James Fallows is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and has written for the magazine since the late 1970s. He has reported extensively from outside the United States, and once worked as President Carter's chief speechwriter. His latest book, China Airborne, was published in early May.
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James Fallows is based in Washington as a national correspondent for The Atlantic. He has worked for the magazine for nearly 30 years and in that time has also lived in Seattle, Berkeley, Austin, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai, and Beijing. He was raised in Redlands, California, received his undergraduate degree in American history and literature from Harvard, and received a graduate degree in economics from Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. In addition to working for The Atlantic, he has spent two years as chief White House speechwriter for Jimmy Carter, two years as the editor of US News & World Report, and six months as a program designer at Microsoft. He is an instrument-rated private pilot. He is also now the chair in U.S. media at the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, in Australia.
Fallows has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award five times and has won once; he has also won the American Book Award for nonfiction and a N.Y. Emmy award for the documentary series Doing Business in China. He was the founding chairman of the New America Foundation. His two most recent books, Blind Into Baghdad (2006) and Postcards From Tomorrow Square (2009), are based on his writings for The Atlantic. His latest book, China Airborne, was published in early May. He is married to Deborah Fallows, author of the recent book Dreaming in Chinese. They have two married sons.
Fallows welcomes and frequently quotes from reader mail sent via the "Email" button below. Unless you specify otherwise, we consider any incoming mail available for possible quotation -- but not with the sender's real name unless you explicitly state that it may be used. If you are wondering why Fallows does not use a "Comments" field below his posts, please see previous explanations here and here.
I am emerging from a prolonged article-and-travel blotto period, as prefigured here. Thanks to those who have sent leads and material in the past two weeks, none of which I have answered or dealt with. I will start working through items I've wanted to cover, first with this easy one.
This past Monday, the Council on Foreign Relations had an evening session in DC about whether America was taking the right stance toward space exploration. The question included whether the many balances involved in space policy -- between manned and unmanned flights, between commercial and government-sponsored efforts, between international and strictly American projects, between military and civilian motivations -- were being set the right way. It's a topic I recently addressed in the magazine (subscribe!), with this q-and-a with Eric Anderson of Space Adventures. Also, previously with Elon Musk.
You can see the results below. The comatose moderator on the right side of the screen is me, aphasic from having been up through the previous night on writing duty. But I direct you to the two guests: Robert Walker, a former Republican congressman (and chairman of a national aerospace commission, and close aide to Newt Gingrich during the 2012 campaign); and Scott Pace, long of NASA and now of George Washington University. I thought they made very interesting points about what is working, and isn't, in America's exploration policies. They also addressed whether the main balances involved therein -- between manned and unmanned missions, between commercial and government-sponsored efforts, between military and civilian uses of space, between mainly American and international projects -- are being set in the right way.
To get a sample of the discourse, you could skip to time 38:20. There you'll hear an admirably direct question from an audience member: Why, exactly, is manned space flight sensible? And two interesting answers -- first Walker's on the history of national exploration ventures in general, then Pace's emphasis that a successful manned mission requires a broader range of competencies and achievements than almost anything else human beings try to do, and therefore is valuable in a skill-advancing sense. Pace also goes into that point starting at time 27:40 -- and much earlier, around 12:40, talks about how our plans for space exploration differ, depending on whether we see outer space as more similar to Mt. Everest or Antarctica. You can go to that section for fuller explanation.
If you find this engaging, there's a lot more in the hour of discussion. Groggy as I was, I was glad to hear it myself.
I am in Internet range for only a few minutes, so let me just type this right out:
Today a provision that would increase background checks for gun purchases was blocked in the Senate, even though consideration of the bill was supported by 54 senators representing states that make up (at quick estimate) at least 60 percent of the American population.
The bill did not fail to "pass" the Senate, which according to Constitutional provisions and accepted practice for more than two centuries requires a simple majority, 51 votes. Even 50 votes should do it, since the vice president is constitutionally empowered to cast the tie-breaking and deciding vote, and Joe Biden would have voted yes.
It failed because a 54-vote majority was not enough to break the threat of a filibuster, which (with some twists of labeling) was the real story of what happened with this bill. Breaking the filibuster would have required 60 votes.
Since the Democrats regained majority control of the Senate six years ago, the Republicans under Mitch McConnell have applied filibuster threats (under a variety of names) at a frequency not seen before in American history. Filibusters used to be exceptional. Now they are used as blocking tactics for nearly any significant legislation or nomination. The goal of this strategy, which maximizes minority blocking power in a way not foreseen in the Constitution, has been to make the 60-vote requirement seem routine.
As part of the "making it routine" strategy, the minority keeps repeating that it takes 60 votes to "pass" a bill -- and this Orwellian language-redefinition comes one step closer to fulfillment each time the press presents 60 votes as the norm for passing a law.
Yes, this is the 20 millionth time I have made this point. (Recently here, with special Orwell-homage.) But here is why it is worth noting again. Just in the past few minutes readers have sent in these illustrations of the success of step No. 5, above:
GUN CONTROL VOTE FAILS IN SENATE -- Obama Speaks Now On Failure
With Vice President Joe Biden presiding over the Senate, an amendment to expand background checks on gun purchases failed to pass through the body, falling by a mostly partisan vote of 54-46...
Sixty votes were needed to pass the legislation through the Senate.
No, 60 votes were needed to break the filibuster threat. Note that in the "mostly partisan vote of 54-46" the 54 senators were voting for the measure.
The Senate has rejected a bipartisan proposal to expand background checks on firearms and close the so-called gun show loophole, handing President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders a major defeat on one of the key pieces of the president's second-term agenda.
The vote was 54-46, with only four Republicans crossing the aisle and voting with the Democrats in favor of the bipartisan proposal by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). Sixty votes were needed.
I won't add the line-by-line explication because you can do it yourselves. Actually, I can't resist: that last passive-voice sentence calls out for "to break a filibuster threat." Look at this home-page splash from Politico (below), and imagine if it said what actually happened: "GOP filibusters gun control."
Or if you prefer, "Senate filibusters gun control." Either would fit the space.
The NYT, to its credit, changed the headline on its story from the first one shown below to the second version. Early headline:
Later (and as of this moment current) version, for the same story:
The story itself describes the results this way:
In rapid succession, a bipartisan compromise to expand background checks for would-be gun purchasers, a ban on assault weapons and a ban on high-capacity gun magazines all failed to get the 60 votes needed under an agreement both parties had reached to consider the amendments.
