Tuesday, July 20, 2004

This story makes me angry; very very angry. I watched this woman and her husband on TV yesterday telling their story.  I could not believe it. She admitted that she became suspicious when the six Middle East looking men boarded the plane, simply boarded the plane. But when the other Middle East men boarded the plane, and seemed to know the other men, that is when her antennas and the antennas of her husband went up.  And I cannot believe that she keeps telling the story with seemingly suspenseful details, although we all know the ending: THERE WAS NO HIJACKING AND THE PLANE LANDED SAFELY AND THE MIDDLE EAST MEN IN QUESTION WERE MERE INNOCENT MUSICIANS.  OK?  And if John Ashcroft and Bush's government (not known for any sensitivity to Arabs and Muslims) are not worried about this story, why should the media be playing it up like that?  And it is quite customary for Middle East people to talk and socialize on the plane. That is why I try to avoid Middle East airlines: too much noise for me.  On my flight to Beirut last month, the fellow sitting next to me, kept asking me why I was not eating or drinking. And the more he drank, the more persistent his questions became.  Finally, he pressed: Have some tabbulah!!!  I had to tell him that I do not like to talk on the plane because I get dizzy.  Some stand in the aisle and talk for the entire flight.  We are a schmoozing culture, ok?  And when this woman says in the New York Times article "I am not a racist," I could only think of Hitler's foreign minister Von Ribbentrop, and how he told prosecutors at the Nurenburg Trial that he was not anti-Semitic.  And she blames "political correctness."  Political correctness? In Bush's era and Ashcroft's (in)Justice Department?