Take that, Flipper!

Near the end of May, 2006, The Sun Herald ran a story about a huge dolphin who beached himself in MS. (It doesn't seem to be there anymore, but the story has been archived in full here.) Aparently, "residents of the area and passers-by" were the first responders. Soon "others gathered, some just wanting to help and some from agencies well-versed on the subject." These people waded in and helped the dolphin into deeper water. Who were these people?

Those passers-by happened to comprise mostly Sun 3. And yet . . . no mention of the NCCC in the article. I am reminded of a couple lines from T.S. Eliot:

He always has an alibi, and one or two to spare:
At whatever time the deed took place — Macavity Wasn't There!

The NCCC seems too often to have some sort of alibi, because as far as the news is concerned, even when we're there, we're frequently not there. This has happened more than once on my teams alone. The NCCC is a part, sometimes an integral part, of an event receiving media coverage, but receives no mention in the eventual write-up. Which I can understand -- if the reporter mentioned us, then he or she'd also have to get off-topic explaining who we are, which probably would not usually be worth the inches. Even so, it's nice to be mentioned when you're there.

But the real reason I wrote about this is: I wanted the opportunity to post some of the pictures of my team with the dolphin.