In the Bay Area here you can’t help but consider the recent story of the young black dude who got kicked off the US Airways plane by a hyperventilating flight attendant because he was sporting the ridiculous but non-obscene current fashion of his pants down around mid-thigh like a character trying to make a get-away in a Warner Brothers cartoon. Oh, and a trippy set of dreads. Did I mention that he was black? A furiously back pedaling US Airways spokesperson insisted that it wasn't because he was black and it wasn’t because it looked like his pants were falling off. No, it was because he sassed a flight attendant who was only doing his job and so therefore little brother was deemed to be a safety risk, resulting in a return trip to the terminal and an unceremonious dumping out the back of the plane and a raft of potential criminal charges.
Anyone who has flown in the last ten years has had at least one occasion when they were tempted to bitch-slap some airline pin head, whether it was a flight attendant or, more likely, one of the power-mad, puffed up, idiots who man the security portals in their little uniforms and who seem to delight in being able to make you take off your shoes and belt, turn your carry on inside out, wand grandmothers and make you pose in front of the scanner just so they can see your nuts and laugh about it later over a bag of Cheetos and a coke in the break room. So it’s not really news that a young black honor student on his way home from a funeral might take offense to some overzealous asshole hassling him about his pants. But the worst was yet to come.
Within 24 hours pictures surfaced of another passenger on the same airline – a guy clearly in his 50’s, at least – picking up his suitcase at a baggage carrousel wearing high heels, stockings, a blue bra & panty set and a cute little cardigan. The guy had just gotten off the plane after a flight during which he wore the same “outfit”, unmolested by the intrepid guardians of national security working for US Airways and who apparently travels the same way several times a month on US Airways with no problems. His explanation was that he does it “for fun”, he isn’t hurting anyone and really wants to impress Anthony Weiner.
The somersaults US Airways did over the next couple of days would make Cirque de Soleil performers jealous. Here’s hoping the kid with the dreads gets himself a snarling Doberman of a lawyer and wins himself college tuition and then some.
On a lighter note, California “lawmakers” last week suddenly had their pay suspended until further notice by the state controller because they had not met their obligation – created by a recently passed proposition - to deliver a balanced budget by June 15. To loud outbursts of hysterical laughter from the public, squawking, sniveling, whining politicians cried foul, saying it was unfair to take away their pay since they “were really, really trying” and was all the fault of the recalcitrant bullies on the other side of the aisle. Governor Jerry Brown, trying hard to keep a straight face, said in a press conference that he was waiting anxiously for the two sides to make a decision and “lead, follow or get the hell out of the way.”
Finally in national news, Obama had another in a long line of fruitless desultory, pointless meetings with Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid over the make believe issue of raising the national debt ceiling, an exercise in political pissing up a rope if there ever was one, reminding me of nothing so much as a slap fight late at night in a fern bar between two intoxicated socialites. That the country is hostage to such a monumentally trivial non-issue when the paper is also chuck full of stories again about the continued assault on the middle class, slaughter in Afghanistan and political chaos in Iraq begs the question; what the fuck is wrong with these guys? There would be no debt problem is there weren’t multiple never-ending futile wars going on. Figure it out, fellas, and let’s get this crap over with.
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