Jim_Hooper

Still the same smartass you were when you were twenty, aintcha? Hoop

Hmmm - looks like my memory ain't what it useta be. You gonna cut me some slack, Mike? I'm just gonna pretend that Larry and Crusty didn't add their two cents' worth. Damn! Hoop PS Was that Rick Haglund's D-18?

Rog - cut Mike some slack, he's getting on in years, and his memory isn't what it once was. I'm sure he's talking about the L10E. Two engines, two propellers, two wings, two rudders - they do look similar. Of course, maybe Crispy thought it was a Twin Beech all along. I don't know about you, but calling something as classy as Amelia a Twin Beech is downright disrespectful. Hoop PS (Oh, hi, Mike, how ya doin'? No, no, Rog and I were just hanging out, shooting the shit. Nuthin' about you. Right, Rog?)

Uh, I'm no expert, but that looks like a C-82. Where's Jack Gregory?!

What no one's mentioned yet is Bird's phenomenal memory for names and faces. Hoop

I have to concur with everything Crusty says. It was uncanny how aware Jerry Bird was of everyone's performance on a jump. That awareness, coupled to his exceptional flying, teaching and leadership skills, are what made him perhaps the most influential personality in relative work for thirty years. Unlike some other big names, he also had the ability to laugh at himself. The sport owes him more than it can ever repay. Hoop SCR242 www.jimhooper.co.uk

With respect to the homophonous words in question, that's quite a subtle vein you have, though likely to skip far over the misanthrope's head.

Sorry about that. Lemme try again. Hoop

See attached.

Karen – you have a Thompson? Cool. On the subject of socialism and slavery, allow me to pluck from a review I wrote a couple of years ago: “Not having read any of Vonnegut's work for 30 years, I opened A Man Without a Country and remembered why I'd so assiduously avoided him. As a natural conservative I much enjoy the thrust and parry of lively political debate. But KV, like almost every socialist I've ever met, doesn't do debate, preferring mockery, innuendo, myth and willfully distorted facts. It's the superior sneer of the self-styled intellectual who doesn't know what he's talking about. His unwavering belief in doctrinal socialism brings to mind a line from Emerson: "Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." His defence of Marx is mind-boggling. That he then manages to blend the benefits of Marxist ideology with the evils of slavery left me moderately bemused. (The American Indian, whose cause he champions, was something of a proto-Marxist and quite happily used slaves - or at least those not condemned to death by ritual torture.) His obsession with slavery and the inference that the United States was uniquely guilty of it is symptomatic of historical revisionism at its most banal. Slavery is a millennia-old, worldwide phenomenon, with a reasonable chance that many of us have distant ancestors who suffered it, “serfdom” being just another name for the phenomenon. But during the period he's most exercised about, villainous white slavers didn't mount raids into the interior of Africa, they purchased stock from West African coastal chieftains, who enjoyed vast profits from the sale of fellow Africans. And who, after parliament made not just the trade but the ownership of slaves illegal in Britain in 1834, wrote letters of howling protest to the Crown that the new law was going to ruin them. Just as Vonnegut ignores the complicity of Africans in the trade, he also omits that it was white European stock that lobbied against and eventually outlawed what had existed in Africa for centuries before the arrival of the first Portuguese explorers, and continued long after it was banned by European and North American governments (or that it continues in some West African countries and parts of the Middle East – even today, the Arab word for “black” is ab’d, which is also the slang term for “slave”). Unsurprisingly, he overlooks the enslavement of over a million Europeans by Barbary corsairs between 1500 and the mid-1800s. Spain and the Italian city states suffered the greatest depredations, but the North African raiders seized thousands of Irish, Cornish and Welsh and not an insignificant number of colonial American seamen. The latter led to the first foreign intervention by the US Navy in 1813 and the line from the Marine Corps hymn, “From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli”. [See Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters, Robert Davis (Palgrave MacMillan, 2003) and White Gold, Giles Milton (Hodder & Stoughton, 2004)]” Asking if the involvement of Africans (or Indians or Chinese or Romans or Visigoths) in slavery excuses the involvement of pre-20th century Westerners is a stupid and pointless question: one cannot retroactively apply 21st century standards to what was acceptable in the past. It’s always helpful to have a few historical facts at hand. Hoop

Karen, Randall, Mike and Kevin – We won’t agree on everything. We might even become moderately exercised in our debates. But that doesn’t presuppose the need to launch immature, personal attacks on each other for holding different opinions. It’s worth keeping in mind that some people have never accomplished much in life. Rather than recognizing the reasons for their failures and working to correct them, they angrily blame those who, through hard work and determination, have enjoyed well-deserved successes. The most inadequate among them vent their anger through gratuitous insults, taking pleasure – because it draws attention to an otherwise empty existence – from the reactions of their targets. When the insults descend to deliberately offensive sexual references bearing no relation to the subject at hand, one has to wonder what lies behind it. Within their own peculiar little world, being disliked is twisted proof of their own superiority. Sort of a self-perpetuating mental scoliosis. Not everyone succeeds at everything, but most recognize why, learn from the experience, and try again. Others are incapable of honest reflection. I’ve always found the following quote particularly apropos. Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. Theodore Roosevelt Hoop

I was so slow on the uptake I didn't catch it until right after I hit POST REPLY. Then I thought, "That was so damn quick and witty I just may have to steal it the next time I need a caption for that particular snap." Nice one. (And the same thing about someone thinking they were bearers crossed my mind, too.) Thanks. Hoop

Actually, one small rucksack and what could fit in my camera jacket during a three-month trek with Angolan rebels. More photos under Image Galleries on www.jimhooper.co.uk

To wit: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” said Judge Sotomayor. Now, try transposing "wise Latina woman" and "white male", put it in the mouth of someone guilty of the latter and then imagine 'human rights' advocates suffering a collective case of the vapors. (You are following the logic here, aren't you?) Oh yeah. What with all those lynch mobs of Latina women coming to string up white men, we'd better take care! Point is both sides torture logic to make bogus claims of racism. When you only see the one side but not the other your bias is showing. Your first paragraph is adolescent drivel. But the first sentence in the second paragraph is absolutely correct. The second sentence, however, reveals your bias in refusing to recognize that I deplore both, as my qualifying comment makes abundantly clear. Without a balanced perspective, rational decision-making is impossible. Better to be guided by fact than emotion, the latter a most unreliable basis for judging anything.

