Friday, December 30, 2022
How Southwest Airlines Melted Down
When Southwest Airlines Co. LUV 0.93%increase; green up pointing triangle reassigns crews after flight disruptions, it typically relies on a system called SkySolver. This Christmas, SkySolver not only didn’t solve much, it also helped create the worst industry meltdown in recent memory. Airline executives and labor leaders point to inadequate technology systems, in particular SkySolver, as one reason why a brutal winter storm turned into a debacle. SkySolver was overwhelmed by the scale of the task of sorting out which pilots and flight attendants could work which flights, Southwest executives said. Crew schedulers instead had to comb through records by hand. The airline has said SkySolver works well during a more typical disruption and had helped it manage recent hurricanes and snowstorms. But the scale of this past week’s storm, coupled with a network that still hasn’t been fully restored in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, gummed things up. Even as it tried to solve one set of problems, new ones would emerge. Crews and planes were out of place. Phone lines jammed up, and Southwest pilots and flight attendants trying to get assignments couldn’t get through to the scheduling department. Some shared screenshots on social media that showed hold times of eight hours or more—which meant they could wait a full workday for instructions while flights were stuck for the lack of a crew. The airline was scrambling just to figure out where its crew members were located, union leaders said. “There just was not enough time in the day for them to work through the manual solutions,” Chief Operating Officer Andrew Watterson said in an interview. Southwest prides itself on a laid-back culture and exceptional customer service. Now that reputation has been badly damaged. It canceled more than 13,000 flights since Thursday, stranded passengers and bags across the country, snarled Southwest’s crew members and drew fire from federal officials. Chief Executive Officer Bob Jordan, who has been in the job for less than a year, publicly apologized. Mr. Watterson has been in his job since October. Both are longtime company executives. The storm hit cities like Denver and Chicago that are at the heart of Southwest’s operation, and where many of its employees are based. To be sure, many of the challenges Southwest faced were similar to those encountered by other airlines: Ground equipment and jet bridges froze, fuel congealed due to the subfreezing temperatures and staff needed to rotate inside more frequently. But rival airlines recovered more rapidly. In the wake of the mess, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and federal lawmakers have stepped up calls for more stringent consumer protection measures. Southwest’s shares have fallen 11% this week, outstripping declines for other airlines. Citigroup Inc. analysts said that fourth-quarter earnings for the airline could take a 3% to 5% hit. “We’ve talked a little over the last year about the need to modernize the operation and invest,” Mr. Jordan wrote Monday in a memo to employees. “This is why.” In a November meeting with reporters, the CEO noted the airline had expanded faster than its technology. “I do think the scale and the growth of the airline got ahead of the tools that we have,” he said. This isn’t the first time that a disruption has ballooned at Southwest, and the carrier’s struggle to put its operations back together shows how its increasingly complicated network needs a better technology foundation. Union leaders have criticized the airline for being too slow to make changes, and Southwest executives have said their systems are being updated. Southwest’s pilots union for years complained that SkySolver often spits out fixes that don’t make much sense, sending crews on circuitous journeys around the country as passengers to meet flights, a practice known as “deadheading.” In one example during the storm, the system assigned a pilot to deadhead on a flight from Baltimore to Manchester, N.H., and then back to Baltimore the next day, without ever flying a plane, according to Casey Murray, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association labor union. “The company has had its head buried in the sand when it comes to its operational processes and IT,” Mr. Murray wrote in a message to members Monday...
Southwest Meltdown Was 'Perfect Storm' of Well-Known Vulnerabilities
Total nightmare. I'm so happy I got to stay home for holidays.
At LAT, "Far from a shock, Southwest meltdown was ‘perfect storm’ of well-known vulnerabilities."
Wednesday, December 28, 2022
Nomi M. Stolzenberg and David N. Myers, American Shtetl
At Amazon, Nomi M. Stolzenberg and David N. Myers, American Shtetl: The Making of Kiryas Joel, a Hasidic Village in Upstate New York.
In Memphis Public Schools, Literacy Taught in Every Class
THIS should be the civil rights issue of the 21st century.
