oh, fuck. i totally experienced that this week.

A male feminist walks into a bar

Required reading:

Focus on the Family Guy

Catholic here, so I missed Brio, thank Christ. But for a period in high school I dabbled in the hard-core-bordering-on-evangelical-aspect of Catholicism (a particularly compelling youth group and very strict parents). I had completely forgotten about this until reading this article, but at one point, I was encouraged…

Can we start a GoFundMe for the return of Sassy?

Also raised Catholic but my folks were big into FotF. I’m not sure how I avoided Brio, surprisingly (for my upbringing) I’d never heard of it.

Well considering the article stated that it was a 737 taking off, which only has 2 engines and is considerably smaller, I’m not entirely sure what your point is.

And that’s exactly why it was a massively stupid thing to do. Not every plane launch is the same. Not only in terms of how close but in terms of the type of jet and the load (a fully loaded plane fueled for distance will be heavier and may possibly require more thrust). Just because it was safe in one incident…

Generally speaking, if you are around 200 feet away behind jet when it is taking off, your ears are getting blown apart by a SPL of roughly 120, which is what is known as the “threshold of pain”—the point at which you suffer irreversible hearing damage. So, even those dolts that manage to pull this stunt and live,…

I’ve been there and stood behind the jet blast a few times. Something must have been different about this takeoff because when I was there, none felt remotely close to knocking me off my feet. It was just extremely hot and hard to breath for a few seconds with your face getting pelted by tiny pebbles.

I think you’ll be shocked how many stupid incidents like this are perpetrated by sober people. On average people are kind of dumb. It’s human nature (completely idiotic but still a trait of the species) to look at an event known to be dangerous and say “that won’t happen to me” usually with some dumb justification…

Yes, but you can’t normally stand right behind the runway. The runway here isn’t terribly long, so pilots have to get down as quickly as possible. Plus they all like to show off a bit.

I’m not willing to go all-in on that. There are plenty of cases where something is arguably stupid but an otherwise reasonably intelligent human could misjudge the situation due to factors that could be foreseeably prevented. It’s overwhelmingly clear in this case though that it’s dangerous AND she was warned.

“We humans are so small and weak compared to modern jets.”

If I had to die, being blown to death would pretty much be at the top of my list.

Plenty of racists in Oregon and all, but i have a hard time believing this guy never had it explained to him before why racism is bad in fucking Portland...

Again with that “Have an open conversation” shit...

No sympathy for this guy, but it’s interesting that his remarks as quoted above show at least a hint of self-awareness. Let’s hope he resolves to be a better person, though I won’t exactly be holding my breath on that one.