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This time, it was USAir, thank you very much. When we arrived at the gate the agent said that there was some sort of delay (not weather, not technical, not crew over hours), so I have no idea what the problem was. But get this — when I asked her if there was a chance it would be cancelled, she said
“Oh no, the weather is fine, there’s a good plane on the ground. It will just be about an hour before it leaves Pittsburgh, and the flight is 57 minutes to RDU.“
So Kate and I went to wait. Grabbed an ice cream at Carvel, walked back to the gate and the sign just had the flight info on it, and an 800 number beneath. Not good. I called and got the brain-deadening — “the flight has been cancelled.” I hung up and laughed so loud Kate had to tell me to pipe down.
The line of weary people waiting at the gate for the agent to reroute them. I called that 800 number back and waited on hold for a while, but finally got an agent and she couldn’t book me on any USAir flight today or on any other carrier today. So we’re going on a 6:18 flight that will get there (hopefully) at 7:40 AM. That will not give me much time to get the luggage, cab it to the conference center to check in, get my NN09 registration and to my panel by 9AM (“From Prop 8 to Full Equality in All 50 States: Fighting for Marriage Equality and LGBT Rights Across America“).
Of course we already boarded the dogs, so flush that $ down the drain.
***
Here’s an item I came across while I was not airborne…a video of one of the local crazies. Facing South captures a teabagger/birther/nutbag protestor at a town hall held by Brad Miller (D-NC):
A protester at Rep. Brad Miller’s “town hall” meeting in Raleigh, NC compares Obama to Hitler and says Democratic reform legislation will make people “55 and older will not be allowed to have hip replacements” and other surgeries. She also echoes erroneous claims that the legislation will allow government “grim reapers” (Sarah Palin’s alleged “death panels”) will tell the elderly to “take a pill and just die.” She also bemoans the fact that she “was accosted by a woman who was Jewish.
21 Comments
Pam, you and Kateneed to do a better job checking each others for those “Cancel my flight, pleeze!” signs taped to your backs. Seriously.
But in all sincerity really, ugh! I can’t believe your sucky luck. I wonder if this is a result of airlines scaling back the number of daily flights on their usual routes. If something happens to delay a flight, there is no longer a cushion available for the sudden overflow of passengers.
Have you ever considered Amtrak, Greyhound, or driving?The airlines really don’t seem to like you.
Of course, the woman is against social security and medicare. I just bet you she begins claiming benefits from both as soon as she’s eligible, though. The area I live in is heavily republican and has a high percentage of seniors and
I love the bumper sticker I’ve seen around here.
“Got social security? Thank a Democrat!”
Driving’s outLong distance driving is out because of my fibromyalgia + meds that make me too drowsy on those monotonous drives. Train is great but takes a long time –> 11 hours to NYC.
My daughter got bumped off a flight because the FAA red ticketed three planesbelonging to USAir…..
As for your woman accosted by people who are Jewish, how exactly could she tell that the ‘accostor’ was Jewish?
Were they wearing Brandeis sweatshirts or something?
(My eldest is a grad student there and is not Jewish, btw…)
Was it some kind of racial characteristic?
The “nose” which is identical to a family trait of my wife’s called “Cosimo’s nose” after an ancestor?
Not againSorry you are going though this. About the woman afraid of Nazi’s taking over. Wayne Besen has a great article today regarding the danger of “words”. This has been my argument all along with “holy books” especially the King James version of the Bible and Islamic scripture.
By Wayne Besen
Stirring The Pot Until it Boils Over
Sometimes, words can kill.
A vocabulary carefully crafted into lethal lies almost always foreshadows fatalities.
In the case of Nazi Germany, the evidence of Hitler’s wicked intentions – from Mein Kampf to the Brown Shirts – was vividly clear. People may have ignored the alarm bells, but no one can say that there were not warnings of the brutality to come.
In 1994, Hutu radio broadcasts that called Tutsis cockroaches helped lead to genocide in Rwanda. Prior to the infamous broadcasts, a newspaper published the Hutu Ten Commandments, which smeared the rival ethnic tribe and included the eerily prescient eighth commandment: “Hutus must stop having mercy on the Tutsis.”
Earlier this month, in Gojra, Pakistan, more than 20,000 rioters torched 100 houses that belonged to Christian families and murdered seven people after a false rumor spread that the town’s Christians had defiled the Koran. Local mullahs enthusiastically furthered this big lie and used it to spark violence.
“We were afraid because the clerics had been railing against us in the mosques,” Riaz Masih, a Christian and retired math teacher whose house was gutted told the New York Times. “They said, ‘Let’s teach them a lesson.’”
The circumstances of these tragedies are vastly disparate in terms of geography, time period and circumstances. However, they illustrate three points:
1) Inflammatory and defamatory words, especially if spoken by religious or political authority figures, can and do lead to violence.
