Jeanne Marie Laskas

“The 'modern' air-traffic-control system, and the FAA itself, was created in the aftermath of one of the most dramatic commercial midair bashes, way back in 1956.”

“For centuries, native Eskimos cut blocks of oil-soaked tundra from natural seeps to use as fuel. In the 1920s, explorers arrived and began poking holes. In 1968, they discovered Prudhoe Bay State No. 1, the largest oil field in North America and one of the largest in the world, and a year later the adjacent Kuparuk field, the second-largest.”

“Women are more emotional than men, so they must attach emotion to their memories.”

“One of the ways a landfill engineer anywhere in the world earns bragging rights is if he can pour himself a glass of the leachate from his landfill and drink it.”

“Seagulls are a landfill nuisance because they fly away with food scraps and, as is their reputation, fight each other over them midflight, often losing them, and soon a lady has a half-eaten hamburger splashing into her backyard pool.”

“The new disease was named chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and the NFL fervently and repeatedly denied that such a thing had anything to do with the league or its players.”

“Bob Dole. He's like the neighbors' Labrador retriever your dad used to curse for all that barking, all that darn digging in your mom's tulip bed, and now look, you live next door to a godforsaken pack of teeth-baring rabid Pomeranians, and, good golly, Bob Dole!”

“The National Tracing Center is not allowed to have centralized computer data.”

“LaGuardia Airport is tiny compared to its sleek modern counterparts, like Atlanta or Denver with their endless parallel runways spread over thousands of acres.”