Here's a clearer statement of the reality from an anti-filibuster group called Fix the Senate Now. Its careful phrasing works around the fact that opponents didn't want this to be called a filibuster (see points 4 and 5) but were applying the same filibuster 60-vote standard. This is becoming an old story, but it bears emphasis. The Republican strategy is No. 4 on the list above. And press compliance brings about step No. 5. __ Bonus update: WaPo homepage. Now I will be offline for several hours again.
This is what April 17 looks like in central Minnesota. It is a view out the window of the guest house of St. John's Abbey, in Collegeville, a large Benedictine monastery. In summertime you would see a nice blue pond in the middle distance; now it's still frozen.
If you happen to be in the vicinity, I will be at an event tonight with Gary Eichten, long-time Minnesota Public Radio host and editor, at the College of St. Benedict / St. John's University. The program begins at 8 pm. That, as I understand it, is the standard schedule for night events at CSBSJU, allowing the monks time to finish their evening prayers.
In a day or two I will resume normal programming here.
In the meantime, many people have written to ask whether I was being literal and sincere in saying that Nancy Sinatra's "Boots" video was "the best part of the 1960s."
For clarity: No.
If Andrew Sullivan hadn't already patented the concept of the Hathos Alert, I would have applied it here. By those terms, the video is pretty great.
Also, as several readers have pointed out, "Boots" had in its time a distinct political connotation, beyond just being an object of hathos. Details below*.
Let me now switch to completely sincere mode in endorsing this classic parody video, via the Atlantic's own John Tierney. If you see nothing else, watch the part from time 0:26 to 1:12, which is taken from a Nicoderm commercial that made a star of Anna Silk. But you probably should see other parts too. For instance, starting at 4:24, or 2:28, or ...
Now back to work, including filing that tax extension.
>>During television news coverage in 1966/67, the song was aired as a soundtrack as the cameras focused on US Infantrymen on patrol during the Vietnam War. Later, during that same time frame, Sinatra traveled to South Vietnam to perform for U.S. servicemen. It was used on the soundtrack to Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket (1987). Sinatra also sang it on an episode of China Beach in the late-1980s. In 2005, Paul Revere & the Raiders recorded a revamped version of the song using Sinatra's original vocal track. It appeared on the CD Ride to the Wall, Vol. 2, with proceeds going to help Vietnam veterans.
In addition, the Fembots were introduced to the strains of the opening and closing notes of the song in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.<<
The best part of the 1960s—OK, there were a lot of them, but this is one that is particularly unbelievable in retrospect.
The "Hah!" at time 1:50 is the part that I always thought would make Frank Sinatra proudest of his daughter's ability to express the meaning of a song.
For myself, I am proud to be an American.
___
Update OK, here is a third video tribute-to-a-decade. It is of toddler-aged pandas playing on a slide at the Panda Base in Chengdu, and it is from the 2010s. I am still proud to be an American, but I'm glad to have seen animals like this at Sichuan province panda reserves.
Thanks to DL for this one, and thanks to the world for providing such riches.
Here's another quick item I can take six minutes to post while still in article-deadline-hell mode. It's a warning, from a computer-security conference in Amsterdam, that hackers equipped merely with Android phones could remotely take control of an airliner and guide it in all sorts of unwelcome ways, including right into another plane. As in the classic pilot-world joke photoshopped item above.
You can see the whole scenario described at Computerworld, but here is the crucial passage, with my emphasis added at the end:
Once [the hacker with an Android] was into the airplane's computer, he was able to manipulate the steering of a Boeing jet while the aircraft was in "autopilot" mode. The only countermeasure available to pilots, if they even realized they were being hacked, would be to turn off autopilot. Yet many planes no longer have old analog instruments for manual flying.
Two words: Unt. Uh.
Let's set aside the "if" of whether pilots would notice that the plane was going where it shouldn't. True, there have been cases of flight crews losing attention while talking or even dozing off en route. But most flight crews most of the time are tracking the plane's progress along a series of waypoints, and talking to air traffic controllers about where they're going and why.
Instead, these two issues:
1) You don't need instruments to control a plane. That is like saying you need a speedometer to drive a car. Obviously you want all the info you can get, and in an airplane the airspeed gauge in particular is very important (mainly in gauging proper speeds for approach and landing, in flap deployment, and in avoiding aerodynamic stalls). But even basic pilot training includes drills in how to control the plane if instruments fail. There's a special case we can set aside for the moment: the difficulty of controlling the plane if you are inside a cloud and lose the instruments that keep you oriented.
2) Every non-drone airplane flying anywhere in the sky is equipped for "manual flying." That is how they all get off the ground, with some pilot applying the power, pulling back on the control wheel/stick, and managing the "rotation" as the plane lifts off from the runway. This is how planes usually land. Every single airplane -- every one -- is equipped with systems to allow the pilot to bring it back to earth if all the automated wizardry fails. Every pilot is made to practice these emergency measures. Again to put it in automotive terms: imagining that you could not fly the plane if you turned off the autopilot is exactly like saying that you could not drive a car if you turned off cruise-control.
The Android-hacking scenario might apply to drones -- I don't know enough about the override abilities the ground-based human pilots have. (After all, the controller and the hacker would both be sending commands remotely.) But I can tell you that no one with an Android phone is going to make it impossible for a pilot to land any of today's real planes.
This is the kind of item I can post while finishing a print-magazine story. A friend in China sends this compare-and-contrast photo:
In case you can't read these, the headline on the left says "Fast growth to continue, Xi says." According to the one on the right, "China's Xi Says Fast Growth Over," both of course referring to China's new leader Xi Jinping. They report, you decide.
The crunch time is at hand for a "real" article, so I will be away from this space for a number of days. Much like a python sending a whole pig through its system as long-term sustenance, I offer here a bolus of material, for digestion over a sustained period, concerning the saga of that diverted United flight. (Previous installments: one, two, three, four, and possibly others I have missed.) The replies below are not all the messages that have come in -- far from it -- but they represent the main theories and points of view.
1) 'To be fair' dept: I was on yet another long-haul cross-country United flight yesterday, and it couldn't have been more pleasant or upbeat. Everything I have said about a resentful or put-upon workplace culture was the opposite of what I experienced on this trip. Plus, the pre-safety-briefing Jeff Smisek video was the new "we believe in customer service" one mentioned here and shown below. Whether or not bigger changes are underway at the company, as suggested by this video, I thank the cabin crew of UA 574, SFO-IAD on April 8, for attitude fully matching the claims in the video. I have sent a "great job" message about them to United's customer-support site.
