Surely to Neptune our modern fleet of Navy warships couldn’t possibly have been involved in four separate collisions at sea in a single year. Please tell me these reports are some kind of humorless joke or premature April Fool’s prank.
Don’t the vast oceans on this planet comprise 70 percent of its space?
Yet there the list was in black and white under the headline: “How do you explain 4 Navy mishaps/accidental crashes this year alone?” As the informed world knows by now, the latest crash came earlier this week when one of our destroyers, the USS John S. McCain, collided with a tanker three times its size in the Strait of Malacca, more than 500 miles wide. Ten sailors were missing and five injured from that mishap.
On June 17, guided missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald collided with a container ship off the coast of Japan, killing seven U.S. sailors. And on May 9 the guided missile cruiser USS Lake Champlain was struck by a smaller fishing boat off the Korean peninsula. In late January, the USS Antietam, a guided missile destroyer, ran aground while trying to anchor in Tokyo Bay.
The McCain collision made the fourth damaging and/or fatal encounter at sea in just seven months.
As a former Coast Guard enlisted man who somehow avoided far larger vessels in the San Diego Harbor by seeing them, I have some hopefully helpful suggestions for our waterborne warriors, especially with my daughter being a retired Navy chief.
I forget when seaborne navigation and directional electronics became the norm. I’m pretty sure we used both radar and sonar during World War II. So it’s probably a sound plan to make sure in 2017 each of our warships is equipped at least one working version of each and staffed by those properly trained in how to use them. That’s particularly true for warships whose primary mission is to accurately track the location of high flying enemy missiles (for gosh sakes).
Satellite GPS systems also came along a couple of decades back. They, too, can prove helpful too in identifying one’s location, even in heaving seas.
Then, of course there is simple wireless communication between vessels that approach within say, oh, I dunno, 100 miles of each other in the interest of security and safety. Eyesight and a pair of binoculars also have proven effective if used, especially in the predawn hours when ships’ lights are aglow.
Not to worry though. A crimson-faced naval high command says it’s conducting a “stem to stern” investigation and review of all the 7th Fleet’s vessels. A positively smashing idea, I’d say, all four collisions considered.
Emails spark second suit
Fort Smith attorney Joey McCutchen, the subject of several columns this year for his vigilant opposition to conducting public business in secret, is making an unprofitable cottage industry out of suing the powers that be in his hometown for alleged violations of the state’s Freedom of Information Act.
Last week, after successfully waging a freedom of information battle with the Fort Smith School Board resulting in a summary judgment in his favor, McCutchen filed a second lawsuit against city government. This one accuses three city directors of conducting city business through email rather than in public forum as clearly prescribed by law.
In an earlier suit alleging city directors violated the law by using private emails to discuss the town’s Civil Service Commission, McCutchen this summer made a settlement offer that called for the city to admit they violated the Freedom of Information Act by conducting secretive email discussions about public business. His offer did not seek financial compensation, merely an admission of wrongdoing and the promise not to conduct city business again outside the public eye.
While the city had yet to officially respond to that offer, city directors Andre Good, Mike Lorenz and Keith Lau discussed the settlement proposal on an email chain that was shared with the board of directors and city administrator. McCutchen learned of this subsequent email conversation and made a Freedom of Information Act request for those exchanges.
Once in hand, they constituted grounds for McCutchen’s second lawsuit filed the other day before Circuit Judge James O. Cox, McCutchen said.
It was the emails I found both shocking and arrogant. Read edited portions for yourselves, excerpted from the news story by reporter Dave Hughes.
On Aug. 9, Lau wrote: “So, according to the premise of guilt proposed in this settlement … I do not want to settle or admit guilt in any way on this matter. I’m tired of being Joey McCutchen’s advertising firm and want to take a stand against his B.S.”
Good responded: “Well said Director Lau. I wholeheartedly agree.”
On Aug. 11, Lorenz responded: “I am stating my opinion only and suggest that each of us carefully consider this case/offer and be prepared to fully discuss and support such opinion at the Sept. 5 board meeting. … Opinion: This lawsuit is a frivolous waste of resources and mocks the FOIA law and our legal system. I am hopeful that the judge will not only find in the city’s favor but also fine McCutchen for such frivolous abuse of the law and using these cases for what is clearly a marketing/advertising plan for his law firm. I will not admit guilt to a violation that I know does not exist.”
Whoa, Nelly! I guess we know how these directors feel about the lawsuits. Prosecutor Dan Shue has asked the sheriff to investigate the matter. That’s happening and we shall see just how frivolous they are.
Should Shue find problems with the directors’ attitudes and behavior in their private exchanges (that clearly discuss public business), I hope he will act aggressively to end the practice of governing by email that I’m betting exists widely across our state.
Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist. Email him at [email protected].