Did the New York Times really need to fret over  the inequalities between coach and first class passengers mere hours after one of the most dramatic air crashes in the US in over a decade? 

On a Web site called Flyertalk, I learned from a blogger just how close we are to class warfare in the sky. Disgusted by the grubby conditions on his flight, this Robespierre of the unfriendly skies invokes the French Revolution and warns: If you annoy "the salt of the earth enough, the rank and file and what have you, sometimes you wind up beheaded." Let them eat Pringles.

I try to have a more positive attitude. It's good for my posture to sit up straight, and it makes me feel as if I'm meditating. Besides, I'm lucky I get to go anywhere, never mind where I sit: the day will come, once we've depleted the earth's resources, when the "road warrior" racking up millions of miles will seem as archaic a figure as the door-to-door salesman.

Forget about the pedestrian choice of snacks on the New York-Miami flight.  I'm more worried about how the four experienced pilots on Asiana flight 214 couldn't manage to safely land their apparently fully functioning plane just before noon on a cloudless day with a 10 mph breeze and 11,000 feet of runway to work with.  I cruised some aviation sites yesterday and Robert Schapiro isn't the only experienced pilot who is worried about both an overreliance on computerized aids and that airline management now seems to be rewarding people for everything except the ability to actually fly an airliner. 

HT: Jim Geraghty's Morning Jolt e-newsletter.