forced to remove shirt with arab letters--READ THIS, EVERYONE

[nodehopper]

http://habibi.livejournal.com/636835.html#cutid1

[AndyA]

1. I loved this line:

"...people here in the US don't understand these things about constitutional rights".

I guess it depends on which side of those rights you happen to be on.

Where did America go?

[Tesha]

44. America's on vacation clearing brush. (NT)

[purji]

2. Amazing isn't it?

We live near Dearborn, MI, there are many many signs with words in Arabic everywhere, much less on T-shirts, and the people who live in Dearborn don't think anything about it. Now a vistor from some place without the massive Arab populous would probably call 911. Without education of the problem, these kind of nightmares are going to continue to happen...these blatant disregards of consitutional liberty have to stop!

[HereSince1628]

3. It's standard American xenophobia, that's why the Cons want English

as the national language. If they don't understand a language the conversation in it MUST be something illegal.

What drove this incident is alleged phone calls. Phone calls to where?

[izzie]

4. We are just getting like al l the other countries in the world.

Try to recall travel in Europe 30 years ago. Saudi was some what like that when I went into that country. Once I had a friend that said her family came in from Ak. each year and they went through a time when it was all paper work. It has always been easy to travel in this country and I would say those days are over. Bush is also pushing fear all the time. It is starting to hit home.

[trogdor]

5. What, no text?

Just a link? I'm not clicking that; it might be GOATSE, forchrissake!

[nodehopper]

12. huh?

well, no one else seems to have a problem with the link

[LSK]

15. what the hell is GOATSE?

:shrug:

[IronLionZion]

20. You don't want to know EOM

[Rosco T.]

30. this is as close to GOATSE as you want to get..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOATSE

[nodehopper]

43. yikes!

[Emit]

22. Here's some text: What happened to Raed at JFK

What happened to Raed at JFK

This is my buddy Raed (http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/) who has lived in Baghdad but is from Jordan. He is the cousin of Salam Pax (the famous Iraqi blogger):

I went to JFK in the morning to catch my Jet Blue plane to California. ~snip~
At around 8:30, two men approached me while I was checking my phone. One of them asked me if I had a minute and he showed me his badge, I said: "sure". ~snip~

One of the two men who approached me first, Inspector Harris, asked for my id card and boarding pass. I gave him my boarding pass and driver's license. He said "people are feeling offended because of your t-shirt". I looked at my t-shirt: I was wearing my shirt which states in both Arabic and English "we will not be silent". You can take a look at it in this picture taken during our Jordan meetings with Iraqi MPs. I said "I am very sorry if I offended anyone, I didnt know that this t-shirt will be offensive". He asked me if I had any other T-shirts to put on, and I told him that I had checked in all of my bags and I asked him "why do you want me to take off my t-shirt? Isn't it my constitutional right to express myself in this way?" The second man in a greenish suit interfered and said "people here in the US don't understand these things about constitutional rights". So I answered him "I live in the US, and I understand it is my right to wear this t-shirt".

Then I once again asked the three of them : "How come you are asking me to change my t-shirt? Isn't this my constitutional right to wear it? I am ready to change it if you tell me why I should. Do you have an order against Arabic t-shirts? Is there such a law against Arabic script?" so inspector Harris answered "you can't wear a t-shirt with Arabic script and come to an airport. It is like wearing a t-shirt that reads "I am a robber" and going to a bank". I said "but the message on my t-shirt is not offensive, it just says "we will not be silent". ~snip~ Inspector Harris said: "We cant make sure that your t-shirt means we will not be silent, we don't have a translator. Maybe it means something else". I said: "But as you can see, the statement is in both Arabic and English". He said "maybe it is not the same message". So based on the fact that Jet Blue doesn't have a translator, anything in Arabic is suspicious because maybe it'll mean something bad!


