Is this news?

Garrison Hilliard wrote:
By Ryan Clark
Enquirer staff writer

DAYTON, Ky. - All along the river here, where gawkers mixed with
passersby, everyone wanted to know what happened. Why did the boat go out
so early in the morning?

What difference does it make why they went out? What might matter is
the condition of the pilot (inebbriated? drugged up?)

Why couldn't they signal the oncoming barge?

Maybe they did.

Why couldn't the barge see the small houseboat?

Maybe it did.

The quiet marinas lining
Northern Kentucky were mobbed after a man was killed, another escaped and
two others are missing after a barge hit their 36-foot houseboat
overnight.

[snip]

"It's just so dangerous," he said. "... People need to know that there are
times when it's hard to see you out there."

It's *always* difficult for a large vessel to see a small one.

I don't live near one of those commercial arteries, but I am dam' sure
those barges (especially when they are rafted up) are pigs when it come
to emergency evasive maneuvers, and I am sure that if I put on the
river -- day *or* night -- I would regard it as *my* responsibility to
stay out of their way.

This pathetic article didn't give a word of description of the barge
itself, which might have helped in understanding how the incident
occured. I thought the job of the reporter was to give us answers, not
questions. *My* question is: why did he bother to turn in the article
before he gathered a description of the barge and interviewed the
survivor? Of *course* "everyone wanted to know what happened", and it
is the reporter's job to tell them!

Thanks for posting this, Garrison. I'm starting to take an interest in
the Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri rivers, and what goes on on 'em. I
wish the reporter had actually reported something substantive.


-Richard, His Kanubic Travesty
--

================================================== ====================
Richard Hopley Winston-Salem, NC, USA
rhopley[at]earthlink[dot]net
Nothing really matters except Boats, Sex, and Rock'n'Roll
rhopley[at]wfubmc[dot]edu
OK, OK; computer programming for scientific research also matters
================================================== ====================