At least the New York Times is broaching the subject, because certainly just raising the issue is racist.
See, "In Memphis, the Phonics Movement Comes to High School":
Literacy lessons are embedded in every academic class. Even in biology. MEMPHIS — For much of his life, Roderick, a high school junior, did not enjoy reading. As a boy, he trudged through picture books that his mother encouraged him to read. As a teenager, he has sometimes wrestled with complex texts at school. “I would read, and I’d go back and reread,” he said. “It’s just stressful.” But recently, he said, he has made strides, in part because of an unusual and sweeping high school literacy curriculum in Memphis. The program focuses on expanding vocabulary and giving teenagers reading strategies — such as decoding words — that build upon fundamentals taught in elementary school. The curriculum is embedded not just in English, but also in math, science and social studies. With his new tools, Roderick studied “I Have a Dream,” the speech by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — no longer skipping unfamiliar words, but instead circling them to discern their meaning. And when scanning sports news on ESPN in his free time, he knew to break down bigger words, like the “re/negotia/tion” of a player’s contract. The instruction “helped me understand,” said Roderick, 17, who is on the honor roll at Oakhaven High School and is preparing to take the ACT. (He and other students, interviewed with parental permission, are being identified by their first names to protect their privacy.) The program in Memphis is an extension of a growing national movement to change the way younger children are taught to read, based on what has become known as “the science of reading.” And it is a sign of how sharply the pendulum has swung in the decades-long, contentious debate over reading instruction, moving away from a flexible “balanced literacy” approach that has put less emphasis on sounding out words, and toward more explicit, systematic teaching of phonics. Brain science has shown that reading is not automatic, and longstanding research supports the need for sequenced sound-it-out instruction, along with books that build vocabulary and knowledge. Since 2021, Tennessee and more than a dozen other states have passed laws or policies reshaping reading instruction, according to Education Week. But reform has largely centered on the early years, kindergarten through third grade, and millions of students have already progressed beyond those grades without getting the full support that they needed. Nationwide, two in three eighth graders are not reading with proficiency, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a rigorous exam overseen by the U.S. Education Department. Nearly one in three falls “below basic,” meaning they have not demonstrated even partial mastery of the comprehension and analysis skills expected for their age. Reading difficulties cut across all demographic groups. About one in five eighth graders from middle- and higher-income families and a similar share of students with at least one college-educated parent are reading below a basic level. Among Asian and white eighth graders, who scored highest overall, about 15 to 20 percent have not achieved partial mastery. The situation is often most acute, though, in communities with fewer resources. Shelby County, which includes Memphis, has one of the highest concentrations of school-age children living in poverty, at more than 30 percent, and the Memphis-Shelby County school district trails many other large school districts on the national exam. About half of its eighth graders are reading below a basic level, and most are not proficient. Tennessee has aggressively pushed for statewide change. Last year, the state’s Republican legislature and governor, Bill Lee, passed a law that required all elementary schoolteachers be trained in a phonics-based approach, with optional literacy training for middle and high school teachers. More than 40,000 teachers have participated in the training so far, according to the state’s education department. “This is the most important thing we can do in public schools right now,” said Penny Schwinn, Tennessee’s education commissioner, of the literacy focus...
The Nihilism of the Ruling Class
It's Curtis Yarvin, at Compact, with a review of David Rothkopf's, American Resistance: The Inside Story of How the Deep State Saved the Nation.
'The new Oppenheimerfilm by Christopher Nolan features a nuclear explosion done without CGI...'
I'd like to see that!
At AoSHQ, movie talk, in particular, what's up with "Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One"?
See, "Is This Something?"
He's talking about this video, "The Biggest Stunt in Cinema History (Tom Cruise)."
Sunday, December 25, 2022
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas to all my friends and readers!
Also, Happy Hanukkah!
