Whoa. I think I got a little emo there for awhile but never fear my avid and single reader, the ship is once again on as even a keel as it ever was.

So... Quite a bit has happened since Christmas 2007, and my reaction to all that has happened went from incredulity, to despair, to anger and now has reached a stage best titled apoplectic rage. Seriously, what the hell is going on around here? We as Americans have to live up to the fact that our national attention span is lacking, to put it mildly, and our collective intellegence falls somewhere between that of a Formica counter top and a tree frog. Recent events are largely driven by wildly swinging public opinion, in turn fueled by unethical journalism.

Case in point. Mr. Sharkey begins this little gem of an article by highlighting the ailing business jet industry and how the current economic and political climate is affecting the workers therein. Certainly a worthy topic and a type of business one doesn't often think about. He speaks about how business travelers are using less corporate jets and how the commercial airlines, namely JetBlue (an airline with a whopping 60ish ports, about as fashionable as a Chihuahua in a purse and just as practical) are trying to woo them.

Mr. Sharkey continues to expound on how each public scandal of corporate excess causes further misery in the industry. Interviewees include two commercial aviation consultants and a former flight attendant now running a school in that craft. Each interviewee mentions how highly-publicized tales of excess are hurting the industry, and mentions that passengers of corporate jets are working more and more efficiently than their commercial-flying counterparts.

Having almost made it though a whole article without showing bias, Mr. Sharkey feels compelled, possibly due to NYT company policy, to ram his opinion down his readers' throats. Heaven forbid the article might actually expose the plight of solidly middle income stewardesses, pilots, and aircraft assembly workers. Immediately after Ms. Freidenberg calls a corporate jet a "workplace at 46,000 feet" and states that travelers are all business and are not partying it up in the slightest, Mr. Sharkey says:

"Parties up there? Um, yes, people do think that. The industry has a long way to go to convince people otherwise."

I think he just called his source a liar. Such a shining beacon of ethics is Mr. Sharkey. Such a bastion of unbiased reporting is the New York Times.

Incredulity, despair, anger, rage.