cactuspete

Prisoners in Afghanistan say the man accused of smuggling explosives in his shoes onto a trans-Atlantic flight underwent training at terrorist training camps there operated by Osama bin Laden, intelligence sources told NBC News on Wednesday.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/676895.asp?cp1=1

duxfan

why is what the young lady actually felt and experienced reason to ridicule her? i think a few of you are way outta line here. is she as articulate as you'd like? obviously not, but since she probably realizes how close she came to DYING, i'll cut her a little slack...

ETOPS01

THE CHICK'S A BIMBO.

crAAzy

I was traveling this past weekend Dec. 22,23 and 25 to MKE-MIA and back via ORD, DFW and FLL (don't ask)...anyway I was checking in early Sat morning, around 5:30AM at DFW (note this is before this incident occured(. When I passed through security 2 things happend
1) Somehow I set the alarm of and I couldn't for the life of me figure out what set it off...the security person was very nice but interestingly enough, did a very good check of my shoes, even inspecting the bottoms...first time for me.
2) Here's the point of the post - amusingly - there was another man in front of me who they had remove his shoes (evidently thought the buckles were setting the alarm off). Anyway, the man much to his AND his wife's chagrin was wearing a white sock on one foot and a teal sock on the other, and if things weren't bad enough for this poor guy, a little girl walk by as he was sitting there and pointed out rather loudly to her mom how funny he looked .
Moral of the story .... as mom used to say...always wear matching socks and clean underwear for life's unexpected moments.

se94583

I find that quite judgmental. After all, she was aboard a flight, notwithstanding all our illusory security procedures and assurances, with a lunatic who had the means to blow her and 180 other people out of the sky, and would have done so had he been competent. I don't think any of us would have been totally coherent shortly thereafter.

highgamma

OK. Now we've gone from "sounds like a bimbo" to this statement. Given that you are unwilling to understand her feelings and see her perspective, you must be a "bimbo" too. (Notwithstanding whatever sex you happen to be.)

ETOPS01

Ya know what?

After something like that, I'd probably be a little perturbed myself.

I probably be a little perturbed to the extent that I would think it prudent to keep my mouth shut for as long as it took to gain a little composure to make sure I wouldn't say something that I would regret saying or wish I said differently, considering the ramifications of the event, even without the context of world affairs as they are.

I'm just giving this big-mouthed glory-hound some more of the attention she craves. Maybe not the kind she expected, but hey, the same Constitutional precedent that lets daddy earn his keep so he can send little darlin' to Europe applies here as well.

Perhaps you don't see it this way, but the comments she made portrays Americans in exactly the way many non-Americans look at us and find us so contemptible. Big-mouthed, impulsive, ignorant, just some of traits that get us in trouble in the world spectacle.

Publishing this - and people defending it out of leaky-eyed poor-sot sympathy - just encourages the further erosion of intellectual and character standards.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, call me out on my posts that have been unintellectual or simply crass in the past. The difference is that when I need it, I've got it to use. My concern is with the "less-informed" reader, who comprises the majority of our population, who doesn't and thinks it's OK. They see this kind of garbage in the newspaper and think, "If they do it on TV/in the news/in the movies..."

Remember that thread on appalling grammar/diction on in-flight announcements? "'AT THIS TIME' your seatbacks and tray tables must be in their full, upright, and locked positions..." People hear that and think if high-and-mighty institutions are doing it, well, then, it must be OK for me..." Cripe, I had a bout in grammar school where I almost was labeled dyslexic because I substituted the backwards "R" (as in "Toys R Us") for the word "are," thinking that the backwards "R" was standard, exactly because I believed if such a big company like Toys R Us could do it, then it must be OK. Perhaps from this I learned, early and poignantly, that images and expressions - especially those rendered by corporations and other highly visible institutions - do have an impact on individuals, so it's a responsibility to ensure that the right message gets across.

Of more local significance, however, these newspapers are the same ones that our career-politician legislators read and believe to portray the ethos of the American people. The politicians in turn devise security procedures that amount to nothing more than pantomime gestures that terribly incovenience us, in gratuitous attempt to patronize the sentiments expressed in such media coverage.

Garbage in, garbage out. And some of you guys say, "What's so wrong with a little girl boo-hoo-hooing about a fearful event?"