Merry Christmas you guys! The weather in Detroit prevented some of my family from coming in for Christmas, at least Detroit stopped something this weekend. pic.twitter.com/WuA6FAMDPz
— Annie Agar (@AnnieAgar) December 25, 2022
What’s on your Christmas list this year? 🎄❤️🔥 pic.twitter.com/bSuLXyAxcP
— Kyra Marie (@Kyra_Belanger) December 22, 2022
Happy Holidays! pic.twitter.com/3wlaveVPEd
— Paige Spiranac (@PaigeSpiranac) December 23, 2022
Thinking about getting railed by some elves tonight 😇 pic.twitter.com/teKEnU7bn6
— Kayla Erin (@itsKaylaErin) December 24, 2022
Santa’s slut pic.twitter.com/5aQFyRQrRe
— Keisha™️ (@littlekeish) December 25, 2022
Saturday, December 24, 2022
Christmas Eve Shopping
I want to wish my readers a Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah. Thank you for shopping my Amazon links this year. I don't earn a lot, though enough for a book budget to keep me buried in the latest award-winning novels.
Click for some Very Merry Deals.
And the rare holiday selfie from me. Have a good one!
Currently reading : 🤙📚🎄📕🤶 #BookTwitter #Reading #Books #Literature #LiteraryFiction #Novels #ChristmasCarol #ChristmasEve #MerryChristmas pic.twitter.com/2eDV36LUs2
— Donald Douglas 📘 (@AmPowerBlog) December 24, 2022
Thursday, December 22, 2022
Katie Pavlich: President Biden Has Yet to Answer the Question of Negotiations to End the War in Ukraine (VIDEO)
It's diametrical opposites on Twitter this morning, with Real Conservatives™ adamantly opposed to continued support or Zalensky and Ukraine, while we have the dreaded "neocons" rubbing their hands in glee after the Ukrainian president's address to Congress last night.
I love Katie Pavlich. I really do. She's down to earth and smart as hell.
She lays it all out here, speaking to John Roberts earlier, on Fox News:
Going Backwards
It's Auber:
Went to the dark side 😈 pic.twitter.com/1gWnjvw07J
— Aubernutter (@aubernutter) December 21, 2022
Tuesday, December 20, 2022
Real-Time Doxxing and the Littlest Musk
From Abigail Shrier, on Substack, "Policies to Discourage Stalking Do Not Equal Suppression of Political Speech":
Whether Musk is in fact a free-speech warrior or simply a self-interested CEO with incomprehensible power to shape public debate remains to be seen. But those of us who published pieces about the Twitter Files never claimed nor implied he was a “free speech warrior.” Musk himself did. The systemic suppression of anti-Woke speech on a social media platform that sets the news agenda for our largest media companies and hundreds of millions of users remains a critical revelation. When Nikita Khrushchev took power in the Soviet Union and in 1956, began revealing Stalin’s purges of his political enemies and ethnic cleansing, Krushchev did history a service whether or not his regime turned out to be more liberal and freedom-affording than the one it replaced. (Of course, it did; anybody’s would have.) Musk is a strange man. A consummate jokester and an undeniable genius. He bought a company for which, by his own estimation, he paid three times what it was worth. “At least,” he said, when I and Michael Shellenberger and Bari Weiss asked him about this. “I thought this was important to the future of civilization,” he said. “I told investors that too…. And I thought this was important to the future of civilization to have a digital Town Square that people thought was fair and a level playing field and that, I don’t know, pro civilization essentially.” He told us he bought Twitter to protect the “expansion of consciousness.” I pressed him on this. Were President Donald Trump’s tweets really necessary for the “expansion of consciousness?” I expected Musk to back off of this claim. He didn’t. “If we are to understand more about, I don't know, the world, then we do have to have like freedom of expression and freedom of speech. If we constrain it, then we are limiting our understanding of the universe or of reality,” he said. So is suspending the journalists, as Musk did in the last twenty-four hours, the first indication that the new regime is as bad as the old? Doubtful. That Musk is no “free speech warrior” after all? Maybe...
RTWT.
A Special Message From the Set of 'Mission Impossible' (VIDEO)
Tom Cruise.
The man is fucking wild.
The new film is "Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One," expected next July.
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