Battleangel

Two men are caught … well, making some type of physical contact on an American Airlines flight and they are promptly given the budget terrorism treatment, asked to cease or else the plane will be diverted (New Yorker). Hopefully it will be dawning on some people what sort of society this whole faux terrorism hype is about to create. And I bet it’s not unintentional either. What we are seeing here, as Adam Curtis and others would argue, is a taste of the ultimate point of the “war on terror” (just as every other “war on x”). Namely “politics of fear” to provide a rationale for the sort of measures that can be conveniently used to further certain types of social control in a world where people no longer know their place (or so the powers that be seem to feel).

Shortly after takeoff, Varnier nodded off, leaning his head on Tsikhiseli. A stewardess came over to their row. “The purser wants you to stop that,” she said.

“I opened my eyes and was, like, ‘Stop what?’ ” Varnier recalled the other day.

“The touching and the kissing,” the stewardess said, before walking away.

Half an hour later, the purser returned, this time saying that some passengers had complained about Tsikhiseli and Varnier’s behavior earlier. The men asked more questions. Who had complained? (She couldn’t say.) Could they have the stewardess’s name, or employee number? (No.) Would the purser arrange for an American Airlines representative to meet them upon landing at J.F.K.? (Not possible.) Finally, the purser said that if they didn’t drop the matter the flight would be diverted.

But a customer-service representative named Terri, reached last week on the telephone, offered the opinion that kissing on airplanes is indeed permissible.

Hello decency police! I’d probably be irked by a similar display, even by a heterosexual couple to some extent, but that is a long way from trying to impose moral standards on other people. Contemplate the issue briefly and one should come to the conclusion that we all do things from time to time that are offensive to some group or individual. But unless we hold some official position or role that could be sullied by a display or behavior there is no principal reason we should be impassive.