Hello Control Tower…Hello?

Okay, so you're in a plane...with absolutely no control over your destiny or safety.  That's someone else's total responsibility.  Thousands and thousands of planes making thousands of take offs and landings EVERY day crossing paths all over the world...and yet the guy who "should" be keeping an eye on everything is SOUND ASLEEP.  It's happened 5 times in the last couple of weeks...who knows how many times it happened before it became a news item.  Well the government said yesterday it is giving air traffic controllers an extra hour off between shifts so they don’t doze off at work, a problem that stretches back decades. But officials rejected the remedy that sleep experts say would make a real difference: on-the-job napping. “On my watch, controllers will not be paid to take naps. We’re not going to allow that,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said. That’s exactly the opposite of what scientists and the Federal Aviation Administration’s own fatigue working group say.  The latest incident occurred just before 5 a.m. Saturday at a busy regional radar facility that handles high altitude air traffic for much of Florida, portions of the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. Several other countries, including Germany and Japan, permit controllers to take sleeping breaks and even provide quiet rooms with cots for that purpose.  I guess the old saying "Just cause they're doing it doesn't make it right" is in play on this one.  So, just what "is" the answer if it's not this?  I just don't want to think the lives of me and my family might be in the hands of a guy who partied really hard the extra hour he was supposed to be sleeping and now we're in danger while his face is resting in a puddle of slobber on his work station...