DRUGS

Governments, police, courts and hard-liners have been wrong, totally wrong

This could be the breakthrough of the century. New research and a new book, Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs by Johann Hari, detonates the damnation wrought by holier-than-thou authorities on the victims of drug addiction, and in turn, their victims.

In the past, efforts by enlightened reformers have fallen on deaf ears, or they have been shouted down by hard-liners whose own addiction seems to be screaming for punishment.

Everyone is addicted to something; drugs, alcohol, tobacco, food, exercise, cleanliness, filth, gambling, sex, politics, talking, shopping, adventure, danger, or doing nothing. Personally, I’m addicted to writing and extending my old age.

Addicted to weird selfies in front
of weird mirrors

The old adage, ‘if you can’t beat them, join them,’ certainly applies here. Governments certainly need to join forces with the addicts to help them beat their addictions, instead of beating-up the addicts. Governments could be really innovative by supplying drugs free as a prelude to recovery and rehabilitation, thereby eliminating the need to buy drugs from criminals.

Anyone who advocates punishing people for being sick, are themselves rather sick.

The following article appeared in Huffington Post:

The Likely Cause of Addiction Has Been Discovered, and It Is Not What You Think

Posted: 01/20/2015 3:20 pm EST Updated: 03/22/2015 5:59 am EDT

It is now one hundred years since drugs were first banned -- and all through this long century of waging war on drugs, we have been told a story about addiction by our teachers and by our governments. This story is so deeply ingrained in our minds that we take it for granted. It seems obvious. It seems manifestly true. Until I set off three and a half years ago on a 30,000-mile journey for my new book, Chasing The Scream: The First And Last Days of the War on Drugs, to figure out what is really driving the drug war, I believed it too. But what I learned on the road is that almost everything we have been told about addiction is wrong -- and there is a very different story waiting for us, if only we are ready to hear it.

If we truly absorb this new story, we will have to change a lot more than the drug war. We will have to change ourselves.

I learned it from an extraordinary mixture of people I met on my travels. From the surviving friends of Billie Holiday, who helped me to learn how the founder of the war on drugs stalked and helped to kill her. From a Jewish doctor who was smuggled out of the Budapest ghetto as a baby, only to unlock the secrets of addiction as a grown man. From a transsexual crack dealer in Brooklyn who was conceived when his mother, a crack-addict, was raped by his father, an NYPD officer. From a man who was kept at the bottom of a well for two years by a torturing dictatorship, only to emerge to be elected President of Uruguay and to begin the last days of the war on drugs.

I had a quite personal reason to set out for these answers. One of my earliest memories as a kid is trying to wake up one of my relatives, and not being able to. Ever since then, I have been turning over the essential mystery of addiction in my mind -- what causes some people to become fixated on a drug or a behavior until they can't stop? How do we help those people to come back to us? As I got older, another of my close relatives developed a cocaine addiction, and I fell into a relationship with a heroin addict. I guess addiction felt like home to me.

If you had asked me what causes drug addiction at the start, I would have looked at you as if you were an idiot, and said: "Drugs. Duh." It's not difficult to grasp. I thought I had seen it in my own life. We can all explain it. Imagine if you and I and the next twenty people to pass us on the street take a really potent drug for twenty days. There are strong chemical hooks in these drugs, so if we stopped on day twenty-one, our bodies would need the chemical. We would have a ferocious craving. We would be addicted. That's what addiction means.

One of the ways this theory was first established is through rat experiments -- ones that were injected into the American psyche in the 1980s, in a famous advert by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. You may remember it. The experiment is simple. Put a rat in a cage, alone, with two water bottles. One is just water. The other is water laced with heroin or cocaine. Almost every time you run this experiment, the rat will become obsessed with the drugged water, and keep coming back for more and more, until it kills itself.

The advert explains: "Only one drug is so addictive, nine out of ten laboratory rats will use it. And use it. And use it. Until dead. It's called cocaine. And it can do the same thing to you."

Continued below . . . .

THE ASKER TRILOGY

But in the 1970s, a professor of Psychology in Vancouver called Bruce Alexandernoticed something odd about this experiment. The rat is put in the cage all alone. It has nothing to do but take the drugs. What would happen, he wondered, if we tried this differently? So Professor Alexander built Rat Park. It is a lush cage where the rats would have colored balls and the best rat-food and tunnels to scamper down and plenty of friends: everything a rat about town could want. What, Alexander wanted to know, will happen then?