Read this month's Sky magazine on Delta. Walter Cronkite talks about standards in journalism. We're so far removed, I don't think people really even know what "standards" are any more. At least, people quite apparently can't recognize the indications that the quality of journalism reflect upon its readership.

Perhaps I now ought to be ashamed to regard the Economist as pedantic.

[This message has been edited by ETOPS01 (edited 12-26-2001).]

Law Lord

OTOH, she was looking at a life-or-death situation (and the air force was prepared to make it death, if necessary), and he may have been wearing a grey beanie. As to what he looked like, her description matches what other pax said about how he was acting in the gate area. I don't see how you can infer that someone is a bimbo (whether you use the word to mean sexually mobile or intellectually challenged) because she makes three truthful statements.


------------------
"Yes, but at least mine will be found in a first class seat." -- Peattie and Taylor

Mvic

Etops, I share you sentiment of alarm at what appears to be the falling standards in journalism and I appreciate allot of your posts.

However, I am even more alarmed by the decline in the standards of politeness and common decency. Calling a lady we don't know from Adam a "chick" and a "bimbo" amongst other things, especially when she is not party to the discussion and thus unable to defend herself, would be an example of such a decline as far as I am concerned.

[This message has been edited by Mvic (edited 12-26-2001).]

ETOPS01

Mvic,

They go hand-in-hand. I will freely admit that I am affected by it, too. Call me opininated, call me crass, but definitely do not call me blind.

When the mainstream press finds it's necessary to write about "cigars in vaginas" and how they "mmm, taste good," in newspapers that are set about the household in places like the dining room table, what does that do to the psyche of impressionable kids on the cusp of maturity, particularly as it pertains to propriety?

"Mommy, what's a DNA stain?"

***

More to the topic at hand, I suspect this Richard Reid guy is a "me-too." Although his political persuasion may be apparent by virtue of his targeting an American flight, that does not necessarily mean he was acting out of affiliation with any larger group.

[This message has been edited by ETOPS01 (edited 12-26-2001).]

Mvic

As a father of a young child I couldn't agree more Etops, but I see that as a reason to be more careful in how I as a member of a larger community act. I don't want to knowingly be part of the very problem that I object to if I can help it.

highgamma

Hey, I hate the press as much as the next guy, though I don't think the Economist is that stodgy. :-)

I completely agree with you that the FATHER of this girl acting totally irresponsibly in putting his girl's words into print. He should have known better and clearly should have known how these types of comments contribute to the negative view of Americans abroad.

However, I just tend to give people the benefit of the doubt within a week of a major traumatic event. Perhaps I just know a lot more people who've been touched by these types of events (or maybe you just know much better people than I do), but, invariably, things are said that are not intended.

The girl was traumatized. Perhaps a better word is "injured". I just don't expect people who are impaired to necessarily show the best judgement. (Though I know you would. :-) )

BTW, the London connection may play out to show that there's at least some other involved. He did become "Robert Reid" somehow.

YVR Cockroach

So where are the racists, reactionaries, racist reactionaries, and reactionary racists now that the facts are out (other than hiding under their white sheets)?

The man is not of "middle eastern" origin at all, nor is he from Sri Lanka, nor was he travelling on a remotely-false passport.

Richard Colvin Reid is his real name and he was born in Bromley to a Lesley Hughes (white englishwoman) and to a Colvin Reid (Jamaican of Afro-Caribbean heritage), and his passport was legitimately issued by the British embassy in Brussels.

A man of mix african and white ancestry, with a "british" last name, and converted to Islam while in prison would, unfortunately, describe a significant (but by no means major) proportion of the U.S. and U.K. populations.

mdtony

More interesting information.

http://signonsandiego.com/news/ap/D7GLNDS02.html

Now this is very interesting. Everyone keeps on saying we need security like the Jews have. Well, folks, this guy got through their security. They asked him questions, and he got through.

So the question is, if the Jews can't catch everyone, even with all the scrutiny they put on folks that we'd never tolerate here in the US, what makes us think we can catch them all?

mikey1003

I believe that the proper statement might have been if Israel...not "the Jews"

I am sure that mdtony was not trying to offend our Jewish friends.