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Don’t go there. I hear that all the time.<\/p>\nDon’t go there. I hear that all the time.<\/p>\n
Over the weekend I read that\u00a0Tony Stewart, a well-known NASCAR driver, ran\u00a0over and killed another driver<\/a> at a racetrack in upstate New York.<\/p>\n I was a car racing fan until my mid-20s, when I went to\u00a0a stock car race\u00a0in Enid, Oklahoma. A couple of laps into the main event three or four cars collided\u00a0in front of the stands, blocking the track. The flagman ran onto the track furiously waving\u00a0his red\u00a0flag. Another car came accelerating\u00a0out of the corner and slammed into the\u00a0stopped cars, followed by four or five more, wham wham wham. It was a spectacular pileup. A second later the announcer said “Where’s the flagman?”\u00a0He’d been there. Suddenly\u00a0he wasn’t.<\/p>\n And then\u00a0I saw him. There was a little bundle of black and white clothing by the infield fence, about 200 yards from the wrecked cars. It looked like a pile of laundry. The ambulance pulled in front of that little bundle and blocked our\u00a0view, but not before everyone else had seen him too. Five minutes later, as they were finishing\u00a0clearing the track so the race could resume, the announcer told us the flagman\u00a0was DOA.<\/p>\n I’m not saying anything here\u00a0that hasn’t been said a thousand times: everyone understands a significant number of\u00a0auto racing fans are drawn to the sport\u00a0for the\u00a0crashes and the possibility of seeing someone die. There’s always been a bread and\u00a0circuses element to motor sports. Race fans don’t like to see this discussed because, I’m guessing, they feel it will damage the sport and lead to additional restrictions and\u00a0regulations.\u00a0Bring any of this stuff up to a NASCAR fan, he’ll\u00a0wish you hadn’t.<\/p>\n Same thing with the Tony Stewart incident last\u00a0weekend. I posted a sardonic remark\u00a0on Facebook: “At last, NASCAR is beginning to live up to its full potential.” Within minutes, a friend straightened\u00a0me out by telling me the race wasn’t a NASCAR event. Another friend\u00a0said “Let’s not go there. Tony Stewart is known to be an ass.”<\/p>\n The first comment reminded me of the NRA guys\u00a0who jump on anyone who dares to comment on mass shootings.\u00a0\u00a0You know, the ones who say\u00a0“If you don’t know the difference between an AR-15 and a Kalashnikov you aren’t qualified to have an opinion.” The second comment baffled me, and still does. Oh, I get the “let’s not\u00a0go there” part. It’s the “Tony Stewart is known to be an ass” part I don’t understand. You see, a lot of the journalists reporting on the incident are quoting fans and witnesses who say they think Tony Stewart deliberately hit the other driver.<\/p>\n I do not know whether Tony Stewart deliberately hit the other driver, or if it was an unavoidable accident.<\/em>\u00a0Presumably race officials and local law enforcement are reviewing the tapes and interviewing witnesses, and there’ll be some sort of investigation. But if it turns out Stewart\u00a0did hit the other driver on purpose, then he’d\u00a0be something more than a mere ass. He’d be a murderer. So what was my friend saying? “Let’s not\u00a0go there because this guy is known to be a bad actor, so he was just doing what comes naturally”? Or was he saying “Let’s not\u00a0go there because\u00a0even though this guy is known to be an ass, we don’t really know what happened”? Or was he just saying “Let’s not go there because it makes me uncomfortable”? Well, I’ll be seeing him in September, and I’ll ask him then.<\/p>\n I occasionally comment on aviation accidents<\/a>, particularly when the evidence suggests the pilots are at fault. Fellow pilots will sometimes warn me off. Don’t go there. But in addition to being a pilot, I was also a flight safety officer. I personally investigated three major accidents and supervised the investigations of at least twelve\u00a0more. I know first hand how often pilots are at fault (hint: at least 90 percent of the time), and I don’t believe in ignoring the obvious.<\/p>\n The other day I took sides with\u00a0Israel<\/a> in the current conflict with Hamas. I thought I took a pretty strong pro-Israel stand, but two Jewish friends got on my case because I wasn’t pro-Israel enough. I had expressed some sympathy for non-combatant Palestinians trapped in Gaza and suggested that part of the solution, in addition to Hamas recognizing Israel, would be for Israel to stop building settlements in Palestinian territory. Even that little bit was too much for them. Don’t go there.<\/p>\n