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Sad Times

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 11:13:55 -0700

It's a sad commentary (on America? On humanity? On life?) when the sanest article I have read yet about the New York City Islamic Community Center (aka the “Ground Zero Mosque”––which, for those of you reading this twenty years from now, was neither a mosque nor at Ground Zero) is in a cheap knock-off humor magazine once described by its own editors as consisting of a readership “mostly of people who got to the drugstore after all the Mad Magazines had sold out.” To wit:

From Sarah Palin’s Twitter Feed:
“We all know that they have the right to do it, but should they?”
And from Harry Reid’s spokesperson:
While respecting that Muslims have a First Amendment right to religious freedom, Reid “thinks this mosque should be built some place else,” his spokesman Jim Manley said Monday.
Let me make something clear. In order to make these statements you must hate two things: logic and America. There is NO way to say that an individual has a protected right to do something and simultaneously criticize your government for not suppressing the execution of that right. There is no way for President Obama or any other president to put a stumbling block in the way of the free exercise of religion without violating the sanctity of that freedom. Should I say it more simply? OK.
You can’t legally stop people from obeying the law.

Steve Slater: My New BFF

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 19:06:10 -0700

This from the New York Times:

It has been a long time since flight attendant was a glamorous job title. The hours are long. Passengers with feelings of entitlement bump up against new no-frills policies. Babies scream. Security precautions grate but must be enforced. Airlines demand lightning-quick turnarounds, so attendants herd passengers and collect trash with the grim speed of an Indy pit crew. Everyone, it seems, is in a bad mood.
On Monday, on the tarmac at Kennedy International Airport, a JetBlue attendant named Steven Slater decided he had had enough, the authorities said.
After a dispute with a passenger who stood to fetch luggage too soon on a full flight just in from Pittsburgh, Mr. Slater, 38 and a career flight attendant, got on the public-address intercom and let loose a string of invective.
Then, the authorities said, he pulled the lever that activates the emergency-evacuation chute and slid down, making a dramatic exit not only from the plane but, one imagines, also from his airline career.
On his way out the door, he paused to grab a beer from the beverage cart. Then he ran to the employee parking lot and drove off, the authorities said.
He was arrested at his home in Belle Harbor, Queens, a few miles from the airport, and charged with felony counts of criminal mischief and reckless endangerment.
“When they hit that emergency chute, it drops down quickly within seconds,” a law enforcement official said. “If someone was on the ground and it came down without warning, someone could be injured or killed.”
In a statement, JetBlue said it was working with the Federal Aviation Administration and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to investigate the episode. “At no time was the security or safety of our customers or crew members at risk,” the company said.
According to his online profiles, Mr. Slater has been the leader of JetBlue’s uniform redesign committee and a member of the airline’s in-flight values committee. Neighbors in California, where Mr. Slater grew up, said he had recently been caring for his dying mother, a retired flight attendant, and had done the same for his father, a pilot.
The contretemps on Monday unfolded as JetBlue Flight 1052, a regional Embraer 190 jet, landed at Kennedy around noon — on time — with 100 passengers aboard and pulled up to the gate, said another law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing.
The official offered the following account:
One passenger stood up to retrieve belongings from the overhead compartment before the crew had given permission. Mr. Slater instructed the person to remain seated. The passenger defied him. Mr. Slater reached the passenger just as the person was pulling down the luggage, which struck Mr. Slater in the head.
Mr. Slater asked for an apology. The passenger instead cursed at him. Mr. Slater got on the plane’s public-address system and cursed out the passenger for all to hear. Then, after declaring that 20 years in the airline industry was enough, he blurted out, “It’s been great!” He activated the inflatable evacuation slide at a service exit and left the world of flight attending behind.
In short order, his brick two-story house on Beach 128th Street in the Rockaways, just off the ocean, was swarmed by detectives and uniformed officers from New York City and the Port Authority. “It was like there was a hostage in there,” said Curt Krakowski, who was working on the deck of a house across the street.
Mr. Slater, Mr. Krakowski said, “had a smile on his face when the cops brought him out, like, ‘Yeah, big deal.’ ” Mr. Slater was taken to a Port Authority police building at the airport and was expected to be held overnight.
One person familiar with the investigation said JetBlue took more than 20 minutes to notify the Port Authority police, allowing Mr. Slater time to get home. A spokesman for the airline declined to comment when asked about the delay, and a Port Authority spokesman said, “In matters of criminality, the Port Authority Police Department should be notified immediately.”
The episode is the latest round in what is seen as an increasingly hostile relationship between airlines and passengers.
A few weeks ago, an Air France flight attendant was arrested for stealing the wallets of first-class passengers. Last year, a Canadian singer parodied United Airlines on YouTube in a series of songs about how the airline broke his guitar.
A new study by the International Air Transport Association found an increase in instances of disgruntled passengers and violence on planes, with the chief cause being passengers who refuse to obey safety orders. By the same token, frequent-flier blogs echo with tales of “flight attendant rage.”
While JetBlue’s flight attendants are not unionized, a spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants, Corey Caldwell, said anxieties were common on planes. “Anyone who has traveled since Sept. 11 understands that being in the cabin is stressful these days,” Ms. Caldwell said.
The portrait of Mr. Slater that emerges from interviews with neighbors and friends and from profiles on MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn shows a man with mixed feelings about his job.
Photographs show him in the mountains of El Yunque National Forest in Puerto Rico and sitting behind the wheel of a convertible. “Steven Slater has visited 22 percent of the countries in the world!” the MySpace page announces.
Yes, and Pittsburgh, too. “Chances are I am flying 35,000 feet somewhere over the rainbow on my way to some semifabulous JetBlue Airways destination!” the MySpace page says. “Truly, some are better than others. But I am enjoying being back in the skies and seeing them all.”
A former roommate, John Rochelle, said Mr. Slater was seldom home. When Mr. Slater was not working, Mr. Rochelle said, he was usually in Thousand Oaks, Calif., a Los Angeles suburb, caring for his sick mother.
A neighbor there, Ron Franz, said Mr. Slater also cared for his father as he was dying from Lou Gehrig’s disease. Mr. Franz, 72, was hard-pressed to explain Mr. Slater’s actions on Monday. “It could be the pressure of his mother’s illness, because that’s not the type of behavior or conduct that Steve exhibits,” he said. “He’s a very conscientious, responsible individual.”
But a former flight attendant, Janet Bavasso, who lives next door to Mr. Slater in Queens, found nothing mysterious at all.
“Enough is enough — good for him,” Ms. Bavasso said. “If he would have called me, I would have picked him up.”