2) 'Actually, you're not being fair.' Here is one sample rebuttal, from a member of the extended United family. Others follow it, from United pilots. A reader writes:
>>I am a United brat - my dad was a pilot with them for 20 years and I grew up traveling only on them. Clearly I have flown United more than any other airline. That said, as I have grown up and graduated from my flight benefits, I have begun traveling for business with other airlines, primarily with American, so I'm not completely inexperienced.
Maybe I'm feeling defensive, but I really think you are using your position as a national journalist to pursue vendetta of opinion against United. I genuinely do not understand why you think it's professional to publish 4 or 5 articles about how terrible they are, based off of biased and anecdotal evidence and pass it off as journalism - when it is clearly opinion.
Other thoughts:
Traveling is no longer a luxury experience. As people demand and airlines come under increasing pressure to lower the costs of their flights, any costs that can be cut will. In order for airlines to be cost competitive, employees have seen their benefits and pensions cut, threatened with furlough, and been generally asked to do more with less. If people want that luxury experience they need to pay for it - like paying for a business for first class seat. Every time I fly in a premium class my experience is unctuous and overwhelmingly decadent. And I like it! You get what you pay for.
We live in a post -9/11 world, and this has infused every aspect of the flying experience. As someone who still lived at home post-9/11, I can give a firsthand account about the pervasive fear of flight attends and pilots after. They were literally worried about their lives You and other may think that the captain from the Baltimore flight made a poor judgment call - but that's what it was - a judgment call. The captain is ultimately responsible for the lives and safety of his passengers and crew, and he did what he thought was best. Also, it doesn't shock me that the airline stood behind the captain and crew. That's what they should do. When there are 230 people rocketing through 30,000 feet, there needs to be some sense of hierarchy and leadership.
I genuinely think your article showed shoddy journalism. You only presented only one side of the situation - although I grant that you did reach out to United, but unequivocally accepted their story, without exploring other explanations. Do you really and honestly believe that the pilot grounded the flight because two parents coolly and collegially voice rational complaints? Clearly there are other elements to this story and I should think, as someone how has "millions upon millions of accumulated miles, and super-elite status", you should be able to provide some critical thinking and insight to the situation.
Yes, there are heinous airline employees but there are also awesome employees. How about mentioning every incident when an airline employee goes out of their way to accommodate, because in my experience, that is by far more common. I mean, the guy from the dress code story obviously a bit over the top - he wanted to claim assault on the pilot for poking him and he's listed at least two other incidents when he's formally complained to the airline. So while I'm not defending the pilot from his dress code story, you have to admit that this person has no problem complaining (and is clearly an asshole - who takes a photo and sends it to corporate, a fucking tattletale?). You're publishing these horror stories from people who obviously have a bone to pick - and it's fantastical journalism and completely biased towards the person complaining. A little objectivity and research might do you some credit.<<
On the "research" front -- hey, I have been trying to get lots of people at United to explain more about what has been going on. For the rest, hold on.
3) From a United pilot, short version:
>>I fly for the "Continental" side of United as a line pilot. My wife, though, is a pilot for the United side. This story is very incredible indeed. There is NO WAY this is a normal occurrence. I don't know any pilots that would react that way. I think the story needs further context. Although United, like most airlines, have cranky bad seeds that bloom into bad customer experiences once in a while, this kind of behavior is unheard of. I am very skeptical of the story. Nearly all of the flight crew members I deal with every day I go to work are professional and indeed, pleasant.<<
Yes, I agree that this cannot be a normal episode. As we follow the message trail, there are some attempts to explain it.
4) From a different United pilot, long version:
>>As a pilot for United Airline's with more than 2 decades of industry experience, I am saddened by your experiences on United and even more saddened by your public attempt to shame the employees at United. My defense is three fold. First, your sample rate is tiny in comparison to the number of workers and daily flights. Second, the public's insistence on cheap fairs is driving the quality of employee down, and third, you fail to realize that employees react to their management more than they do to the customer. If there is a failure to be found then why not look at management and it's policies of demoralizing workers at every turn.
[JF note: I am going to step in here. On point (1) I agree about the sample rate, but I have flown enough through the decades to observe a "general corporate culture." And, for instance, a recent "America's meanest airlines" survey unfortunately gave United the worst rating, a dead-last result that prevails in some other surveys too. On point (2) I agree that the cheap-fare mania is a central factor in the race-toward-sardinehood in modern air travel. More on that below. On point (3), about the responsibility of corporate leaders to set an overall tone, I totally agree. That is why my leitmotif has been to ask: what is it about the current United corporate structure that -- on average, and in my observation -- leaves so many of the employees seeming so unhappy at their jobs? This pilot suggests some answers.]
To begin with, there are over 11,000 pilots at United and 30,000 flight attendants. I am aware that the number of disgruntled and under performing workers in our industry has increased over the last decade, but to impugn the behaviour of all United workers based on the half dozen examples in your blog is to me shameful. How about the hundreds of "orchid letters" United receives every day? How about when I give up my meal so the Purser can create a vegetarian meal that wasn't boarded? How about the fact that nearly every flight has a disruptive passenger like the one I had yesterday that demanded the pilots use the cockpit fax machine to fax paperwork for him because he'd had that done before?
Most pilots began their career with a decade or more of service to their country fighting in foreign countries or 4 years of college with a B.S. or higher degree, and came to United expecting a bright upper middle class future. Instead, what we got was a 60% pay cut, thousands of lay offs, lost pensions, and zero career advancement all because our industry is structurally flawed. The airline industry is structured with few barriers to entry such that it constantly creates new carriers that have younger employees and newer planes with costs far below their Legacy competitors so ultimately the older workers lose their jobs and pensions at the expense of the younger, and so far this has been the case for nearly every carrier, Pan Am, TWA, Eastern, Braniff, and countless others. Each company employed tens of thousands of employees who lost their jobs and pensions at a point in time they could least afford it and all because the public demanded a $79 ticket from New York to Florida. As a result of this history, the education and experience level of new pilots is plummeting. I challenge you to collect data on JetBlue pilots and compare the number of pilots there who have had a DUI and no college experience versus that average at United, Delta, or American.
