The census is beginning to release its information, and one of the things they have found (not surprisingly) is that the gap between the rich and poor is becoming even greater. This has been exacerbated by the economic crisis of the last few years, but is certainly not a recent trend. This article does a good job of looking at several different sides of the divide.
I recently wrote about the appearance of lots of high end cars being driven around lately, but I had another occurrence this week that set me back a little. I was flying out to St. Louis for a meeting on equitable compensation, which I will write more about later, and of course had to sit through the standard “in case of emergency” speech before you take off.
One of the things we are told is that in the “unlikely event of a water landing” your seat may be used as a flotation device. You just have to rip it off, although I’ve never tried this it seems like it might be a little difficult especially when you are in a hurry to get off, and then you place your arms through the straps. But this time, the video also told us that if you are flying in first class you will find a life-vest in the compartment between the seats. It then showed how to put it on and inflate it.
No ripping off the seat cushions in first class, they get the really good treatment. If you can’t afford to fly first class, hold on to that seat cushion, which you probably forget anyways, because that’s all that’s going to save you. However, if you’re a first class passenger we are going to help you out by at least giving you a fighting chance of surviving outside the plane in the water.
Now maybe this has always been the case and I just never paid any attention to it, but this struck me as another sign of this growing gap between those who have (and are therefore important) and those who don’t.
No comments:
Post a Comment