In Rat Park, all the rats obviously tried both water bottles, because they didn't know what was in them. But what happened next was startling . . . .

For the full article see:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-real-cause-of-addicti_b_6506936.html

The full story of Johann Hari's journey -- told through the stories of the people he met -- can be read in Chasing The Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs, published by Bloomsbury. The book has been praised by everyone from Elton John to Glenn Greenwald to Naomi Klein. You can buy it at all good bookstores and read more at www.chasingthescream.com.

GLOBAL WARMING

Seven things you didn't know about climate change affects

January 18, 2015 Written By Starts at Sixty Writers in Living

A great deal of us argue and bicker about the existence of climate change, with some fiercely contesting the existence of the phenomenon, and others insisting that it is indeed true.

What we don’t think or talk about is how climate change affects us right now. Many of us appear to think that the impacts of a warmer earth won’t be felt until decades down the road, perhaps when the ocean is suddenly washing up at your (once) hillside residence.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but there are already some very real impacts being each day by global warming. Some of which may surprise you.

1. Food prices

Our shifting climate is causing food prices around the world to increase as the maintenance and growth of crops becomes a whole lot harder to do. As the air gets warmer, larger and more frequent storms are beginning to smash crops worldwide.

Remember the famous banana shortage caused when Cyclone Yasi devastated Queensland banana plantations in 2011? Well this is could just be the tip of the iceberg.

Imagine if we had four Cyclone Yasi’s hit Australia in one summer. Prices would surge for a whole variety of groceries, and not just on your sweet little bananas.

2. Wine and general alcohol production

Even worse than food price increases has to be a rise in alcohol prices.

If it’s the end of the world, you’re going to want a drink, but you’re favourite Sauvignon Blanc may become too expensive to afford when the cost of harvesting grapes increases.

Similarly, beer will be affected as climate change endangers clean water, quality barley, and ample hops. This means that the small craft beer you love and crave may be in danger of shutting down when hops and barley become more scarce. These will truly be dark days indeed.

3. Fresh water

You need another expense like you need a hole in your head – water is going to increase in price.

Severe droughts, increased evaporation and changes in precipitation patterns are impacting water levels in streams, rivers, dams and lakes worldwide.

Continued below . . . . 

Warning!

Stay out of the sun.

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You may think they’re just being unfair, but this is largely what caused your local council to increase the water rates in previous years. Bet you’re starting to feel a bit guilty for that rude letter you wrote.

 4. Power

You know what else is going to get more expensive? Your power bill… sigh.

As the planet heats up, it’s going to become more expensive and harder to ship fuel across the world. Non-renewable fuel sources will then subsequently increase, forcing power company’s to increase electricity prices.

On the other hand, if the world continues to adopt renewable power sources, then this problem has a great chance of being fixed (hint hint to the government). 

5. Allergies and asthma

This one is going to bleed your money indirectly.

A warmer climate will impact on those who are prone to allergies and asthma as the air will become denser with pollution, dust and water vapour. As your allergies and/or asthma worsens, think about the increased costs when you’re refilling that asthma puffer or buying more tissues and nasal sprays.

6. Coffee

If you’re not a morning person, this may bring a tear to your eye.

Arabica, the most-consumed coffee species, could go extinct in the wild in 70 years, due to increasing temperatures and a climate change-charged deadly fungus. This would also put roughly 25 million coffee growers and distributors out of business, and drive coffee prices up substantially. 

7. Jeans

Is nothing sacred? Even our jeans are under threat from a changing climate. Water shortages and drought are having an impact on cotton production, causing price fluctuations and even a shortage in denim. So for those looking to go out and start the double denim craze again, you may be plum out of luck. 

Peter’s Piece

Whoever wrote this article appears to be a member of a group with so much time on their hands that they've taken to assaulting the world with reams of wordy waste . . . .  Ooops! That could be me too. I’m the blogger and author, who writes about every subject under the sun . . . . There I go again, the sun . . . . The sun is the problem. There’s just too much hot air, and some people should understand that they can be harmed by standing out in it too long.