2) There is no shortage of mentally unbalanced people who will sometimes carry out shocking acts, and we should be very careful not to incite them with rhetoric that stokes their paranoia. Like stacks of firewood, these angry individuals go unnoticed until the gasoline is poured and the match is lit.
3) Americans are human beings, just like everyone else. So, the notion that what we say does not matter “because it could never happen here” is jingoistic foolishness.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about Dr. Michael Brown, an anti-gay ideologue in Charlotte who brought hundreds of red shirted fundamentalists to that town’s gaypride event. Brown’s mission is to “raise up a holy army of uncompromising spirit-filled radicals who will shake an entire generation with the gospel of Jesus by life or death.”
If you haven’t noticed, the extreme right is getting dangerously delirious. A black president, a Latina on the Supreme Court and gay people gearing up to marry in Iowa has exacerbated this crowd’s feelings of marginalization.
Unfortunately, there is no shortage of conservative leaders willing to exploit the situation for political gain. Just as Brown was able to organize the troops, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (among others), is mobilizing angry mobs (at least the ones who aren’t Republican operatives) to harass members of congress about health care at town hall meetings.
What these partisan “patriots” are doing is manufacturing mayhem and damaging democracy. It can’t be good for the nation to provoke the woefully out of touch and encourage them to go out of control.
It is contemptible that a major political party would exploit the ignorant, to fund the elite. These foaming-at-the-mouth fools (many think Medicare is a private health plan) rail against government bureaucrats influencing healthcare decisions. Yet, they seem blithely and suspiciously unconcerned about insurance company bureaucrats denying life or death coverage to maximize profits.
No matter your view on healthcare and Obama’s plan, this rabble rousing by Republicans on behalf of their lucrative lobby firms is disgraceful. These political opportunists stir the pot of pugnacity, but in their arrogance believe they can keep it from boiling over. When crowds are summoned, filled with alienated people who feel a competing sense of abandonment and entitlement, it is only a matter of time before people get hurt.
I am a staunch First Amendment advocate. But let’s not pretend such irresponsible words and behavior does not have casualties and consequences. We can best celebrate free speech and assembly by freely choosing not to incite or assemble irate mobs that lack control or any normal sense of inhibition.
Can she vote?OMG! How can that woman be SO misinformed? She has to be a “plant” because if she went through all that trouble to make a sign, she surely checked her facts.
Did you notice how vehemently she opposed paying the taxes, but now she’s bitching because she thinks she might lose benefits from those very taxes?
OMG, another cancelled flight??!! WTF??!!I hope you’ll be OK, Pam. What is it about your bad luck with flights? Well, good luck with the (please, let it fly!) flight to Pittsburgh tomorrow.
How could she tell?Well, it wasn’t anyone who was like her. The person a vaguely defined “them” or “those”. That’s enough explanation for some folk.
I’d like toBe a grim reaper. I’d physically attack this bitch!
And yes, I’m a MoveOn member. Funny that.
D_A_M_NRemind me not to fly with you Pam….you got the bad flight ju ju…..LOL.
Seriously I’m sure you ain’t happy with this sh*t, or a nearly dawn flight that rushes you at the other end, I hate being rushed. On the bright side you got ice cream.
Any chance of a train ride home?
As for that NC nutbagGo take a whack weeza, it’ll take your mind off the flight.
whack at weeza….oops
she could tell they were JewishThey hit her with a sack of old foreskins….hehehehehe!
Sabotage from withinI’m beginning to wonder if the whole airline industry isn’t secretly in the pay of the high-speed rail people – trying to make everyone so frustrated with air travel that people stop flying altogether and start clamoring for HSR in droves. Or maybe it’s just a few well-placed HSR moles that are trying to destroy the air travel industry from within. Either way, the end can’t come soon enough to suit me!
I’ve hated to fly back to 9/11The need to be checked through security 2 hrs early, the flight, then getting luggage, when they haven’t lost it…is more than either my lover or I like,(we are smokers) and I wear a nicotine patch when we need to fly.
Next vacation I think we’ll take is a drive to New Orleans, and book a cruise from there.
That does it!We’re a fairly smart bunch and goodness knows there are alot of us- from now on, we focus energy and thought towards building Pam her own personal teleporter!
PamIt might be easier bringing Netroots to NC in the future
how we drowned our sorrows…We went and bought food, towels and toys for the Durham APS (animal shelter), so we can give back in the name of all our doggies that have crossed over the Rainbow Bridge: Addison, Red, Tonka, P.D., and Bailey. We’ll take it there after we get back.
http://www.apsofdurham.org/cat…
sweet
Nice!What a great batch of “lemonade”!
MaybeIt was the necklace of bones and teeth made from the Christian child they ate for breakfast?
>giggles< I just looooooove the reicht!