At the gym last night I watched the bit of drama with Jet Blue flight 292 last night. My initial thoughts were, this is oh so wrong. Why would anyone show a potential human tragedy live? Why does this have to be on TV? And really the only reason it was on CNN and was a “breaking news story” was just in case it did explode on landing, killing the 145 people on board. Without the flames and loss of life it really is not a story at all and tomorrow would only be a footnote about some emergency landing in LAX.

But then, of course, I couldn’t pull myself away. I raced back to the TV between sets to see if anything had changed. And that’s the reason it’s on TV. Even as I’m mildly upset about the morality of maybe watching people die, I’m still riveted. The smoking tires, then the brief burst of flames only added to that effect in the end. I’m sure CNN was pleased by the special effects. Anyway, everyone made it, so no blood, no foul. I’m curious now what kind of compensation the passengers get from Jet Blue after all the excitement they had to put up with. Personally I’d be shooting for a lifetime of free flights.