I think the policy should be that if you say something that takes someone off the plane, you have to get off as well. Yes, I know that happened here, but too often it does not.
^So really, just keep your mouth shut.
So now people are supposed to know differential equations AND Arabic?
While there are no academic qualifications for a passenger to buy an airline ticket, it is hoped that Wisconsin Airlines, the regional carrier that flies AA3950 for American Airlines, does have academic standards for the pilots it hires. The article said the pilot couldn’t recognize math scribbles from a linguistic language. Even a sociology major should be able to tell the difference.
A side note:
It’s irritating that the stupid news story has a photo of an airliner for what’s really a regional jet (I can tell from the 4-digit flight number).
Well where is my fainting couch?!
@Sylvan,
I initially left out some key verbiage. It now reads:
The story here is not the clueless passenger, but the clueless pilot. The news article reportted that the pilot looked embarassed.
I got better…
The article I read did say that the pilot looked embarassed but it did not say that the pilot ever saw what the man had written.From what I gathered, only the authorities who questioned him saw what he’d written. I think the pilot was embarassed because the man was wrongly accused.
And so far, we only know of this happening once, so I don’t know that it’s going to be a huge problem going forward.
Hopefully people will get the message that “If you see something, say something” really means “Just keep your mouth shut, clueless ninny, no one wants to hear your claptrap.”
I re-read the article again. It says nowhere that the pilot did not recognize the scribbles for math.
The stupid woman was taken off the flight. It seems the pilot was embarrassed for the male passenger being suspected.
Well of course I wouldn’t know Arabic, but I certainly would likely recognize it if I saw it… I know it’s not Chinese, Japanese, Greek, Russian, Hindu, Hebrew, et al. Anyone who has watched a few dozen news program since 9/11 has seen Arabic signs and/or writing in Muslim countries. I probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between Arabic and Hebrew on a quick glance, but I’d darned well know they weren’t math problems. Again, I took nothing beyond algebra and geometry in high school and college. My standards for math knowledge are pretty low.
The silly woman obviously doesn’t even watch Big Bang Theory.
And see something, say something - an unattended bag, a threatening note written in the language of the people on the airplane -yes. Someone sitting in his seat writing in a notebook? Not even close. We’ve lost all sense.
Math while Italian.
Well, first Arabic is written right to left so that would be one clue but IT DOES NOT MATTER!!!
Writing in Arabic isn’t against the law nor does it in any way indicate terrorist activity! [-(
You know, the problem is, if we tried to educate our children from a rather early age on (elementary school is not too early for me) how other world languages are formed and written, we’d have parents crying that we’re trying to secretly indoctrinate our kids in terrorist cultures. But this incident just shows that we need to teach a modicum of language forms, whether it’s in history or social studies classes (or require much higher math-level classes to qualify for high school graduation!).
Even if it WERE Arabic, how does writing with a pencil on an airplane translate to danger in flight? If anything, it shows the guy literally hadn’t done his homework so was not in a position to execute any kind of terrorist plan. It’s not at all unusual to see people reading Arabic or Hebrew (Chinese, etc.) texts on the NYC subway and it doesn’t shut down the system. I guess that’s New York values for you. I feel sorry for this dunderhead of a woman - it can’t be easy going through life like that.
“If you see something, say something” does not mean “make up ridiculous paranoid theories in order to cover up your own ignorance with a patina of self-aggrandization and melodrama”.
For about 20 yrs, one political party has told us - if you see something say something. Although it doesn’t speak well of the math skills, I can understand if a person next to the writer doesn’t know if something may be code to mention it to an attendant. But my benefit of the doubt ends there. Once mentioned, it should have been quickly recognized as a math problem and that should have been the end of it. It is ridiculous no one recognized it as such right away.
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For about 20 yrs, one political party has told us - if you see something say something.
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oh good heavens, don’t make this political. It’s a good rule of thumb for many situations. Heck, if the PSU folks had that practice (or if some women had worked in that area), someone would have “said something.” Good neighbors have that policy…you see a plain white truck pull up when you know your neighbors are on vaca, you “say something” by calling the police. There’s nothing political about that policy.
I agree that the real problem is that no one seemed to be able to recognize a math problem (I’m not saying that they should understand that level of math, but at least recognize that it’s math).
The issue isn’t with whether someone can recognize Math isn’t Arabic. The issue is that someone thought “writing I don’t understand” = “threat”. THAT is the problem.
See something/say something does not apply here.
There is NO correlation between writing and threat to a plane, regardless of the language being used or whatever’s being written.
Right–and again, even if you recognize it as Arabic–that is not a threat. It is a language.
My H just pointed out that our numbers are, in fact, Arabic!