~snip~

The Jet Blue woman was asking me again to end this problem by just putting on a new t-shirt, and I felt threatened by Mr. Harmon's remarks as in "Let's end this the nice way". Taking in consideration what happens to other Arabs and Muslims in US airports, and realizing that I will miss my flight unless I covered the Arabic script on my t-shirt as I was told by the four agents, I asked the Jet Blue woman to buy me a t-shirt and I said "I don't want to miss my flight." She asked, what kind of t-shirts do you like. Should I get you an "I heart new york t-shirt?". So Mr. Harmon said "No, we shouldn't ask him to go from one extreme to another". I asked mr. harmon why does he assume I hate new york if I had some Arabic script on my t-shirt, but he didn't answer. ~snip~ "I feel very sad that my personal freedom was taken away like this. I grew up under authoritarian governments in the Middle East, and one of the reasons I chose to move to the US was that I don't want an officer to make me change my t-shirt. I will pursue this incident today through a Constitutional rights organization, and I am sure we will meet soon". Everyone said okay and left, and I went back to my seat.

~snip

Then they re-issued me a small boarding pass for seat 24a, instead of seat 3a. They said that I can go to the airplane now. I was the first person who entered the airplane, and I was really annoyed about being assigned this seat in the back of the airplane too. It smelled like the bathrooms, which is why I had originally chosen a seat which would be far from that area.

http://habibi.livejournal.com/636835.html#cutid1

[Brazenly Liberal]

23. Jiminy Cricket on toast! there goes my dinner

LOL! I haven't run into goatse in a long time. At least three years, maybe four. Just remembering, though, is enough to put me off my feed. ::::shudder!!!:::

[tularetom]

6. Better watch out - arabic numerals will be next!

[myrna minx]

7. Uh oh, I'm work in accounting.

I'd better hit the deck. :rofl:

[TechBear_Seattle]

8. Have you ever done math using Roman numerals?

Despite their vast engineering skills, the Romans were mathematically illiterate. There is a good reason for that, too.

MMDCCXLIII + CDLXXXIV + C = ?

[EC]

11. 2,101,227 ?... n/t

[TechBear_Seattle]

21. BZZZZZ!

MMDCCXLIII + CDLXXXIV + C =

{MMDCCXLIII} + {CDLXXXIV} + {C} =

{(MM)+(DCC)+(XL)+(III)} + {(CD)+(LXXX)+(IV)} + {C} =

{(1000 + 1000) + (500 + 100 + 100) + (50 - 10) + (3)} + {(500 - 100) + (50 + 10 + 10 + 10) + (5-1)} + {100}

{2000 + 700 + 40 + 3} + {400 + 80 + 4} + {100} =

2743 + 484 + 100 = 3327

Remember a smaller number (such as I) placed immediately before a larger number (such as V) means to subtract the smaller from the larger (so IV = 5-1 = 4) Only one smaller number may be put before a larger number, so IIV is incorrect and does not equal 3.

[soothsayer]

13. No zeroes! We needed the arabs to come up with that idea

[NuttyFluffers]

41. to speak of nothing about multiplication and division.

roman numerals have a floating base; it changes at several numerical points. it might be impossible to calculate advanced mathematics without a fixed base, after a while there's just way too much mathematics being done in your head. most people try to convert to base 10, calculate, and then answer, but there comes a point that you realize you are just converting, not actually using the math system available.

[HereSince1628]

9. Numerals? Think about the terror of Algebra...

striking fear into the hearts of elementary students throughout America and introducing them to subversive concepts.

You can't divide by zero, but it doesn't the world from being divided into us and them by a nationful of Zeros on the basis of the alphabet.

[treestar]

10. If the passengers complained, they should give up the passengers

who complained rather than this guy.

Why businesses cater to unreasonable people, I don't know. They lose money that way. They turn off reasonable people instead.

[Generic Other]

14. A reminder that we are all living in a fascist world lest we ever forget

The airlines people treated him very gently, but underneath I detected a hint of how easily this kind of thing could escalete and spin out of control. They treated him the "nice" way in this situation. I wonder how the not-so-nice way would have played out?

