Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
When insane worlds collide.
Man, I don't know which aspect of this news report is worse, the religious nuttiness or the authoritarian response:
Praying passenger removed from flight
Orthodox Jewish man ignored flight crew instructions during religious ritual
NEW YORK - A passenger who left his seat to pray in the back of a plane before it took off, ignoring flight attendants' orders to return, was removed by an airport security guard, a witness and the airline said.
The Orthodox Jewish man, who wore a full beard, a black hat and a long black coat, stood near the lavatories and began saying his prayers while the United Airlines jet was being boarded at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Wednesday night, fellow passenger Ori Brafman said.
* * *
When the man finally stopped praying, he explained that he couldn't interrupt his religious ritual and wasn't trying to be rude. But the attendants summoned a guard to remove him, said Brafman, a writer who had been visiting New York to talk to publishers.
On the one hand, you have someone who seemed to pick a really bad time to pray to Sky Daddy. On the other, he was doing it while the plane was still being boarded, and presumably was out of the way, being at the rear of the plane - so the response from the fight attendants seems unwarranted, and more of a "how dare you deny mah authoritah!"
What say you?
Jim Downey
(Hat tip to ML, again!)
Bookmark/Search this post with:
Airplanes and shopping malls
When you go into a shopping mall, you might have the idea that it is a public space, but it isn't. It is considered private property and they can and will kick you out if you do something they don't consider appropriate, like making a video without authorization.
Or even getting kicked out for doing nothing like PZ found out when he couldn't attend the film "Expelled".
Bad people can do bad things in a shopping mall too, but I think a plane has a bit more security concerns. I wouldn't be surprised if a shopping mall would kick the guy out too. Maybe it wouldn't be justified, but it could happen. As previously said, this clown had many chances to pray. I think he may have been trying to show off and make a statement.
The real story
I believe the real problem was that first class had been fenced off and contained Palestinians. He was pissed that they got the first class seating and he wasn't allowed to terrorize them.
Generic Jeezus
Unless you want to marry more than one woman, that is. Only the official 'Jeezus' brand is acceptable, no generic brand Jeezus' are allowed.
Oh yes, I almost forgot.
Oh yes, I almost forgot. You've got to have the One and Only, "offishul" name brand Jeezus. Accept no substitutions. Imitators will be persecuted.
Mr. Devout Takes A Plane
First thing I thought when reading the story was "Just another clown who doesn't understand that the rest of the world doesn't revolved around HIS religion." It's a case of "I can't stop praying after I start." vs. "And I should care about the silly rules of YOUR religion ... why?"
Why did this guy just HAVE to get up and pray after he got on the plane? Like there wasn't time or room to do it in the terminal before he boarded, like he couldn't have done it at home before he went to the airport, like he couldn't have done it in the taxi on the way to the airport, like he couldn't have done it silently and invisibly while sitting in his seat after boarding.
If it was anything, I'd think this was the airline's point: Unless you have some sort of disease that makes you unable to resist standing up, whatever you're doing is by choice, and in this case, that choice was suspicious and disruptive. Either sit the hell down when the stewardess asks you, or it's not safe to have you on the plane. What other rules are you going to break, how else are you going to disrupt the flight -- AS YOU HAVE ALREADY SHOWN YOU'RE CAPABLE OF DOING -- once it gets into the air? For the sake of the rest of the passengers, a zero-tolerance policy is safest.
If I'd been on that flight, I would have thanked the crew for ejecting him, and followed up with a supportive letter to the airline.
Its a virus.
The disease is called "religion", and it is a virus.
And I am only half joking about that.
Jim Downey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like Science Fiction? Read *or listen to* my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
I don't think...
...you'll find any argument about that point from all the usual suspects here. The issue to me seems to be whether the airline had the 'right' to eject him, for whatever reason, and if he was disrupting the carefully choreographed mayhem that is boarding and flying these days, they certainly did--good on 'em for that.
And really, what if instead of his Orthodox clown suit he was wearing a turban and praying to Allah--one shudders at the consequences to everyone on board--rather than quietly escorting him off the plane it would have meant deplaning for everyone, storm troopers, searching the plane, shutting down the entire airport...it could have gotten pretty ugly.
But as has been said, he had plenty of opportunity to pray privatively or publicly before boarding, he was an idiot and suffered the consequences.
Yeah, but . . .
Granted, this idiot got what he deserved, and it could have been worse if he was muttering in something sounding like Arabic.
But I am . . . uncomfortable . . . with such impromptu justice coming thanks to what is essentially a police state. Yes, any private carrier has a right to expect a certain level of compliance with their policies, in order to meet the needs of their large client base. But this isn't only what is at play here. Rather, there is a large dollop of "War on Terror" authoritarianism involved, or seems to be based on the brief news report.
Here my idealism comes into conflict with my real-life experience. As noted, this guy reaped the rewards of his particular delusion. That gives me a smile. But the agent employed makes me nervous as hell for the health and well being of our civil rights.
Jim Downey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like Science Fiction? Read *or listen to* my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
Agree
Although I don't agree that he wasn't potentially in the way standing all the way at the back by the bathrooms, since this area is also next to where provisions for the plane are kept, and you never know when someone near the back of the plane is going to need a seat belt extender (or the stewardesses could have been nervous about a strange man changing under his breath right next to where their seats, not to mention their drinking water and the provisions for the back portion of the plane, are).