Damn! You saw right through me. Okay, I'll admit it: I'm a rhysist. Do you think counselling might help? Hoop SCR242 SCS90 NSCR26

Mike, Nigel and KBordson - I was puzzled as to why you bothered with this twit. And then it struck me. His logic is as hilarious as his grammar, syntax and spelling. He can't put key to cursor without making a complete fool of himself. Time to come clean and admit it: you guys are laughing your arses off, aren't you? He's certainly kept me in stitches. Nice move. Thanks. Hoop

Having spent much of the last 25 years reporting from various countries in Africa - and written a number of books on conflict there - I can say that the educated black Africans I know would find our Kiwi correspondent's comments extremely paternalistic and patronizing. Others would be laughing at him behind his back. Their attitude would be that they really don't need - or want - to be defended by someone as pig-ignorent and ill-mannered as this individual. His obsessive self-righteousness in letting us all know that "some-of-my-best-friends-aren't-white", along with an equally unbalanced urge to be deliberately offensive to everyone, raises some fairly interesting questions best left to a psychoanalyst (though "transference" comes to mind). He's a silly and inadequate little person - the product, I suspect, of over-indulgent parents - who desperately craves attention. As far as the subject of this thread, I've just come back from a month in Ethiopia, south Sudan, Uganda and Kenya. The reaction to the Obama poster was, "Who cares? Ready for another beer?" They would have found Master Kiwi's rantings irrelevant and embarrassing. And would definitely have laughed at him behind his back. As we all should. www.jimhooper.co.uk

To wit: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” said Judge Sotomayor. Now, try transposing "wise Latina woman" and "white male", put it in the mouth of someone guilty of the latter and then imagine 'human rights' advocates suffering a collective case of the vapors. (You are following the logic here, aren't you?)

NEWS FLASH Ted Kennedy is now eligible to vote in Chicago

It wasn't the gear that made it great, Sparky, it was the people and an irrepressible sense of adventure and fun, leavened with heaps of "What, me worry?" But I suspect you know that already. Sure kept us current on emergency proceedures (25 cutaways in my first 1200 jumps). Hoop

That is one outstanding piece of T-shirt art. Hoop

Insults have no place in rational debate, and I'm surprised you interpreted it that way. (No, I'm not sorry, because it wasn't my intention to be insulting.) Perhaps I could have said, "You need to get a grip on the history of the socialist movement in order to understand why so many people take grave exception to a philosophy that demands an 'equitable division of labor,' which penalizes those with initiative and personal responsibility in favor of those who do not. As Margaret Thatcher observed: "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money." The fact is, there will always be an underclass that will resist being lifted out of its ghettos and trashy trailer parks. Another fact is that the Left, in order to gain and retain power, needs an underclass dependent on handouts from the State. A third unpalatable fact is that Left-wing politicians enjoy power every bit as much as their philosophically more entrepreneurial opponents - the big difference being that the Left is far more hypocritical about it: in 25 years living in England, where the breed is pervasive, I've never seen a poor one. Theirs is the philosophy of the nanny state: "I know better, so don't question what I'm telling you to do, otherwise you'll be charged with racism, fascism, sexism, ageism and whatever else I can think of if those aren't enough to shut you up." A convinced conservative, I nonetheless take considerable delight in ripping into the likes of Cheney, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft. Curiously, I've seldom come across those of the Left who will attack the policies/actions of their Left-wing co-religionists in positions of power. (Just as the vile Hitler is their favorite demon, but never, never Lenin, Stalin or Mao. Strange, that.) So perhaps you should interpret getting a grip as a metaphor for balance and historical perspective. Which I recommend you take not as an insult but a path to enlightenment. Hoop www.jimhooper.co.uk

The Right does that all the time with "socialism", Jim. You're doing apples and oranges. Socialism, like religion, is a belief system based on faith rather than impirical evidence, and thus deserving of critical anaysis. (As is capitalism, despite it having benefited more people than any other 'ism' in history.) Racism, on the other hand, is a pathology, and too often employed by the likes of Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to silence criticism. Why does disliking Obama's brand of politics make someone a racist? Has democracy become defined by bludeoning dissent into silent acquiescence for fear of being labeled racist or - that other favorite Leftie pejorative - fascist? (The latter a curious insult, considering that good Leftists Stalin and Mao killed far more people under far more repressive regimes.) It's like Vyshinsky branding anti-collectivists as 'deviationists,' despite their otherwise being doctrinal communists. So please, get a grip.

I personally saw it as genuine political satire without a hint of so-called 'racism' that, like other 'isms', is regularly employed by the Left to put legitimate criticism beyond the pale. It would appear that a little perspective is in order. http://www.reason.com/news/show/135293.html

Just to keep things in perspective for those who are newish to skydiving, it's worth pointing out that Brian Williams was the first to enter a round star eighth, and that others did so hundreds of times before Newell started the SCS six years after Brian's accomplishment. Hoop