[Bucky]

16. Given the population who's been carrying out acts of terror on airplanes

Why in the hell don't they have someone at the airport who can read Arabic? That sounds like really shitty security to me. Imagine there really were terrorists carrying on activities at JFK. How could security people at these airports deal with a handwritten note they discovered? That would be one hell of a piece of evidence to be unable to read at a pretty critical spot.

Of course one possible (and moderately more encouraging) possibility is that they do have someone who can read Arabic around, but quickly realized that they were bumping heads with an intelligent but unthreatening guy who happens to know his rights. After realizing that, they were just out to show him who's the boss and force him to blindly bend to their authority--security was not an issue, just authority--so there's no reason to bother their on-site Arabic translator.

That's one possiblity. The other is that they really don't have anyone who understands Arabic on the security detail for an airport that's got to be on al-Qaeda's short list of most desireable targets. While we're decrying the corroding of our basic rights to not be accosted by police without good cause, let's not forget that the other tragedy here is another example of how incompetantly underprepared we are for security in this country.

[Mugsy]

17. Boy, they REALLY didn't get it, did they?

I love the fact that they offered to buy him another shirt... like it was a "comfort" issue.

[Gregorian]

18. Total ignorance. If one wore a shirt with "robber" on it, into a bank...

You would have to be a total meathead to think that person was a robber. This is total bs.


Furthermore, let me tell you a story about elementary school. During the time when the Beatles were just showing up in America, kids were starting to wear "long" hair. "Long" meant anything other than a buzz cut. My friend John Augney, who is a dead ringer for James Dean, was wearing his hair in what would be considered short, by today's standards. And he was expelled.


My question is- what is the point?

One bothersome observation I have made is, the intelligent people are being forced to live by the standards of the bullies. The unsophistocated, and bullyish types are literally forcing their agenda. And again, what is the point?



Edit- furthermore, I have another story. I started life out as a left handed writer. You can guess the rest. Why? What the fuck is their problem that writing with the left hand is so undesireable?

[deaniac21]

19. All your tshirts are belong to us!

[ThomCat]

24. Anyone Arab, Move to the Back of the Bus.

Come on, you know the drill. The seats up front are reserved for white people.
x(

[aikoaiko]

25. Arabic writing on t-shirts :-D

one of my favorites...

[mogster]

39. You know, that's really funny

Nearly as funny as the 'whining' Elena Lappin. It's them bleedin-heart liberals, huh?

[Ghost Dog]

26. LTTE in The Guardian today:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,1855296,00.html

En route to Heathrow last Wednesday I was stopped and searched by the police under section 44(2) of the Terrorism Act 2000. One of the officers was keen to point out that the reason I had been stopped was that I was wearing a sweatshirt which reads "George Bush and Sons, Family Butchers (est 1989)". Is this indicative of the sophisticated profiling techniques soon to be police policy in the war against terrorism?

Guy Taylor
London

Yeah, I know: should read est. long before 1989...

[mogster]

27. This is so shocking

When graphics or art are being considered dangerous, this is a sure sign of extremism.

Here's another story, about a journalist being detained because she was a journalist:

Welcome to America

When writer Elena Lappin flew to LA, she dreamed of a sunkissed, laid-back city. But that was before airport officials decided to detain her as a threat to security ...