On the other hand, I don't agree that removing him from the plane entirely was warranted.
Partial agreement
I read a story recently about some young guy who got into an arrest-type dust-up over not wanting to show the greeter at Wal-Mart his receipt on the way out. He stood up for his right not to show the receipt, tried to leave, and they called the police.
I understood the point, but I still thought he was an asshat. You have to pick your battles, and getting arrested over your "rights" at Wal-Mart just isn't worth the time and trouble. Like he was going to sue over the thing and win a decisive court victory that would force Wal-Mart to stop asking for receipts from people on the way out. Bleh.
Ditto for this thing. Besides my lack of sympathy for this guy on the plane for his assertion that his religion needed to be on public display, I think he was just an idiot -- and a totally obvious one -- for causing a scene on an airplane in a time when things ARE particularly edgy.
I'm imagining my own response to him if I'd been on the plane: "What the hell are you doing? Are you going to cause this plane to be evacuated just to prove some point about your religion? Why not sit down and let the rest of us have a peaceful flight?"
He was out of line. Sympathetic stories in which the subtext is that the Big Evil Airlines were somehow trampling on his right to worship are also out of line.
(I'm also not impressed with the crying-mothers stories in that polygamy cult thingie in Texas: "We just want our children back." Of course they want them back, and rightly so. But the real question is, are they complicit in abusing them? Aside from all the underaged sex questions, etc., to me teaching kids to be terrified of "outsiders" is abusive. It's handicapping them for life in the real world.)
There are plenty of much more obvious instances of police state activities than this one.
And in all that...
...I also agree heartily with you Jim. I think we agree in principle on the whole incident, we're just commenting on different aspects. I too am troubled by the authoritarian issues--greatly.
Recall the recent incident where the air passenger was required to turn an 'offensive' T-shirt inside out or not be allowed to fly? I don't know whether to weep or laugh. Both, I guess, weep at the loss of our liberties, and laugh at the absurdity of where peoples' concerns lay (lie?). With all the shit going on in the world, a T-shirt? Puuuhhhhleeez!
mike
Nuttiness, hands down.
Like emkay says, you fly, you follow the rules. Period. On my last trip I cautiously ventured a funny comment to one of the TSA employees during the security check and she actually laughed and seemed like a real person. Surprise. Get out of line (literally or figuretively)and expect quick and harsh consequences.
Any twelve people who can't get themselves out of jury duty are not my peers.
______________________
Claybow
www.myers-bowman.com
The linked story...
...is a bit ambiguous about whether the man was actually delaying boarding or the flight, but if he refused to 'obey' the attendants, then what's to be said, when you decide to fly these days you give up all personal dignity or rights anyway, you either get in line or get in trouble.
I don't have a clear picture of what actually transpired (nor do any of us, from the story), but if boarding or taking off was being delayed by this yahoo, then by all means, get him the hell off the plane and let's get going.
On a positive note, his prayers obviously worked, since the flight (without him, alas) 'landed at its destination as scheduled', which by any standard these days is a freeking miracle. I wonder if his baggage was lost?
lemme help you out
The religious nuttiness is the worse aspect. Case closed, IMHO.
I gotta side with the Airline on this one.
There's a lot of over-reaction by the air industry these days concerning security, but passengers are supposed to board, put their crap up, then stay in their friggin' seat until the plane takes off. Even once it's in the air, when they're allowed to move around some, they are told to avoid unnecessary movement.
Airplanes are cramped and the passengers and crew are stressed. Someone not in their seat, for whatever reason, starts screwing the pooch. Some stupid religious ritual is not a good excuse to get out of your seat. For that matter, religious rituals aren't really a good excuse for anything.
Rob Miles
--
There are only 10 types of people in the world;
those who understand binary and those who don't.
Agreed
Yeah the airlines are bastards these days but everyone knows they are bastards so plan for it. If he wanted to pray before getting on the plane I'm sure it would have been fine with everyone but just like many many other times in life sometimes you have to do as you are told, or the owners of the private property you're on will boot you.
Imagine if he had been talking to the same invisible sky daddy but calling him Allah instead.
If a Jeezus-freak had been praying instead...
But if he'd been praying to Jeezus, not only would have the airline allowed him to continue, but the Captain, the crew, and 90% of the passengers would have joined in. The air traffic controllers would have begun speaking in tongues, and the flame of the Holy Casper would have lit the way to takeoff.
Yeah, complete exaggeration, I know, but I get the feeling that Jeezus-anything is accepted, but any non-Jeezus-freak religion gets the brunt force of the rules. If the man had been praying to Jeezus, I'm sure they would have warned him about disrupting the flight, and then let him return to his seat. Kicking the guy off the airplane, especially if he hadn't made them late, seems a bit excessive. He stopped in time for them to take off on schedule, he wasn't making a scene... why must everything be a federal offense when it comes to airlines? I remember when I was allowed to carry my Swiss Army knife on airplanes. It used to be fun to fly. I couldn't imagine them kicking him off the airplane ten years ago.
Of course, maybe the Orthodox Jewish guy was just making a last-minute check-in with Sky Daddy because of the known uncertainty of flying these days.
Post new comment