^If he’s in the middle of something, he may not felt like “chatting.” And how was he supposed to know that if he didn’t make small talk to a passenger, he was going to be taken off for questioning? She’s not TSA.
Echoing a post above, so what if it had been Arabic? People can’t write in Arabic any more?
That’s nuts.
Maybe he was caught doing Al Gebra.
So we are supposed to be polite when some busybody asks us nosy questions, let alone when are civil liberties are at stake? I think not. What is this world coming to?
“Maybe he was caught doing Al Gebra.”
It’s stuff like this that keeps me addicted to CC. Nicely played, @NoVADad99. =D>
My goodness. I’ve only done pre calc and I can identify what a differential equation looks like.
I think the more pressing issue is so what I f he was writing in Arabic? How is that a threat - “see something, say something” requires some common sense before acting out of ignorance.
:))
But seriously, how is writing in a notebook in any language suspicious?
Even if he was writing up some kind of dangerous plan or whatever. It’s on paper. In a notebook. How is that a threat? It’s not being transmitted to anyone.
I think it’s strange that the pilot wouldn’t recognize the equations. That said, I think we need to refrain from jumping all over pilots and flight attendants. They’re in the air all the time. They probably feel like they have a target on their planes.
I wonder if the woman who feared the differential equations ever flew into DTW from a non-US origin?
The signs to the immigration and customs hall have Arabic as one of the languages.
Sounds like the airline might want to hire a prize-winning economist to consult about the efficiency of their security protocols.
My daughter was accused of being a witch by a teacher. “What are you writing? Is it some kind of witchcraft?”
It was cursive writing. He didn’t know what it was.
@MaineLonghorn you’re coming to Texas on Tuesday??? :x
She’s a witch! Burn her! She turned me into a newt.
Look, if the motto is, “See something, say something” then you are going to get some false positives. I don’t have a problem with this one, as long as it doesn’t happen too often.
Personally, I find the idea that laypersons on airplanes should be able to recognize differential equations to be the height of arrogance.
Re #33
However, a side effect is that, for example, people who call police for a “suspicious person” may be racist and call police on, for example, black people more than white people.
Of course, “see something say something” is helpful in general, but comes with unwanted effects of giving bigots power to hassle other people with the police.
This false positive resulted from seeing someone put pen to paper and write something that the flight attendant and pilot couldn’t decipher. Given their apparent lack of breadth of knowledge in foreign language + math, they should just go ahead and trust TSA screening and stop playing Keystone Cops of Homeland Security.
We already have to take our shoes off, limit our liquids to 3oz and put them in a plastic bag when we fly. Now we’re going to be limited to those mini golf sized pencils and sticky notes in our carry ons thanks to this story…
I don’t know if I could identify anything as being a differential equation, but I sure as heck know something is not Arabic. I’m the queen of “I-picked-my-major-so-I-wouldn’t-have-to-take-much-math-in-college”. Perhaps being married to a chemist for 32 years has made me blind to pieces of paper lying around with things on it I don’t understand.
Hmm… he’s busy doing something she doesn’t understand and she calls the law on him. Couldn’t be just her.
Maybe there’s a joke in here, somewhere.