Saturday June 5, 2004
The Guardian

Somewhere in central Los Angeles, about 20 miles from LAX airport, there is a nondescript building housing a detention facility for foreigners who have violated US immigration and customs laws. I was driven there around 11pm on May 3, my hands painfully handcuffed behind my back as I sat crammed in one of several small, locked cages inside a security van. I saw glimpses of night-time urban LA through the metal bars as we drove, and shadowy figures of armed security officers when we arrived, two of whom took me inside. The handcuffs came off just before I was locked in a cell behind a thick glass wall and a heavy door. No bed, no chair, only two steel benches about a foot wide. There was a toilet in full view of anyone passing by, and of the video camera watching my every move. No pillow or blanket. A permanent fluorescent light and a television in one corner of the ceiling. It stayed on all night, tuned into a shopping channel.
(...)
After 10 minutes in the hot, barely breathable air, I panicked. I don't suffer from claustrophobia, but this enclosure triggered it. There was no guard in sight and no way of calling for help. I banged on the door and the glass wall. A male security officer finally approached and gave the newly arrived detainee a disinterested look. Our shouting voices were barely audible through the thick door. "What do you want?" he yelled. I said I didn't feel well. He walked away. I forced myself to calm down. I forced myself to use that toilet. I figured out a way of sleeping on the bench, on my side, for five minutes at a time, until the pain became unbearable, then resting in a sitting position and sleeping for another five minutes. I told myself it was for only one night.
As it turned out, I was to spend 26 hours in detention. My crime: I had flown in earlier that day to research an innocuous freelance assignment for the Guardian, but did not have a journalist's visa.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1231089,00.html
-----------------------------------------------------------

You should take this serious, people. A lot of flippant comments in this thread, I'd say.

[aikoaiko]

28. Lappin is a whiner -- she should have had her paperwork in order.

She wasn't denied entry because she was a journalist, she claimed she wasn't a journalist on a form and then said she was, and didn't have the correct visa.

[mogster]

29. No shit? That was a quick reply n/t

[newspeak]

45. then, how about Randi Rhodes

yesterday she talked about being at the airport and was detained because she's apparently on the "no fly list." When taken to a separate area, the TSA stated that this could be a mistake because she happens to have the same name as a liberal talk show host.
This is getting absolutely sickening--it's nothing but intimidation!!!!!! Nuns, Quakers, Greens, Liberals-yet, it was right wing wackos who bombed Oklahoma City building, it was probably a partisan right wing wacko who did the anthrax. This is absolutely fekkin ridiculous!!! And, when Ted Kennedy found his name on this list, he could not find who is creating the list--I smell fascism in the air!!!!

[KnaveRupe]

42. Of Course!

"When graphics or art are being considered dangerous, this is a sure sign of extremism."

Why do you think the Repubs have done so much to defund arts programs in schools? Who ever heard of the masses being incited by subversive accounting? Or inspired to action by a stirring geometric proof?

[sakabatou]

31. Also read the comments.

[kwyjibo]

35. yeah.. one says he contacted the ACLU and is suing.

[Telly Savalas]

32. In defence of the airport security.

His t-shirt very likely could have been terrorist instructions from his buddies in the al-Qaeda cell. It would have translated: "Hijack the plane, and fly it into the Hoover damn." So when he went to use the washroom, he would have seen his shirt in the mirror, saw the instructions, and hijacked the plane. In making him change his shirt, the security personnel thereby prevented him from reading the instructions, and thus saved hundreds of Americans lives.

[berni_mccoy]

33. If Rosa Parks was here today, she'd be rushed off to gitmo

For she certainly would not have taken her shirt off and she certainly wouldn't have sat in the back of the plane.

[MisterP]

34. Goodman interview:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/21/1348224&mode=thread&tid=25
also the scary praying radiologist:
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/08/18/doctor-winnipeg.html

[high density]

36. Note to self: Don't wear shirts with text in airport

I think some people are just begging to get fucked with. I'm not condoning what happened to this guy, but sadly I can't say I'm really all that surprised about what transpired.

It's outrageous but it's not surprising.

[rug]

37. I wonder if this is acceptable.

[NMMNG]

38. The paranoia and Xenophobia around here are getting completely out of hand

How long before we're under a complete police-state?

[Rosemary2205]

40. this shit is what happens when Bush whips everyone into a frenzy

the Bush propaganda machine (MSM) shoving shit sandwiches into America's face 24/7 coupled with all the drama at the airports just feeds this hysteria. Earlier this week there was the article about 2 arabs yanks off a plane because the other passengers were "uncomfortable". Now this. Bejesus people -- if the guy wanted to blow your ass up you think he'd advertise it on his Tshirt?

Idiots.