The best run corporations in America have managers that inspire their employees to work better and harder. Even in the face of adversity many corporations have found a way to rally their workers and put the best face forward. Why is it then that the major airlines seem so utterly incapable of the same? The answer and root cause of disgruntled airline employee behaviour has more to do with the actions of management than any other single item. When employees have to fight for water to be boarded on flights or to fight for the right go to their parents funeral without being penalized after they have lost so much else you can imagine how frustrated they become. United's new management has failed at nearly every level of integration. Time and again, they have chosen the cheapest option available and the results show. Whether it's the reservation system, the baggage system, the coffee vendor, the new seat formation, or the training materials for employees, United's new managers have gone with the low cost alternative. In some cases the cheaper alternative may have been better, but for a corporation that hopes to charge a premium price for a premium product, isn't it possible that a corporate philosophy of lowering costs at the expense of service is not what makes a world class airline. In short, the employees at United have had to fight tooth and nail for the most basic rights, and the adversarial atmosphere this has created is disastrous for the company. If United's management were quickly to resolve the outstanding contract negotiations and then just as quickly implement them and treat their employees with a modicum of dignity and respect, you can rest assured that the number of "incidents" like those you have highlighted would all but disappear. Workers act and react in a manner equal to how they are treated. Treat them respectfully and show them their value and they will respond in kind. Treat them as chattel and you can expect them to behave the same.
Finally, a note on the particular instance involving the family traveling to Baltimore. I am not personally aware of the specifics, but I will say that flight attendants have been given very particular direction on how to communicate disruptive behaviour to the pilots. If the flight attendant told the pilots that she felt personally threatened by the passenger, then the pilots would be left with absolutely no alternative but to divert. The rules are very specific and not open to interpretation and are centered on the flight attendants interpretation and explanation of the passenger behaviour. It is more than likely that the information given to the captain was of a nature such that it precluded any other choice.<<
I'll keep things moving here but again ask you to note the pilot's mention of messages from the cabin crew. We'll pick up that theme in the very next item. Also, for the record, I've flown millions of miles, and therefore paid what has to be hundreds of thousands of dollars, to United over the decades, so I'm hardly trying to do it harm. We move on to:
5) Let's stroll into the land of logic. As everyone has noted, at face value the story of UA flight 638 does not make sense. Parents complain about a violent movie-- and the pilot repsonds with an unscheduled landing, delaying a planeful of people and costing unknown thousands of dollars in fuel and salary?
Logically speaking, one of these things must be true -- or some combination of them:
The parents are misremembering, or sugar-coating, how much of a fuss they put up;
The pilot grossly over-reacted; or
The flight attendants exaggerated or hyped the problem in describing it to the pilot.
Obviously I don't know what happened on this flight. But in a previous similar episode, described here, a more complete set of evidence did come in, and it heavily favored explanation #3. In that case, a flight attendant told the captain that a passenger "would not stop" taking pictures in a plane; the passenger flatly denied it, and said that he'd stopped, with just one picture, as soon as he was warned; the captain believed the attendant and kicked the passenger off the plane. But later many other passengers wrote in to confirm the original passenger's story and deny the claim of the fight attendant.
I have my own guesses about how the dispute under discussion evolved, but they will remain guesses -- unless I hear from anyone else who was on the flight that day. (Including the captain, whom I tried to contact.) So if you were on United flight 638, on February 2, 2013, please let me know.
6) What other pilots are saying. A pilot with decades of flying experience writes:
>>I subscribe to a professional-pilot paysite forum, ProPilotWorld--you have to be commercial-or-ATP-licensed to be allowed to join--and I've been following the Chicago diversion story there. Surprisingly (since there are so many airline pilots who are members), nothing solid has emerged so far; usually these things get explained in a matter of hours by somebody very close to the situation in question. Everybody is saying, "There -has- to be another side to this story," but one thing that has emerged, and that I wasn't aware of, is that many situations of this sort are totally controlled by the FAs [Flight Attendants].
For one thing, if an FA reports to the flight deck that he or she feels there is a security threat in the cabin, the flight deck immediately goes into automatic lockdown: NOBODY is allowed in, NOBODY is allowed out, not even if there's a fire in the cabin or a riot in progress. The pilots can't even come out to take a piss. ("You done with that coffeecup, Bob?")
At that point, all the captain knows is what he's being told over the phone by the FA, and he or she could well decide to divert because that person is telling him that they're scared of a situation. This could explain the delay between the turn-off-the-movie discussion and the captain's decision to go to ORD: he has talked it over with the FA, he has called the company, somebody in Denver is trying to make a decision, Denver finally calls back and tells him to go to Chicago...
So before we blame the captain...<<
Here is a sample post from that professional-pilots' forum:
>>Many times FA's get it in their minds that a passenger is a problem and will stop at nothing until the flight crew believes them.
I can't leave the flight deck to deal with the issue, so I have to rely on what I'm being told. Generally other FA's will not go against the problem FA while airborne.
My choices are limited... If the FA continues to call up and complain, at some point I have to put faith in what she/he is telling me and report it to the company. They're generally the ones (unless it's an obvious threat) that will tell me to divert and where to go.
All it takes is a look sometimes to set off these FA's.<<
7) The parents speak. I got this wrap-up message from them, which they asked me to share:
>>Thank you, once again, for enabling us to tell our story, which you kindly posted on your blog. As we indicated originally, we prefer to remain anonymous to protect the privacy of our children. We appreciate the fact that you, and many of your readers, accepted our story despite our anonymity. To any doubters, we point out that we did reveal to you our identity, and that of the Chicago Police officers and United officials who can attest to the veracity of our story. Further, United's somewhat empty response confirms our story.
We would like to apologize again to our fellow passengers on flight 638 for the hardships they must have incurred after the diversion of the plane. We thank the many passengers who supported us and agreed with our complaint, and we thank Rob Cohen, the director of the Alex Cross, for his personal response. We were told on the plane by the FA that the movie had been edited for language (!), but it seems no amount of editing can ever make a PG-13 movie child-friendly.
The story has now appeared in a large number of national and international media outlets, blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter feeds. Therefore, we feel our goal has been mostly achieved: to foster a discussion on the issues we raised: Exposing children to patently inappropriate content without parental consent, and the capricious and irresponsible behavior of the United pilot, whose anonymity we are also protecting.
Of course, we would have preferred a more comprehensive response from United regarding their handling of this incident, and regarding the outcome of their purported in-flight media policy review. A personal response to our original letter would have been preferable and might have prevented the generation of such bad press for them.<<
8) Passengers 'want' better service, but not enough to pay for it. From another traveler, confirming what some of the United pilots said earlier on:
>>I just caught up with your most recent series on airline service and your search for a "United Field Theory." I have what might be a relevant data point.
I was a United frequent flyer for many years (although hardly "elite") until I finally got tired of writing them letters of complaint... Sometime probably in late 2002, when I was still plenty steamed with United, I was invited to be a member of a focus group in Los Angeles on airline service. As usual, they didn't tell us who the client was, but from the timing I think it might have been part of the market research aimed at launching "Delta Song."
