Triangle Shirtwaist fire anniversery

forgot to post this yesterday. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire

One hundred years ago, a carelessly discarded cigarette started a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in NYC. The owners had locked all the doors to discourage thefts. The only way out was via the freight elevator and an external fire escape.

The freight elevators made several trips carrying the mostly poor immigrant women out, but the elevator was still many trips short of emptying the floor of the workers when it jammed from the heat buckling the rails of the elevator shaft.

146 women were killed. Some were killed directly by the fire, others were killed when the external fire escape collapsed under the load of all the people on it, more were killed when they threw themselves out the windows trying to escape the fire.

Next time you go to work, check your fire escape route to ensure that the doors are unlocked, the way is clear, and you know how to get there when the heat and smoke is so bad you are crawling on the floor to breathe, and the smoke is so thick that you can't see the floor you are crawling over. Hopefully you will never need this, but the day you do, you will really really need it to save your life.

Sometimes, there is justice....

Driving home from work on friday. Getting close to home and I see a state police cruiser on the side road waiting to turn onto the main road. There is a gap in front of me, so the cruiser pulls out in front of me. Absently, I notice that the number painted on the side of the cruiser is pretty low, so I guess that it is the troop captain or lieutenant heading home for the day.

Continuing to drive home, paying scrupulous attention to the speed limit, because, well, I am following behind a state police cruiser, and it's way too nice a day for a traffic ticket. Coming up is one of the busy intersections on the road home. There is a day care center on the left side of the road, and on the right is a local public school and an evangelical christian church run school/day care. The evangelicals there have been noted by me in the past to be really rude and pushy in their driving habits entering and leaving the school driveway. So I've learned to exercise a bit more caution at this intersection.

Then I see the big suburban assault vehicle poised in the driveway of the evangelical school. The driver is so focused on getting onto the main road and on his self-important way that he doesn't realize that the car he just zoomed out in front of and cut off was a fully marked state police cruiser, with the light bar and blue and white paint job and everything. On come the cruiser's lights and he pulls the yuppie's tank over. I slow down and wait, as the road is narrow here, and the oncoming traffic is busy. Yup, the trooper getting out has silver bars on his collar. This self-absorbed bozo just got himself a moving violation from a captain of the state police.

I have to admit I was feeling a bit of schadenfreude when I was waved past by the trooper captain. I might have even been smiling a bit. Sometimes, there is justice in this world.