But, seriously, the above article cannot be taken seriously. It is loaded with generalities, popular catch-cries, and emotive claptrap, while lacking authoritative references or sources. It’s just a collection of popular myths, aligned with one side of a divided scientific community. Incidentally, no one pays me to write about global warming/climate change and, unlike Al Gore, I don’t live in a mansion on a hill, burning enough electricity to run a medium size shopping mall.

The fact is that weather, climate and sea levels have been constantly changing throughout the entire span of traceable history, but our memories of past weather and climate is severely limited. Firstly, because some of us have not yet lived through very many years, but also because we tend to remember only some of the most recent events in our lives. Yes, we all know what the weather was like yesterday. The day before that is a little harder to recall, and the weather of a week or month ago, is pretty much forgotten. What about the weather in the year 2005? Was it wet or dry, windy or calm, hot or cold?

It is our short term memory that makes it easy to be led into believing that extreme weather events and their regularity are increasing. However, meteorological records tell a different story and, so far, the 21^st century has yet to claim a new record for any kind of weather event. The 21^st century is also yet to claim a new record for floods, tornados, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, famine, disease, war, terrorism, or any other catastrophes, natural or man-made.

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There can be little doubt that man can wreak havoc on the planet, but change the weather or climate? No. In fact during the 20^th century man spent millions of dollars trying to change the weather, and failed every time. Remember when cloud seeding with dry ice was popular in the hope that it would bring rain?  And do you remember when Green parties said that nuclear weapons could bring on a nuclear winter? If man could change the weather, there would be no need to close airports due to fog or wind. Icy roads could be a thing of the past too. If man could do all these things there would be no need for a bad year on the farm, or in the orchard, because it would just be a simple matter of selecting the climate and pressing Enter.

‘Starts at Sixty Writers’ have got some things backwards, and in other areas they contradict themselves. Take their view on food production. They claim that food production will suffer because of more frequent storms but, if storms did become more frequent, which is unlikely, then new strains would develop that were storm resistant. That’s how nature works; each species adapts to change. Others say that food production would suffer due to higher temperatures, but that would help expand production, because crops could be grown in areas that are currently too cold to produce food. Who knows, at some time in the future bananas may be grown in Siberia or in Antarctica.

Then they write about a shortage of water, but once again they are wide of the mark. Water cannot be destroyed. It can only be recycled. However, the amount of fresh water can be increased by treating sea water. Water is also easier to transport from place to place than ever before. Water is not a problem.

Cotton is going to be scarce and jeans will be expensive, they say. So what? If the climate is warmer, go without clothes, save money.

When one looks at all the claims about global warming (sorry that’s the old catch-cry) it’s called climate change now, you have a lot of contradictions. We are told that the weather will get wetter and drier, hotter and colder, windier and calmer, but that’s just what the weather does when everything is normal. Forget about it. It has been going on for millions of years, and long before man could have an effect, accidentally or intentionally. And all the time sea levels have been rising and falling, and the sun has been rising and setting.

But don’t be alarmed about global warming. When Icarus is reincarnated, with his wax wings, he’ll push the sun further away. Man can do anything.

Highway America

REDUCING TRUCK DEATHS

World transport ministers have a weak-knee approach to road safety

A fatal truck crash today in Pennsylvania has highlighted the weak-knee approach of governments, transport ministers and industry leaders to driver fatigue and its effect on road safety.

Semi driver, Steven Bernier, 50, of Reading, PA started work at 1:30 a.m. and fell asleep five hours later at 6:30 a.m. His 18 wheeler slammed into a line of cars waiting at a red traffic light, killing two people in separate vehicles and injuring nine others. Bernier has been charged with two counts of homicide and nine counts of aggravated assault, and other charges.

He will no doubt go to prison for a very long time and, for the authorities, everything will be forgotten and life will go on. But not for the victims or the truck driver. They, and their families, will have to live with this tragedy for the rest of their lives.

I like to compare road safety with flying safety because flying and driving started at about the same time, but they have a totally different stance on safety. In the early days of motoring speed and traffic volumes were low and accidents were few. On the other hand aviation started out badly and flying was about the most dangerous thing a human being could engage in.