I went in and vented about United and about the generally bad experience we were all getting from airlines. (We got paid extra for cutting up magazines and making a collage -- no kidding, just like in grade school -- that expressed our views on this topic. Mine included a United plane that was part Tyrannosaurus and was chomping on some hapless guy. But I digress.)
It became obvious from the questions that the focus group was intended to test how much more people would pay for better service. At one point, we were given three one-page descriptions of a flying experience: one that sounded like Southwest, one that seemed to be based on the normal service on major carriers, and one that sounded fabulous, like flying the QE II. Then we were asked this: If a normal LA to New York fare on the regular carrier was $300, how much more would you pay for that luxury service? We were supposed to raise our hands, listen while the market researcher raised the price in increments, then drop our hands when the price passed our dealbreaker point.
Well, it seemed like my hand was up for the next half-hour. I was by far the last holdout, agreeing to pay something approaching $500 for what they'd described. Now, I was a nontenured college instructor and not anything like wealthy. Granted, I also wasn't raising a family. But an extra $100 or $150 to be treated like royalty instead of herded like cattle? Yeah, sign me up.
But I was the ONLY person who was so price-elastic. One other guy held out to $375, as I recall, but most of the dozen or so other focus-ees said they wouldn't pay more than an extra $25. I'm still kind of astonished when I think about this. I pointed out to everyone that $300 was already not very much money for the amazingly complex, high-tech operation of flying someone in near-perfect safety from one coast to another, while also managing hundreds of other flights at the same time. (They might even have said round-trip, I don't remember.) I got the impression that some of my fellow panelists had never thought of it that way, but also that I wasn't changing anyone's mind.
The point is, United is dealing with a public that would board a flying concentration camp if it would save them a few bucks. What's amazing, really, is that some airline service for non-elite coach passengers is still decent, that there hasn't been more of a race to the bottom already.<<
9) More on the mentality of entitlement. A reader writes:
>>The plane that the parents were surely on was an A320 series airplane, which has drop-down screens. The flight attendants can only make all of the screens go up or down, they have no control over individual screens. Moreover, I find it highly unlikely the flight attendants are allowed to simply stop showing movies to everyone on the plane at the request of one set of parents. The parents should complain to United about their movie choices (although the movie was PG-13 and already edited for content, as are all mainscreen movies), not insinuate that the flight attendants are lying.
It sounds more like your correspondent was being over-entitled and potentially repeatedly harassed flight attendants about something which they made clear at the start they had no control over.
In general, it is this kind of attitude - that the airline should make heroic accommodations just for them - that I've sadly seen much too much of as a long time 1K.
One of the things about elite status is that it gives certain fliers the right to feel like self-centered jerks around airline staff - to put on airs and treat staff as their lessers. I'm not saying I can excuse poor airline staff behavior, but I feel a certain amount of sympathy for airline staff (flight attendants, etc.) that must continually put up with over-entitled yahoos bossing them around and making unreasonable requests.
In a way, I feel like the rise of airline elite status and the decline of the flying experience for the "regular person" has only been a bad thing. It used to be there were few elites on airplanes and everyone was treated reasonably well. Now, a select group of people (me included sometimes) get pampered by the airline while the rest get treated poorly. The pampering goes to some people's heads while the experience of being treated poorly makes the rest resentful and unhappy about flying.<<
10) That old favorite, the ratchet of 'security'. A reader writes:
>>As a million miler with United I'd ask you to please continue to investigate the story around the family that were ejected from the plane for complaining about the movie. The airline industry in general is known for the low quality of customer service. However post 9/11, and as a frequent traveler, I see more and more abuse from airline personnel who are empowered to use "security" as an excuse for what often amounts to pettiness.
In this case, law enforcement determined that an obvious mistake was made that victimized the innocent and wasted tax payer dollars. Someone was either incompetent or malicious. Either way, they should be held accountable.
Please keep after United and do not let the story drop. They care nothing for consumers but you in the media, you they fear. Please make them explain what happened. Nothing would make me happier than to see this story go viral. If nothing else, some "heat" might make the individuals involved behave better in future.
I'd also be interested in the view of law enforcement of the issue ? if I as an individual, deliberately waste the time of law enforcement, that in itself is a crime.<<
11) Let's get back to the topic of movies. A reader writes:
>>Thank you for publicizing how United Airlines has dealt with parental concerns over showing violent movies on shared screens. I have written to United about this twice. I received a brush off both times. Here is my most recent letter in case it is of interest. I would be extremely interested to know if and how United changes their movie policy based on the incident you report. My son's comment to me during the flight (full context below), "Mama, it is nicer to watch dancing than people being shot" was especially poignant as this was the day after the Sandy Hook elementary school shootings (of which my son knew nothing, thankfully).
Content of letter to United:
"I am writing to request a change in your in-flight movie policy. Please stop showing violent films on all flights with shared movie screens. My family and I are in the Foreign Service and thus fly regularly. I have written to your company about this issue once previously and our most recent travel has brought it up again.
"On December 15, 2012 we flew from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia to Denver Colorado. On the leg of the trip from Seoul to San Francisco, our plane had a shared movie screen. The first movie screened was the Bourne Legacy. I was flying with my 7 year old son. This movie was not only violent, but contained a scene in which multiple individuals were hiding in their workplace being stalked and shot and killed one by one by a co-worker. When the screen is shared there is no way to shield my son from these images without literally covering him with a blanket. As this was the first movie screened and during meal service this was impossible. I did my best to distract him but he, of course, witnessed the violence. The next morning while breakfast was being served a movie about dancing was being screened. It was quite sad to hear my seven year old state, "Mama, it is nicer to watch dancing than people being shot."
"As an attorney and a strong supporter of the First Amendment, I do not see the answer to this problem in regulation of your ability to show these movies nor of Hollywood's ability to make them. I see the answer in individual and corporate responsibility. As a matter of corporate responsibility, please do not force me to subject my child to these violent images.
"As you know, Foreign Service personnel are required to use American carriers as their first choice for business related travel. Although I do not feel it is appropriate to legislate your choice of movies, my choice of airlines is legislated. I will be bringing this issue up with AFSA (the American Foreign Service Association) if I do not receive a satisfactory response.
