The Average Helicopter

Slow blogging day since I spent most of it in Ottawa, interviewing a Senator and a former Chief of the Defence Staff, and then chatted with a married couple of that dueled each other in a contest of who could make me talk more about my different incomplete research efforts (while providing me with much to think about), and then one last conversation with a pal who happened to be in Ottawa that day. 

Anyhow, one of my favorite Saturday Night Live lines of all time sort of came into play.  In a skit after Independence Day, the President from the movie (Bill Pullman) is in a debate with candidate Bob Dole, and Dole snaps back after the President uses the phrase "average American" with "The average American is dead."  I love that line because lots of disaster movies have seemingly happy endings, including Independence Day, Day After Tomorrow, 2012, etc even though much of the planet and certainly the US is destroyed. 

Why is this relevant today? Because I was talking to the aforementioned CDS, Gen. (ret) Ray Henault, a former helicopter pilot, and used the phrase "the average helicopter is broken" and he smiled, nodding his head. 

And the day was most successful--very much an average day in this research effort--lots of fascinating stuff, much supporting the argument of the book, some inconvenient realities that I will have to figure out.