The accident scene and the truck driver

A critical difference then, and now, is that flying accidents are generally less survivable than road accidents, but in spite of that aviation has achieved a safety record that should be the envy of all road users and road safety campaigners. One may ask, how did that happen? How did flying (not including private flying) become the safest mode of transport ever devised, while road safety made negligible progress?

 In a word, the answer lies in attitude. In aviation, safety comes first in every consideration. This applies not just to pilots, but to everyone involved in every aspect of aviation; aircraft designers, regulators, trainers and training, weather conditions, maintenance and servicing and repair, accident investigation and reporting. ‘She’ll be right’ has no place in the air the way it does on the roads. The aviation world understood early on that safety rules were vital for the survival pilots and passengers, and for the survival of aviation itself.

Meanwhile, for over 100 years road safety has been given little more than lip service only. On two factors alone the record is appalling. Seat belts were standard in all aircraft almost 100 years ago while few cars had seat belts prior to 1970 and many larger vehicles still don’t have them including many passenger buses. In some situations the authorities still allow unrestrained, standing passengers on public transport. That is reprehensible.

The second area where road safety is seriously lacking is with accident investigation and reporting. For at least the last 60 years all fatal flying accidents have been subject to thorough investigation by specially trained experts. They then publish a public report giving full details of the aircraft including manufacture, maintenance records, hours flown and other relevant details; the pilot including licence and type ratings, total flight time, hours on type, hours in previous three months and previous incidents; details of the flight and weather conditions, circumstances of the accident and examination of the wreckage; conclusions as to probable cause(s) and recommendations for preventing similar accidents in the future.

Continued below . . . .

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Road accident investigation by comparison is still primitive, and will do little if anything to make roads safer, and seems to focus only on the possibility of prosecutions and helping insurance companies settle claims. Indeed under existing law in most countries investigations along the lines of aircraft accident investigation would be impossible because of a lack of logbooks or data recording devices.

In aviation the emphasis is on ongoing training and education. Everyone learns to fly with a qualified instructor and undergoes regular re-checking. You can’t teach a friend or family member how to fly. Meanwhile on the roads most people do learn to drive with a friend of family member who will pass on their own bad habits and lack of professionalism and there is no re-checking or ongoing training. Instead of training and education, as in aviation, on the roads it is just a case of policing, prosecuting and punishing, and it doesn't work.

Author Peter Blakeborough

But to return to the tragedy in Pennsylvania, drivers work inhumane hours in inhumane conditions for wages that are a pittance. And all over the world governments simply don’t care. All things considered the vast majority of professional drivers are safe drivers and that can be verified by insurance statistics which show that in truck/car collisions 70% of liability rests with car drivers and only 30% with truck drivers. Truck drivers typically spend a big part of their long day avoiding collisions with cars that are being driven inappropriately. However, there has been no suggestion of another vehicle being responsible in Bernier’s case.

But I wonder what circumstances in the preceding hours and days led this professional driver to fall asleep at the wheel. He can legally be on duty and driving for 70 hours a week while frequently having his starting and finishing times altered substantially. A person working under those conditions may not even be aware that he is fatigued. Unlike an airline pilot, he does not have a co-pilot with dual controls or a rule requiring a rest period of at least the same duration as the duty period preceding it. He is not restricted to a maximum of 100 hours in a 28 day period, nor is he limited to an annual maximum of 900 hours, like the airline pilot.

The rules of the road and attitudes to safety need to change, but it is not something that one company or employer, one country can do. The changes need to be led by the United Nations, just as the International Civil Aviation Organization (an agency of the UN) has led the way with air safety.

But the sad thing is that most people will not be even remotely interested in reading posts like this. It is just too easy to think, it won’t happen to me.

AUTHOR INTERVIEW

The Smashwords interview with author Peter Blakeborough

Mark Coker, CEO and founder
of Smashwords

Smashwords is based in Los Gatos, California and is the world’s largest publisher and distributor of e-books. The company was founded by Mark Coker in 2008 and has grown rapidly to include 276,000 titles written by 83,000 authors. The Smashwords community and turnover is now equal to a small country.

Below is the full Smashwords interview with Peter Blakeborough:

What is your e-reading device of choice?

A Kindle while traveling. It takes up so little space and can hold such a lot of reading. At home I read on Kindle for PC. I just find it convenient when I spend so much of my time on the computer.

What book marketing techniques have been most effective for you?

