. Bell didn't mince any words, did he? He could have wallowed in emotion, as current media do. He could have moaned and blamed the other party. Instead, he got right to the point. Hell freezes over until we solve this mystery: You are wanted--and right now! Come! Here! Travel to me via this vital instrument! 

Now two major publications are reporting this startling development:

the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/vanished-malaysia-airlines-flight-leaves-relatives-with-anger-and-phantom-phone-calls/2014/03/10/fdb78642-a862-11e3-b61e-8051b8b52d06_story.html

the UK Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2578020/Why-cellphones-missing-Malaysian-Airlines-passengers-ringing-Family-members-claim-loved-ones-smartphones-active.html

And both report the same supposed impossibilities: Not only are some passengers' I-Phones ringing, but some QQ accounts register missing passengers' activity online. 

Still missing, though, is any report of Iran's benevolent hopes for its apparent escapees, since the two passengers who purchased stolen passports did not want to call that country "home" any more--and were willing to try a space leap, if necessary, to get out.

So, will the I-Phones supply the clues that investigators need to solve this mystery? As the laws of physics dictate, every body--even an I-Phone--has got to be somewhere. Now, where there's a live I-Phone, is there also a live human being, even if s/he doesn't pick up that instrument to assure callers: Yes, Mr. Bell, my phone and I survived hell and high water!   

Missing Airliner: The Perfect Mystery?

Mystery fans follow the missing plane story because, so far, it appears to be the first case of a plane being virtually or actually vaporized. Not a single concrete clue to its location or disposal seems to exist. How does this happen in a concrete universe? 

So the passport trail becomes critical. The latest: one of those two Iranian false passport holders was supposedly seeking political asylum in Germany and was on his way there--and then the whole plot--plane, passengers and all--disappears? 

I have read mysteries for years, and there's never been one like this! Agatha Christie's novels are as close as any writer's ever come to this disappearing act--other than magicians. She wrote during wartime, so she used spies and double identities in her plots, as did Shakespeare, but Agatha Christie is famous for her locked room mystery 

Computer technology complicates events, of course. Is there a way now to erase a whole plane and its manifest from radar and memory? Were the Malaysian pilot and crew in on a plot to escape detection as the plane leaped from the South China Sea to Germany? 

Every nation on earth has a stake in this story, which has revealed that officials have not been checking passports against the Interpol list of stolen and lost passports, as they must do, as a critical step in avoiding disasters plotted by terrorists. 

If nations practice security measures perfectly, though, they also foil the schemes of freedom lovers seeking asylum. How do we resolve the plot of the missing plane without throwing the desperate back into the dragon's mouth?