American Airlines throws kid with Downs Syndrome off flight for no apparent reason

OMG.

American Airlines throws kid with Downs Syndrome off flight because... well... American claims the kid was a security risk (the child was flying first class, for the first time ever, and suddenly American didn't like this particular child in first class... hmm).

Video taken at the time shows the boy sitting calmly in a chair holding a hat, doing absolutely nothing, while his mother is sobbing and some jerk from American is threatening the mother because she's recording him seemingly violating her son's civil rights. What a horrible story.

Also interesting, American was afraid that the boy was a "security risk" flying first class (with all those rich people) but American had no problem offering to book another flight in coach.

How is the boy a security risk in first but not in couch? American claims it's because the boy would have been close to the cockpit. Really? American's security is so piss poor that a 16 year old boy, with the personality of a 4 or 5 year old (according to the mom) could somehow disrupt the pilot while flying? Imagine what an actual terrorist could do if American's on board security is so bad that a kid could so easily interfere with the pilot while flying.

And to top it off, American is refusing to reimburse the family for the upgrade they already purchased.

I think American did that to ensure that the jury adds on another couple of million. Unbelievable.

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Obama cracks birther joke (this is quite funny)

From the pool report of Obama's trip to Florida today, written by Helene Cooper of the NYT, who is hysterical.

At 6:51 motorcade arrived at...a strip mall.

Grand Oaks shopping village in orlando, which houses, among other things, Gators Dockside, a sports bar.

"There he is!" A little girl squealed.

Big cheer when potus walked in, doing a strange slicing motion with his arms that your pooler is informed is the "gator chop."

Hm.

Being a huge beer fan, potus immediately sidled up to the bar, of course, standing under a ginormous stuffed? Plastic? Alligator.

He ordered a pint of something, and started chatting up patrons....

He goes to a huge table of ten, five kids, and one woman points to a blond boy at the opposite end and says "he was born in Hawaii."

Potus lights up and does some presumably Hawaii sign with his hand, which the boy returned.

Then Potus says: "You were born in Hawaii? You have a birth certificate?" The table busted out laughing.

And get ready for the Fox News patrol to accuse us of a double standard - why is it okay for Obama to make a joke about his own certificate and not Romney? Because Obama was mocking the controversy. Romney was mocking Obama.

PS The day Mitt Romney has this human of an interchange with a random person, get back to me. Read the rest of this post...

Romney campaigning with nut Pat Robertson

I smell desperation.

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Enough already. I don't need anyone's help remembering 9/11.

Basta.

I'd almost forgotten - for the first time ever - that we're approaching the 9/11 anniversary.

I've never been raped, so I hesitate to use that analogy.  But I have been mugged - my attackers, with no weapons, hanging out at a 7-Eleven, apparently thought it would be neat to jump and strangle a complete stranger.  So they did.

This was a year after September 11.  I didn't really need the extra drama/trauma in my life.  I'd already spent 9/11 in Washington, DC, alone, watching the smoke from the Pentagon drift across the sky from my living room window. It wasn't a very pleasant experience worrying if we were all going to die, and not having the concern even begin to fade for a good two months.

The view from my apartment window on 9/11.
The smoke is from the Pentagon.

I didn't do so well after September 11.

For years, any time I'd hear a loud noise I'd become totally frazzled.  I'll never forget the time, a few years later, when a waiter dropped a tray of dishes behind me.  I suddenly felt myself choking up, and then breaking into tears, in the middle of dinner with friends, and had no idea why.

For me at least, "remembering September 11" is like someone ripping a scab off a wound that's never completely healed, and never will.  It's like someone insisting that I dredge up my mugging again, remember how it felt not being able to breathe, totally helpless on the ground in the dark, because they're concerned that there's a chance I might have forgotten what it felt like to think I was going to die.

Thanks for the concern.

One of these years, I wish the media (and forget the politicians - the Republicans see 9/11 as the ultimate political cudgel, and Democrats, always afraid of seeming under-patriotic, are happy to climb on board the ongoing GOP terror-fest) would sit back and think about how it feels to the nearly 300 million of us or so who were around on that day, terrorized that day and those months, and who, rather than needing to remember September 11, have been trying for eleven years to forget.

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Note to progressives: Read Obama's acceptance speech carefully

Just a fast note as vacation winds to a close. I listened to Obama's acceptance speech on Thursday, expecting to feel very ... Clintonian. I expected him to avoid most of the traps and stroke my inner kitten in the right direction.

Surprise; he laid out the truth of his next term. I thank him for that.

My note to progressives — read that speech carefully. (John has posted it here.)

Like Beethoven's Choral Fantasy, it contains numerous previews and foreshadowings. Listening I found it an eye-opener (OK, ear-opener for literalists).

I won't deconstruct it here, and maybe not until he's re-ascended, using Mr. Romney as a footstool. But do read, while the exhilaration-exhaustion of the DNC is fresh.

I'll be back in full by early Tuesday. Hope everyone had an excellent Labor Week holiday.

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
 

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