Reporting was contributed by Cate Doty, Christine Negroni, Tim Stelloh and Matthew L. Wald.

And finally, this bit of spin-control from JetBlue corporate:

Another Sign of the Apocalypse

Fri, 6 Aug 2010 15:21:15 -0700

On the heels (so to speak) of Proposition 8 being overturned comes this bit of bizarre news: Ann Coulter (remember her?) is going to speak to a convention of Gay Republicans:
Step right up and get your tickets for the first annual Homocon! No, it's not a convention for escaped homosexual convicts (that would be awesome), it's a political convention for openly gay Republicans. They somehow exist, and GOProud, the only national organization representing gay conservatives, is throwing a big party next month to celebrate their cognitive dissonance. The headliner will be none other than Ann "Come On I Dare You To Punch Me in My Smug Face, You Fairy" Coulter, who previously called John Edwards a "faggot" when he was running for president, and called former vice president Al Gore a "total fag." This is going to be fabulous revolting.
"The gay left has done their best to take all the fun out of politics, with their endless list of boycotts and protests," declares Christopher Barron, Chairman of the Board of GOProud. "Homocon is going to be our annual effort to counter the ‘no fun police’ on the left. I can’t think of any conservative more fun to headline our inaugural party then the self-professed ‘right-wing Judy Garland’—Ann Coulter." When you think about it, the Garland comparison isn't so crazy, because who doesn't wish upon a star that a tornado would come take Coulter away?

The National Mall

Sun, 1 Aug 2010 16:56:41 -0700

During my recent trip to DC, I stopped by one of my old favorites, the National Mall (kind of like making a visit to a favorite cathedral when you’re in town). Of course, I went to the Museum of American History (which when I first started going, in the Seventies, as the Museum of History and Technology; it would be nice to see a museum for the museum). And also, of course, Air & Space.

Here are some lunch boxes at “History” that would have been contemporary when I first started going there (part of their popular Americana collection).

Meanwhile, over at Air & Space...

Here’s an album of a few more pictures from the trip.

Bakon Vodka

Fri, 9 Jul 2010 09:51:38 -0700

Normally I’m not a big drinker—OK, let’s be truthful here, I really don’t drink at all—but I do love bacon: who doesn’t?
Unfortunately, this Bakon Vodka isn’t available yet in California, but you can get it in my home state of Maryland. Mom, are you reading this?
From the website (and now I’m hungry):

People have been mixing savory ingredients with alcohol as long as we have been drinking alcohol. Writers from the 17th century, including John Locke and Samuel Pepys frequently imbibed and wrote about savory infused ales. It turns out that mixing sweet and savory in food and beverage is not a new idea
Carnivorous Cocktails
Around the world today, high-end lounges are serving a variety of "carnivorous cocktails." The best mixologists are like chefs behind the bar and they don't want to be limited to standard fruit-flavored infusions. These bartenders have found that the savory aspect of bacon makes a great dominant profile in a cocktail like a Bakon martini with a blue cheese-stuffed olive. But it can also take the back seat, with bacon's smoky flavor subtly enhancing the taste in a concoction like a Chocolate Martini.

Our Story
We started out testing various infusions in our kitchen in the fall of 2007. We wanted to do it right, to create a premium-quality vodka you'd enjoy drinking. To match an infusion, we tested recipes for over two years, finally landing at the one true "Bakon Vodka".

We start with a superior quality potato vodka. Distilled in Idaho from potatoes, it is smooth, slightly sweet with the well-rounded flavor that you only get from a quality potato distillation, with no strong burn or aftertaste. Our vodka is column-distilled using a single heating process that doesn't "bruise" the alcohol like the multiple heating cycles needed to make a typical pot-still vodka. Getting the perfect savory bacon flavor took us a while to get right too. We wanted it to have the essence of a delicious crisp slice of peppered-bacon.
After numerous recipes and a lot of testing, we got it right. And we think you'll agree.
You'll never want to use another vodka for your Bloody Mary... and you'll be amazed with the versatility of Bakon Vodka - see our Recipes page for more ideas!