Mayday

Alittle late in making those Thanksgiving flight plans? Wondering how you could possibly afford your ticket -- that is, without putting a kidney up for sale on Craigslist? Good news! You can get a free flight home on Southwest plus a $300 travel voucher. Just do what I plan to -- get on a Southwest flight in the next few days, and when it's taking off, shout over and over, "Go, plane, go!" and "I want Daddy! I want Daddy!" Pamela Root got the free flight and the voucher, plus an apology from Southwest, after her 2-year-old kept screaming those things at the top of his little lungs as their San Jose-bound flight was about to take off. In fact, little Adam reportedly screamed so loudly that the safety announcements couldn't be heard and the pilot turned the plane back to the gate in Amarillo, Texas, where the two were booted off. Root was appalled when a flight attendant told her something to the effect of "We just can't tolerate that [screaming]

Shauna Rohbock prefers her martini shaken, not stirred. The bobsled driver of USA-1, who won silver in 2006, hopes to be the fastest woman on the fastest track when the two-day competition begins Tuesday. But perhaps the biggest obstacle in her icy path is Germany's Cathleen Martini, a two-time world championship silver medalist who won five of the eight World Cup races this season. "She's been strong all year," said Rohbock of her rival. "She gets a good push and drives it from there.

Bye-bye, Los Angeles . . . it's time for me to pack up and move out. After living here for 43 years, I find that my senses are transmitting "Mayday!" . . . the result of too many guys wearing earrings and too many girls wearing tattoos. MICHAEL LUDMER Encino

Alittle late in making those Thanksgiving flight plans? Wondering how you could possibly afford your ticket -- that is, without putting a kidney up for sale on Craigslist? Good news! You can get a free flight home on Southwest plus a $300 travel voucher. Just do what I plan to -- get on a Southwest flight in the next few days, and when it's taking off, shout over and over, "Go, plane, go!" and "I want Daddy! I want Daddy!" Pamela Root got the free flight and the voucher, plus an apology from Southwest, after her 2-year-old kept screaming those things at the top of his little lungs as their San Jose-bound flight was about to take off. In fact, little Adam reportedly screamed so loudly that the safety announcements couldn't be heard and the pilot turned the plane back to the gate in Amarillo, Texas, where the two were booted off. Root was appalled when a flight attendant told her something to the effect of "We just can't tolerate that [screaming]

Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! This is the call pilots use to communicate an emergency. It is immediately understood and action is taken. Engineers use an entirely different system, and if they work for the government, another form of non-language overlays their communication. William P. Rogers, chairman of the presidential commission investigating the space shuttle explosion, recognized this when he said that the decision-making system was flawed. In any other profession the system of communication is not designed to escape personal responsibility for an action but relies on the fact of personal involvement.

Shauna Rohbock prefers her martini shaken, not stirred. The bobsled driver of USA-1, who won silver in 2006, hopes to be the fastest woman on the fastest track when the two-day competition begins Tuesday. But perhaps the biggest obstacle in her icy path is Germany's Cathleen Martini, a two-time world championship silver medalist who won five of the eight World Cup races this season. "She's been strong all year," said Rohbock of her rival. "She gets a good push and drives it from there.

John Fitzgerald of Highland Park and several other readers noticed that the flags were upside-down on the "I Voted" stickers they were given at the polls (see accompanying). Was the position of the Stars and Stripes a commentary on the quality of the candidates? After all, an upside-down flag is the international distress signal. FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Marie Donnel of Camarillo came upon a crustacean who may or may not have a place to hang its hat.

The Sea, a seller of seashells by the seashore since 1962, began as a place for co-owner Richard Williams to peddle the tables he crafted out of abalone shells. It grew into a mom-and-pop shop with an astonishing inventory. "There are millions of things here," says Lynne Hansen, manager for 18 years. "It's incalculable." The Sea summons images of ancient mariners, shipwrecks, uncharted volcanic isles, Gauguin paintings.