"My first e-mail to you about violent movies being screened was answered with "Thank you for your input. Please see our in-flight magazine for all our great movie selections." Please do not send a similar response to this correspondence.<<
12) Why the movies matter. From another reader:
>>An interesting thread. I just had one comment. To this day I vividly remember seeing the movie "Manhunter", the first appearance of Hannibal Lecter on screen as an in-flight movie. It must have been 1986 or 1987. I was twelve or thirteen. Suffice it to say, not really appropriate for a mass audience on a plane.<<
13) Similarly about the movies:
>>I had a similar experience on United a few years ago, when my youngest son was about 4 or 5. I looked up from my book to see my son, who had been coloring, staring at the movie screen. I don't know what movie it was because I wasn't watching, but onscreen (for several minutes), a man was holding a knife to a woman's throat, speaking with a menacing expression on his face and her backed up against a wall. When I complained to a flight attendant I was told that she could do nothing about movie content and that business passengers would complain if they only showed "Disney" movies.
Fortunately, I wasn't removed from the flight. (Even though I may not have been quite as cordial as your correspondent.) I did complain online to United customer service. Like your correspondent, no response.
Anyway, I appreciate you putting some light on this problem. It's tough enough traveling with kids -- this kind of thing makes it far worse!<<
14) Adventures in PR. From our last reader for now:
>>I am far, far outside my realm of competence here, and surely this is either (a) unfounded or (b) obvious to you, but the PR statement from United strikes me as rather odd.
First, it does nothing at all beyond confirming facts you have already published. It does assert that "[we] have since conducted a full review of our inflight entertainment." But the incident took place in February, only 60 days before; allowing some time for reporting, how complete could such a review be? If any aspect of the review could be construed in the airline's favor - participation of senior management, consultation with noted authorities -- why not mention it? And what sort of review could not feature some aspects that a top-shelf PR staff could construe favorably?
Second, if for some reason the statement could not be cast to reflect some credit on the airline, why make it at all? Yes, it would be good not to annoy an influential journalist. But surely there are ways to placate James Fallows without issuing a statement, and it's not really a statement that's going to delight any writer. Why not plead an ongoing investigation, threat of litigation, threat of a pending union grievance, or insist that security regulations prevent public discussion?
Another easy target for the PR person is the question of fact which remains unaddressed so far: could the individual screen in fact have been retracted? As far as I can see, any response to this question makes the airline look better. Either the flight attendant was right and nothing could be done, or the flight attendant was regrettably mistaken about the capabilities of this particular aircraft, having extensive experience in another time where this could not be done. Either way, it shifts the discussion away from "lazy, unhelpful flight crew" and toward the hardware.
Finally, diversions are costly. There might have been an investigation into the entertainment, but there must have been an investigation into the diversion. An extra airframe cycle, the lost time, the fuel expenditure, landing and takeoff at ORD -- that's got to add up to many thousands of dollars, doesn't it? The circumstances invite scrutiny: however scary the angry passenger might be, they're flying with their child. If my subordinate spent thousands of dollars over this (and called down the wrath of The Atlantic on my head), I'd want to ask whether they were really a threat to the aircraft? Or to neighboring passengers? Since such an investigation, formal or casual, involves so many moving parts - the chief pilot, the pilot's union, probably the flight attendants' union as well, conceivably the FAA or Chicago Police -- why wouldn't the PR person try to indicate vaguely that Something Was Done?
How often are flights diverted due to passenger disturbance, anyway? My impression was that most of these incidents, since 9/11, still merit a brief mention in major newspapers.<<
With that, I wish you well for the next few days. And as I said, my latest United trip was a pleasure in all ways -- within the range of "pleasure" allowed in modern air travel -- and I compliment everyone involved. And why am I invoking Rashomon? Something else for readers to look into these next few days.
Over the years I've chronicled the activities of Liam Casey -- an entrepreneur originally from Cork, Ireland; then based in Southern California until he couldn't get a green card; then working since the late 1990s in Shenzhen, southern China, where he has been at the center of the Chinese outsourced-manufacturing boom. Here are two articles about him, from 2007 and last year.
By chance I saw Liam Casey twice in the past few days -- first on Thursday afternoon, in Washington, and then 24 hours later when we both were in Oakland, California (as shown at right).
On his way into Washington, it had taken Liam one hour and 45 minutes simply to go through passport inspection at Dulles airport, even before baggage claim and the 40-minute trip into town. Of the 25 passport lanes at Dulles, on a weekday, only four were open and handling passengers. After our chance meeting in California, he was on his way back to China -- and to the Four Points Sheraton, in Shenzhen, where he has lived for years and where I have often stayed. Here was his report comparing the China-arrival experience, from Hong Kong airport and across the frontier to Shenzhen, with what happened at Dulles:
>>Good morning from the Four Points in Shenzhen!
The good thing for China is that the middle class market is growing [JF note: this had been the topic of the meeting we attended in Washington] and the bad thing for China is that the middle class market is growing. The middle class in China want access to better food, fashion, cars, holidays etc. That's going to be a real headache for the government. China Inc will struggle to meet the requirements this is an opportunity for USA Inc.
USA Inc needs needs to get working. It's as if it doesn't see the big picture. I just landed in HKG this morning and you cannot compare it to IAD. We landed at gate 64 one of the furthest away gates. From the plane to the Four Points in Shenzhen it was 1 hour and 15 mins. That's 30 less than just for immigration at IAD.
HK immigration [inbound], baggage (I checked a bag) customs, car to HK/SZ border, HK immigration [outbound] and walk through the SZ immigration control. Then a car ride to the Four Points. The experience at IAD is very telling. What most people were upset with was the attitude of the immigration officers. They were sitting in their booths chatting to each other ignoring the people in the queue. it's as if they don't have a purpose in their work.
If America gets its act together it will be a huge winner in these times.<<
That is what we call ending on an optimistic note. Now, from another American I know who has lived for years in China:
>>A good friend and academic colleague (prof at [a well-known West Coast university]), Chinese citizen with a green card, 28 year resident of the USA, is in the customs line at the Bradley Terminal [international-arrivals area at LAX.]
Asked if he had any cash, he answered 'none'. Then, realizing he had some pocket money, he said, "Oh, I forgot - I have a little. Poquito." (smiling)
"Please step over to that line, sir."
In 'the line you don't want to be in', he was searched carefully. He asked why.
"We have a lot of rich Chinese trying to bring lots of money into the USA these days."
"Do I look like a rich Chinese?"
"Could be, sir."
Upshot was that they confiscated both mobile devices and the laptop. He received the mobile devises several days later, they still have the laptop.
He thinks maybe it was the attempted Spanish that ticked off the Latino officer.<<
Again, for making a joke to a customs agent, a professor coming back to work lost control of the electronic devices through which many people manage their business and personal activities. You can choose how you would like to categorize these reports: under "the way we live now," or "seeing ourselves as others see us." Other possibilities: "life under the sequester." Or, "annals of the security state."
