As the nation takes pride in Capt. Richard Phillips, who offered himself up to save his crew in the Indian Ocean, and Capt. Chesley Sullenberger, the last to leave his ditched airliner in a Manhattan River, add another name to the list of American leaders under pressure.
Sen. Richard Burr, a Republican who holds John Edwards' North Carolina seat, has told an audience how he responded to the financial crisis last fall.
“On Friday night, I called my wife and I said, ‘Brooke, I am not coming home this weekend. I will call you on Monday. Tonight, I want you to go to the ATM machine, and I want you to draw out everything it will let you take,'" Burr said, according to the Hendersonville Times-News. "'And I want you to tomorrow, and I want you to go Sunday.’ I was convinced on Friday night that if you put a plastic card in an ATM machine the last thing you were going to get was cash.”
Sen. Burr now predicts the economy will recover but very slowly and not in the economists' classic V or W graph. "I think we are in a Nike swoosh,” he told constituents.
Burr claims to be a 12th cousin of Thomas Jefferson's Vice-President Aaron Burr, who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel after Hamilton called his conduct "despicable," but they didn't have ATM machines or running shoes in those days.
Showing posts with label Capt. Richard Phillips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Capt. Richard Phillips. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Easter Sunday in Underhill
The parking lots and picnic tables were crowded this weekend at Moore Park, named for my former brother-in-law in Underhill, Vermont, the kind of quiet, close-knit American town seen mostly these days on Turner Classic Movies but suddenly besieged by media after the capture of its resident, Richard Phillips, by pirates in the Indian Ocean.
For four days, until his dramatic rescue yesterday, Capt. Phillips' family was held hostage too by hordes of reporters in cars and satellite trucks until the State Police moved them off to the town center, where they spent their time, according to one local witness, "milling about with nothing to do but talk on their cell phones or to each other" after trying to get taciturn Vermonters to emote about their grief over the seaman's plight.
Even after Capt. Phillips' release, his wife Andrea stayed out of sight, leaving it to shipping company spokeswoman Allison McColl to read a family statement from a clipboard:
"The Phillips family wants to thank you all for your support and prayers. They have felt the caring and concern extended by the nation to their family. This is truly a very happy Easter for the Phillips family.
"Andrea and Richard have spoken. I think you can all imagine their joy, and what a happy moment that was for them. They’re all just so happy and relieved."
They did get a second-hand version of Mrs. Phillips' reaction. "She was laughing while she was on the phone with him," McColl told reporters. "She was saying his trademark sense of humor was still very much intact, and he's in great spirits. If you guys could have seen her light up when she talked to him, it was really remarkable."
But her lighting up was not on camera in a place where people still try to live their lives in private, even while under the hot eye of a media event.
For four days, until his dramatic rescue yesterday, Capt. Phillips' family was held hostage too by hordes of reporters in cars and satellite trucks until the State Police moved them off to the town center, where they spent their time, according to one local witness, "milling about with nothing to do but talk on their cell phones or to each other" after trying to get taciturn Vermonters to emote about their grief over the seaman's plight.
Even after Capt. Phillips' release, his wife Andrea stayed out of sight, leaving it to shipping company spokeswoman Allison McColl to read a family statement from a clipboard:
"The Phillips family wants to thank you all for your support and prayers. They have felt the caring and concern extended by the nation to their family. This is truly a very happy Easter for the Phillips family.
"Andrea and Richard have spoken. I think you can all imagine their joy, and what a happy moment that was for them. They’re all just so happy and relieved."
They did get a second-hand version of Mrs. Phillips' reaction. "She was laughing while she was on the phone with him," McColl told reporters. "She was saying his trademark sense of humor was still very much intact, and he's in great spirits. If you guys could have seen her light up when she talked to him, it was really remarkable."
But her lighting up was not on camera in a place where people still try to live their lives in private, even while under the hot eye of a media event.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)