"Attention all passengers! This is Captain Menke speaking. We regret that we must inconvenience you. However, we have received a Mayday call and must respond. As we have joined the search, we are now under the orders of the Coast Guard. It is too soon to know how long our arrival in Vancouver will be delayed. We will keep you informed as progress is made. I repeat. . . ."

It was hazy and somewhat overcast on June 24, a day John Minh of Torrance will never forget. While traveling home from a day of fishing near Santa Barbara Island his boat, Little Dolphin, stopped running, leaving him stuck about 15 miles off Marina del Rey, smack in the middle of the shipping lanes.

The life of the Los Angeles Police Department is seasonal: There is the period of stability that gives way to rising tension that erupts in calamity that is followed by self-evaluation that produces reform; reform fixes some problems and helps restore stability until new tensions produce new catastrophes. And so on.

WITH all the disturbing images of New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina, it's been gratifying to watch the Crescent City's traditional identity as the birthplace of jazz seep back into the coverage. Jazz is nothing if not a music that looks trouble in the eye -- and celebrates -- as New Orleanians have been doing for a century at funerals. Not long after the tragedy struck, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival announced that the 2006 event would go on -- somewhere, sometime, somehow.

Exhausted and perhaps aware he was about to die, a flight attendant seized control of the doomed Cypriot airliner that crashed near Athens this month and repeatedly radioed a final mayday that was never heard, according to a report released Monday. Minutes later, the jetliner with 121 people aboard slammed into a wooded hillside near Athens on Aug. 14 after a loss of cabin pressure incapacitated the pilots.

The county plans to spend $1 million to improve its troubled emergency radio network, responding to criticism that the system frequently fails. The radio system, which the Orange County Grand Jury called a threat to public safety, has drawn complaints from police officers and firefighters who report garbled calls and "dead spots" inside large buildings. County officials said they will probably use the money to build antennas in parts of South County, where problems are the worst.

If you want to find a lonely place, try St. Paul Island--a dot on the globe 300 miles off the coast of Alaska, in the middle of the Bering Sea. Then plot a point 235 miles farther northwest. Make it in the middle of the night, make it cold, put a small fishing boat there. And imagine, if you can, what happened when the Arctic Rose disappeared. The U.S. Coast Guard opened hearings here this week to try to unravel a mystery--a sinking that claimed 15 lives and became the worst U.S.

Two months after her husband, two young sons and nephew died at sea, Libby Cornett got a surprise visit from a U.S. Coast Guard commander who played for her a tape-recording of a three-second radio transmission. "May . . . Mayday, U.S. Coast Guard, come in," cried a tiny, frightened voice that Cornett immediately recognized as that of her 13-year-old son, Daniel.

A sudden squall struck a fleet of small boats racing off the southern coast of England, capsizing 78 vessels and setting off an air-sea rescue that ended with all 156 sailors being rescued. The race began in calm weather, but the squall blew in by the afternoon, severely buffeting the 18-foot catamarans, small high-performance sailing vessels. When the coast guard recognized the scale of the emergency, it relayed a mayday, which brought 10 private boats to aid in the rescue.

U.S. Navy and Coast Guard planes and ships searched the Pacific Ocean Thursday night after receiving an emergency call that a pilot planned to ditch his plane in waters between John Wayne Airport and Catalina Island. Petty Officer Cavin Jones at the Coast Guard Rescue Coordination Center in Long Beach said four monitoring stations reported that at about 6:30 p.m. they heard a "Mayday" call on an emergency radio frequency that a pilot planned to ditch in waters between the airport and the island.

After winning the Kentucky Derby twice in the 1990s, running 11 horses in the pinnacle race and not missing a Derby from 1994 through 1999, trainer Nick Zito was marooned in New York, watching this year's running on television. Zito made an appearance at Churchill Downs the week before the Derby, running Valiant Halory, a third-place finisher in the Derby Trial. "That was torture, to the first degree," Zito said.