Foursome
Gotta clear the desktop of some more of those scraps of paper that by themselves weren’t able to generate a large enough bite of the knowledge apple. So here is another foursome.
First, the AP headline read simply, "Fan Creates Row at Atlanta Airport." The story below was of a 32-year-old Gainesville man who raced down an up escalator inside the terminal, causing a security alert that shut down the world's busiest airport for hours, creating a nightmare of cancellations and delays affecting tens of thousands of travelers across the country. The direct costs to the airport and the airlines is estimated in the tens millions of dollars. The man was trying to catch a plane, had been through security once, but had gone back for a camera bag and didn't want to wait in line again. Had this been in Kabul, none of the facts would have existed, of course, but the angry hordes likely would have stoned the man to death. Ya gotta think there would have been crowds cheering for such an end in Atlanta. No, it wasn't a heinous crime. It was an act of mindless selfishness and stupidity that affected huge numbers of people who were going about their lives with enough concern about the state of the world to have to endure the added and unnecessary disruption by this thoughtless cretin. People missed appointments, blew opportunities, lost income because of this man. Vacations were lost. Some people couldn't get to once-in-a-lifetime events. And all because this primitive was breaking rules so that he could go to a college football game. When police caught up with him seven hours later — a pilot recognized the man from a security videotape — he said he hadn't realized that anyone was looking for him. The feds have nothing to charge him with, and the state folks are looking at a maximum of a $1,000 fine and some months in the pokey. Not enough, nearly. I say bring back the stocks and pillories. Place them in front of airports — and maybe football stadiums — and lock up in them people who don't think or think ineffectively at the expense of others. Gag them, so they can't offer lame excuses, or worthless apologies. Invite passersby to through rotten produce at them.
Further south, residents on Mexico City’s southern edge beat to death a man accused of trying to steal a statue of the neighborhood’s patron saint. A neighborhood leader held the man, then released him to the mob. When the church’s Roman Catholic priest arrived to admonish the crowd, he was met with insults and vulgarities.
Snubbed in turn, the Catholic Church has decided that Mormons don’t bathe properly. All right, perhaps that isn’t quite the way they would have put it, but they recently issued an edict which says that Mormons who want to convert to Catholicism must be re-baptized. LDS baptisms apparently don’t cut the mustard. Now this is not likely to affect me, since I’m not a Mormon and certainly don’t have any intention of becoming a Catholic, but ya gotta think that it’s kinda insulting to tell those myriad waywards that they must supplicate even further to slip under the papal umbrella. Of course, those who would deem it necessary to put themselves through the whole meshuggenah mess probably would welcome the opportunity to demonstrate the excess of their fealty.
Sitting on the other side of god, also upside down, this item from Agra. Seems a bunch of devout Hindu types got into trouble for washing the floor of the Taj Mahal with water from the River Ganges and cow urine. Seems they felt the holy shrine — actually, a 16th Century mausoleum for a rajah’s wife who died in childbirth at age 34 after bearing him 14 children — had been desecrated by a visit from the Pakistani head of state. Now we know that Pakistan and India don’t get along, and that Hindus and Muslims have been battling over who worships the least tolerant and unforgiving deity. But don’t ya gotta wonder if the differences between these naturally-affiliated neighbors can ever be resolved as long as such primitive behavior is not upgraded?
And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.
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