Last week I mentioned Dr. David Hilfiker's ongoing chronicles of how the world seems to him, and how he is able to express his experience of it, as his Alzheimer's disease progresses. Readers mentioned some interesting parallel examples.
One was a Radiolab program three years ago on how the word choice and sentence structure of Agatha Christie's (above) very late work, when compared with her early novels, demonstrated the progress of her dementia, which was not disclosed while she was alive. Thanks to reader PM for this.
I have some doubts about the methodology explained in the first part of the Radiolab story. One of the assessment systems seems to treat simpler, sparer sentence structure as prima facie evidence of dementia, and anything rococo as a sign of healthier mental functioning. By this standard any turgid passage of bureaucratese, or Spengler, might seem "smarter" than samples from the King James Bible ("In the beginning...") or the Gettysburg Address (" of the people, by the people, for the people"). But the part about Christie is convincing and fascinating.
And according to a different study at University College, London, a similar pattern emerged in the last novel Iris Murdoch wrote before she died.
The team found that, while the structure and grammar of Murdoch's writing remained roughly consistent throughout her career, her vocabulary had dwindled and her language simplified in her very last novel. This unique opportunity to study someone's writing style over their lifetime could help researchers improve current diagnostic tests for Alzheimer's.
So keep rolling out the baroque synonyms.
The other reader suggestion is a collection of columns from Michael Beetner, Avoid 1-Click Shopping if you have Parkinson's, about living with that disease. I have not read this -- nor yet, in my family, had immediate reason to do so -- but here is a plug by someone who has read and learned from it.
I've been running a series of "Ten Years After" items on the political, financial, strategic, and moral ramifications of the American invasion of Iraq, which was in its early stages in April, 2003.
As for me ten years ago, when the war began I was in Israel rather than Iraq. I was there to do interviews for a story that ran in our June, 2003, issue about the controversial and inflammatory Mohammed al-Dura case. He was the 12-year-old Palestinian boy who, according to widespread international news coverage, had been shot to death in 2000 by Israeli Defense Force soldiers, even as he huddled in terror behind the father who was trying to protect him. The picture of the doomed boy and his frantic father became a notorious symbol of Israeli cruelty; the image above is from a Tunisian postage stamp issued in commemoration of the killing.
My story ten years ago said that exactly what happened to Mohammed al-Dura might never be known -- but that the prevailing story, that IDF soldiers had shot him to death, was very likely not true, since it was so hard to square with known forensic and physical evidence. The details are too elaborate to go through now, but you can follow them in the original article.
The controversy over the case has continued to rage, but I'll let you explore it on your own. If you search for the names Charles Enderlin, Philippe Karsenty, or Richard Landes, you'll be on your way; I'm not getting back into this. My 2003 article has come to occupy an awkward "false equivalence" middle ground in the dispute. Many people who believe the original story say that I've been duped by Israeli propaganda to exonerate the IDF. Many people who challenge the original story scoff at me for resisting their claim that the entire episode was faked for "Pallywood" propaganda purposes and that the boy was never shot. [Update To illustrate this point, and to give you a chance for full exposure to the argument and evidence in support of the "staged" hypothesis, you can read this response by Richard Landes.]
Often, as I've argued in the false-equivalence chronicles, taking the middle ground is a way to evade the hard work of finding the real truth. In this case, my agnosticism comes from the murkiness of the evidence and the asymmetrical burdens of proof and disproof. It is much easier to establish that one hypothesis is false -- for instance, that IDF soldiers were in the wrong place to do the reported shooting -- than to prove that some other one is true. Similarly: I find it hard to believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted entirely on his own in killing John F. Kennedy, but I have no idea what the "real" story is.
I mention all this because there is an interesting new update in the Times of Israel on one of the people I spent time with ten years ago in Tel Aviv. He is Nahum Shahaf, and you will learn about him from the story. For the record, this new account refers to my own article in positive rather than the now-familiar derogatory terms, but I'm mentioning the story because Shahaf was one of the genuinely engrossing figures I have met along the way. (Another, whom I should regularly thank, was professor Gabriel Weimann of the University of Haifa, who helped me in many ways with this story -- but bears no responsibility for what I concluded or didn't.) See what you think.
On re-entering Internet land after 24 hours, I see a zillion responses to the mysterious case of United flight 638. This is the one on which parents traveling with young children complained about a movie they considered too violent and risque being played on the overhead projectors. The flight was headed from Denver to Baltimore, but the pilot made an unscheduled landing at Chicago O'Hare so police could remove the family from the plane. The three background installments are here, here, and here. To put it mildly, at face value this is a strange episode, and there must be some further backstory on how and why it happened. After I sort through the latest responses from pilots, flight attendants, regulators, etc. I'll put some up.
For now, here is a message from the man who directed the movie in
question. His name is Rob Cohen, and the movie was called Alex Cross. I
turn the floor over to him:
>>I'm the director of "ALEX CROSS' and I'm writing to you to add my perspective to this United Airline matter should you care to know it.
The film is rated PG-13 due to the level of violence and some very intense content. By definition, it is not meant to be shown to people under thirteen unless accompanied by an adult. To me, this clearly defines a box office situation where you are voluntarily purchasing tickets to view something that has been clearly rated as not kid-friendly. It does not, however, really accurately cover the airplane experience.
An airline showing on all the cabin monitors is clearly no longer a voluntary situation but one where the content is being shown indiscriminately to those who wish to view it or those who don't. It's impossible to avoid the images, even if you are not using the headphones in such a situation.
There is something unfair and, in my opinion, unwise about such a policy. I did NOT do an airline edit although I did a TV version. My assumption was that the film would be either further edited from that by the airlines or shown only on systems where a passenger can select specific films for his or her seat.
When I read your piece this morning, I felt extremely sympathetic to the family involved and, in some ways, quite apologetic. I never made the film to cause anyone this kind of discomfort. It seems to me they (the family) were well within their rights to request some control as to what their two young children were exposed. As a father of five year old triplets, I, too, would not want them to absorb some of the images we created for my film. It's a thriller based on the work of James Patterson and accurately captures the milieu, content, and characters of his many "Alex Cross" books.
These books are not for young people, either.
I cannot comment on the Captain's decision as I don't know all the facts but I do know this: there should be another standard of judgement or set of editing guidelines for airline consumption. PG-13 should mean what it does at the box office, at the very least meaning no one under 13 should be exposed to it. If the airlines cannot accommodate a more flexible presentation giving seats the option of viewing or not, they shouldn't show the film unless it meets what we could call "general cabin" suitability.