When I had print books for sale I took them direct to bookstores and libraries. The books really just sold themselves with almost no paid advertising. But I was fortunate to receive a lot of free publicity from newspapers, radio and television interviews during my travels. Speaking at a variety of meetings about my books and writing also generated lots of sales.

Author Peter Blakeborough

Describe your desk

Cluttered! Whoever said that a tidy desk indicates a tidy mind was probably talking about someone who was unemployed, or was running a business that was awaiting its first sale. From my desk I research books, write books, design books and I sell books. Everything is at my fingertips, even if it is several layers down.

Where did you grow up, and how did this influence your writing?

I grew up in rural districts of New Zealand. On dairy farms a young person learns to be skilled at many different jobs while keeping in touch with nature. It was a wonderful way to grow up and it provided a good background for creating plots for novels. Later, I lived in cities and small towns, and that has enabled me to include both town and country scenes in my novels.

When did you first start writing?

At school I had a flair for storytelling. But that was a talent that later lay dormant for many years. I always wanted to write novels, but believed that first I needed a broad experience of life. I did quite a lot of non-fiction writing; editing club newsletters, that kind of thing. In 1966 I published my first non fiction title, The Coinage of New Zealand and it sold 3,000 copies. After that I became the editor of a national monthly magazine for coin collectors. It wasn't until 1995 that I started writing my first novel, Nathaniel's Bloodline.

How has Smashwords contributed to your success?

Smashwords enables me to reach a wider market with prices that print books cannot compete with.

What is the greatest joy of writing for you?

No single answer here. It gives me a wonderful feeling to review what I have written and I have to ask myself often, "Did I write that?" I still get a thrill when I pick up one of my print books and thumb through the pages, pausing to read a passage or two. But the greatest joy with writing comes from the readers who come back for more books and to tell me how much they enjoyed the books they already have.

What inspires you to get out of bed each day?

The need to put into a manuscript a scene that has formed in my mind in the early hours. I do my best writing in bed.

When you're not writing, how do you spend your time?

It's a busy life for someone who is supposed to be retired. I just love to travel. I like being with people, and taking them on coach tours is a great way to see happy people while beautiful scenery passes by. I'm a paid tourist. Many years ago I was a pilot and flew more than 50 aircraft types. Now I fly with a flight simulator which means that I can enjoy a private flight in a Boeing, Airbus or WWII fighter without breaking the bank. I have a motor-home and enjoy time away in that with my wife. We also go to country music events where I pretend to be Johnnie Cash or Merle Haggard. It's a busy retirement and I have no idea how I ever managed to work full-time.

Do you remember the first story you ever wrote?

That's a good question. I do remember being praised for excellent work at school, but I now have no recollection of the story itself. Whatever it was it must have been all lies.

How do you approach cover design?

It is said that a book should not be judged by its cover - but many people do just that. The cover can be the most important part of the book because it creates the first impression. The experts say that the cover should be designed by a professional and I'm sure they are right. But I design my own covers, not because I'm good at design, but simply because I love to play around with different designs and styles. For me its part of the challenge and when it's finished it is my book completely.

What do you read for pleasure?

My reading habits have long been wide ranging. I like history, technical subjects, travel, news and current affairs, biographies, politics. About one in three books that I read will be fiction including historical fiction, romance, thrillers, crime and mysteries. I think novelists should keep a balance between fiction and non-fiction reading.

What are you working on next?

I often work on more than one book at a time. Currently I have a non-fiction title, The New Zealand Tour Commentary, which is being updated. It was previously sold as a print book only, but the new edition will be on Smashwords along with my other books. I am also working on another novel, as yet unnamed, which may be completed within the next year.

Who are your favorite authors?

Early on I read authors like Neville Shute and Ernest Ghan. More recently my favorites have been Bill Bryson, John Grisham, Ruth Rendell, Robert Ludlum, Maeve Binchy and Arthur Hailey.

Published 2014-07-28. 
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MALAYSIA AIRLINES SAFETY

Is Malaysia an airline to avoid?

Two total aircraft losses, along with all on board, within four months are frightening to say the least. Airline passengers are avoiding Malaysia Airlines like the plague, but is that a reasonable and logical response?

Let’s look at some facts about Malaysia’s national carrier.

