The volcanic ash cloud that drifted over northern Europe this past week and grounded all airlines for days was quite possibly not as severe a threat to jet engines as feared. It seems the British Met office put the data into their computers and got an answer they didn’t like. Nothing definitive, mind you, just an unknown level of risk. But the very thought of risk is anathema to governments and people today, and so, to avoid even the possibility of there being any risk of their being any risk, they shut down the entire industry and inconvenienced many thousands of passengers. One wonders where the world would now be had such a heightened degree of risk aversion been a constant in our history. 

 

 

The Rubicon, sir, cross or not

Perhaps some risk entails

The omens, sir, look not so hot

So say the scanned entrails

The weather in the Channel, Ike

Is making up to blow

The weather boffins say don’t strike

They say we shouldn’t go

The Delaware is filled with ice

It’s snowing, Christmas Eve

Who knows if we shall pay the price

Too risky I believe

Now Orville thinks that he can fly

Like robins, jays and shrikes

I told him not to even try

Should stick to making bikes

Just look at Og, that’s not his trade

He’s crazy, I do feel

It’s such a risky bet he’s made

No one will buy a wheel

And so it goes, and so it went

For history doth show

For every crackpot there’s a gent

Who says he shouldn’t go