Dear Blog Reader
I hope that this finds you doing well. I am doing very well. The ten day forecast suggests some hope for the future. I am afraid that my Bostonian readers will still have to import taller leprechauns in order to see them over the snow drifts that will still be around in a week. But you have that Superbowl trophy to get you through these trying times. Then yesterday, I was able to venture out of the house on my bike for my daily ride. I appreciate the solid service that my trainer provided; letting me do my best impression of a hamster on his wheel, endlessly pedaling furiously on a road to nowhere. I was excited to get outside, and my tires bike tires nearly burst in excitement when they touched pavement.
Two weeks ago in the blog, you read about humankind learning to fly right through the consequences of their own actions. As those words were written, I was thinking about the recent spate of drones in the news: here a drone there a drone everywhere a drone drone. Drones are the hottest fad since the hoola-hoops, beanie babies, or rubik's cubes. They are making Parisians nervous. They were used as a gag on the television show, Modern Family. They were featured on 60 Minutes where Amazon shared the great idea of delivering packages from warehouse to your door on the same day as ordered.
In anticipation of that news, I have been feverishly working at making SHARRITTLAND a sovereign nation with the rights of airspace and navigable waters both above and contiguous to the boarders of SHARRITTLAND forthwith. No wonder my son-in-law is going to law school for three years. It would take that long to teach a sane person to speak and write in such a convoluted way. Wouldn't be easier just to say "that there air is mine and if you fly your drone in my air, I'm going to make it mine too"? That is what I mean.
I want one of those drones. Actually, I want to shoot down a drone and capture its booty. Wouldn't that be cool? Every drone shot down would mean a different surprise, much better than Cracker Jacks. It would an adjunct to the online shopping experience. Admit it. You love hitting the enter button and having the UPS Santa pull in the drive in his Big Brown Truck to deliver this gift that you begged Santa Bezos for. Much more so than that fake Santa whose lap you sat on in kindergarten who brought you the play tool bench when you really wanted the six shooter to play cowboys and indians with Sam and Max. Thankfully they weren't judgmental and fell dutifully and gloriously when shot through with bullets fired from a plastic clawhammer just as dramatically as you fell when shot by their pearl-handled cap guns. In spite of Max and Sam's graciousness, I still get a thrill hitting enter and knowing that Santa will bring me the Apple watch with the sport band on Christmas Eve.
The utopian vision of me sitting on my porch everyday watching the radar for incoming surprise toting bogeys was dashed a couple of weeks ago when the FAA said that "Thou shalt not use a drone for any number of reasons. I don't know if this is good or bad, but Santa Bezos says that the FAA is being naughty and deserves a lump of coal. Since my pie in the sky retirement dreams depends on thousands of merchandise ladened drones crisscrossing SHARRITTLAND for entertainment and supplemental income, what is bad for Santa Bezos is bad for me.
What gives the FAA the right to say that Santa Bezos can't try this wonderfully quixotic vision of playing with drones? Sure there are going to be some mishaps. Some geese will be hit. Some buildings will be sideswiped. Some packages will be prematurely delivered from a great height. I know it is cliche but you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.
Dear FAA please don't stand in the way of progress, or at least be fair. You might ask "what's not fair about keeping drones from buzzing around our heads like a swarm of Africanized bees who are mad about being brought to a land where the winter goes on and on? Well those Amazon drones may have a few misfires, but they won't be shooting hellfires at us. Strafing your customers isn't a good business strategy. Yet we routinely use drones to make "deliveries" all over the world. I am guessing that the Taliban wishes that there was a FAA regulating the use of drones over Pakistan. Don't get me wrong using drones as a 72 virgin delivery system is a good use of American ingenuity. I'm just saying don't get in the way of harnessing that ingenuity for delivering blessings from heaven.
Take care
Roger
(potentate of SHARRITTLAND)
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