The seeds for a national airline in Malaysia were sown in 1937 when two Australian brothers, the Wearnes, started an air service between Singapore and Penang using an eight-seat de Havilland Dragon Rapide aircraft. Within a short time they were using a second Rapide to operate other routes. However, WWII and the Japanese occupation meant that WAS, as it was known, was forced to cease operations.

A Malaya Airways Airspeed Consul

Along with the rest of the world, Malaysia was gaining experience in airline operations, and at the same time that Wearnes Air Service was operating bigger things were in the making. The Ocean Steamship Company, Straits Steamship Company and Imperial Airways registered Malaya Airways on October 12, 1937, but again due to the war, the first Malaya passengers could not be carried until 1947.

The first flight was from the British Straits Settlement (now Singapore) to Kuala Lumpur in Malaya using an Airspeed Consul twin engine aircraft.

The airline continued to grow throughout the 1940s and 1950s with co-operation and assistance from BOAC and Qantas. The airline joined IATA and went public in 1957. They operated DC-3s, DC-4s, Vickers Viscounts, Bristol Britannias, Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellations and de Havilland Comet 4s. This was no fly-by-night (pardon the pun) operator. Malaya was a serious airline. The route network included domestic and short haul international flights.

In the 1960s Singapore became a part of the Malaysian Federation and Malaya Airways became Malaysia Singapore Airlines (MSA) and established a strong international brand and continued to grow, adding new jet aircraft and long haul destinations.

When Singapore left the federation in 1972 the national airline was divided up with Singapore taking the international assets and Malaysia taking the domestic assets. That made sense at the time because all flights from Singapore would be international while Malaysia had a large number of domestic flights. But Malaysia quickly expanded with the introduction of international flights.

Over the years Malaysia faced strong competition from neighboring airlines including their former partner Singapore as well as Qantas, Thai and British Airways, which all had strong brands. Malaysian became a poor cousin to these other airlines, but only in terms of marketing and route network strategies. Operationally, it was a sound airline with an excellent safety record.

Along with most airlines, Malaysian has had its good and bad years economically over the years including the most recent recession. But it continued to grow from the 1970s to the present day and the aircraft types have included B-707s, B-737s, DC-10-30s, B-747s, B-777s, Airbus A-330s, and A-380s. The current fleet size is 93 jets.

A Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 taking-off

To return to the two flights that were lost this year, I can understand how most people would feel about flying with an airline in the situation that Malaysia finds itself in today. I had that same feeling in September 2001 when I flew from London to Los Angeles with American Airlines on their first trans Atlantic flight on the day that international flights resumed after 9/11. Constantly on my mind was the fact that this airline, five days earlier (yesterday, if you discount the days they were grounded) had lost two aircraft to terrorists. And terrorism was almost certainly on the minds of many passengers when I was asked to leave the aircraft at Heathrow so that my checked luggage could be examined. As I walked from the back of the aircraft to the front I could feel hundreds of eyeballs piercing the back of my skull. But it was all a false alarm and I was allowed to board the aircraft again for an uneventful flight. (I have told this story in more detail in my book Highway America)

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Several years ago I had six flights with Malaysia Airlines on six different aircraft with six different crews and I became a Malaysia supporter. All the aircraft, inside and out, were immaculate, the crews utterly professional and the service equal to the best.

But what about safety, you ask. Well, let’s look at the record. Prior to 2014 Malaysia had had just two flights that ended fatally. In 1977 a Malaysia Boeing 737 was hijacked and later crashed with loss of 100 lives. That can happen with any airline. In 1995 a Malaysia Fokker 50 overshot a runway and 33 people died. That was pilot error and travelers should remember that all airlines employ pilots.

Until 2014 that was the record of fatal flights for this airline – just two. From small beginnings in 1947 and later with millions of miles flown every day that is an outstanding record of safety.

2014 Makes all the difference of course, but is the airline to blame for the two most recent tragedies? Well, the jury is still out on the March loss, but so far there is no evidence that pins anything on the airline. With the Ukraine tragedy, I think we can safely assume that the airline did not fire the missile.

Would I fly again with Malaysia? I would probably take Malaysia in preference to any other operator, because I think it would be a great shame to see such a good airline disappear from the skies and Malaysia cannot survive without passengers.