If the film cannot be edited back to a more general audience presentation, then it shouldn't be shown on the cabin monitors. If that means the loss of air line revenue, so be it. Protecting children from things they were never meant to see should take priority.
Rob Cohen <<
And FWIW, here is a sample from a large number of similar notes I've received, about this movie:
>>I just read your article about the family being kicked off the United Airlines flight that was airing the Alex Cross moving throughout the cabin. It reminded me that on our last flight from SFO to Chicago (February 23rd or 24th, not sure if it was the flight going or coming back) they were playing the same film and I was very put out that they were showing it in cabin. I had a two year old with me that was thankfully too busy with her crayons to notice the screen, but if she had I would have probably raised my concerns as well. I just wanted to highlight that the Alex Cross showing was not an isolated incident, even if the removal of the family was.<<
I have been in transit or otherwise offline since early yesterday, and so I am seeing only now the item that Ta-Nehisi Coates posted about the Atlantic's Michael Kelly, who was killed ten years ago this week while serving as an embedded reporter during the invasion of Iraq.
On the tenth anniversary of Michael Kelly's death I wrote that it had been a tragedy and a loss, which of course it was, most of all for his family. The many thousands of other deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan these past ten years have also been losses and tragedies, but we naturally feel most strongly about the ones that come closest to us. The item I wrote was in observance of a loss that directly affected our magazine, and initially thought I should leave it at that. In light of what Ta-Nehisi has written, I think I should say something more.
As many people have noted (including Tom Scocca, and a large number of TNC's commenters), there is a sharp divide in assessments of Kelly's legacy, depending on whether people knew him personally or not. For most people who knew or worked with Michael Kelly, the personal fondness and memories outweigh the disagreements on politics or other matters.
This was true also for me. I disagreed with Michael Kelly on most political topics that came up in the decade before his death. He was all in favor of impeaching Bill Clinton: "He must be impeached not merely because he is a pig and a cad and a selfish brute ... He must be impeached because we are a nation of laws, not liars." I thought that impeachment was a travesty. He viewed the Whitewater and Paula Jones cases as genuine scandals. I thought the greater scandal lay in the prosecutorial excesses of Kenneth Starr. And of course there was Iraq, which he saw as a huge moral necessity for the United States and I saw as a huge mistake.
Still I felt loyal to Michael Kelly as our editor, and truly grieved his death, because of the care and devotion he put into being the leader of our staff. I think that many of Michael's passions were essentially tribal -- he would fearlessly defend people he liked or felt were "his" people, and mercilessly attack people he didn't -- and he earned a similar kind of loyalty and affection in return. I might as well be fully honest about this: When he and I were working at different publications, I was one of the people Michael would sometimes go out of his way to criticize. Once we were on the same team, he couldn't have been more gracious or considerate. I didn't expect to become a friend and supporter of his, but that is what happened.
For people who live essentially private lives, this would be the end of the assessment: How did they treat family, friends, strangers they met? But as Ta-Nehisi Coates points out, we judge public figures by their effects on people they don't know personally. Many members of the reading public benefited from the humor, insight, and honesty of Michael Kelly's best reportorial achievements -- including his excellent book about the 1991 Gulf War, Martyrs' Day. But many were harmed by his greatest failing as a public figure, which was his tendency to ridicule, bully, and personally savage those with whom he disagreed. Ta-Nehisi gives some examples, and Robert Vare, in his compilation of Michael's writings, gives more. Here is one I bitterly complained about to Michael when it happened:
In September, 2002, Al Gore gave a speech arguing against the impending invasion of Iraq. I considered it brave and sensible at the time, and I think it only looks better in retrospect. This was Michael Kelly's response in his Washington Post column:
>>[The speech] distinguished Gore, now and forever, as someone who cannot be considered a responsible aspirant to power. Politics are allowed in politics, but there are limits, and there is a pale, and Gore has now shown himself to be ignorant of those limits, and he has now placed himself beyond that pale.
Gore's speech was one no decent politician could have delivered. It was dishonest, cheap, low. It was hollow. It was bereft of policy, of solutions, of constructive ideas, very nearly of facts -- bereft of anything other than taunts and jibes and embarrassingly obvious lies. It was breathtakingly hypocritical, a naked political assault delivered in tones of moral condescension from a man pretending to be superior to mere politics. It was wretched. It was vile. It was contemptible. But I understate.<<
Michael's judgment was not merely wrong. It was "dishonest, cheap, low." And it had impact. It is hard now to convey the drumbeat of arguments for the war and also of ridicule and impatience for anyone who lacked war fever. That is what you see in Michael's contemptuous dismissal of Gore. The buildup to the war was probably Christopher Hitchens's worst moment, too, when he was dead-set on the moral rightness of the invasion and intent on demolishing people who disagreed. The two of them, Michael and Christopher, were not the only ones striking this tone, but they were very influential.
Now, the complication. At just the time Michael was writing those words about Al Gore, he was supporting and trying to improve my cover story, in his own magazine, arguing that we would regret the consequences of invasion for many years to come. None of us is simple. I genuinely mourn Michael Kelly's death. But Ta-Nehisi Coates is right to clarify the part of his record that was damaging. And I actually do believe, as opposed to just saying it for closing-the-loop rhetorical purposes, that Michael Kelly would have respected and supported the forthrightness of his doing so within the Atlantic's own (electronic) pages.
This is what I saw one minute away from my house in DC yesterday morning.
Good news: Excellent craft beer in cans! Click on the photo for a beer-pornish enlarged and highly detailed view. And, that same excellent beer making its way from its Colorado homeland to my closest Kwik-E-Mart. You would not have seen this in any imagined golden-age American period of yesteryear.
Bad news: the bare-limbed look of that gingko tree tells you about the weather in DC as of early April. Also, sadly, the truck was not stopping right outside my house.
OK, I want to wrap this up as much as you do. But I said that if I received any statement from United Airlines about a flight that was diverted to Chicago because of an onboard dispute, I would give prominent display to whatever the company said. Background on the dispute, from the family that was removed from the plane, is here. I've just received a reply from United, which I now pass along without comment and in full:
Hi James,
Megan [McCarthy, United's managing director for external communications] mentioned that you reached out to us earlier this week for a statement. Here's what I can offer you on this matter. Again, apologies for missing your initial request. Response below:
United flight 638 from Denver to Baltimore diverted to Chicago O'Hare after the crew reported a disturbance involving a passenger. The flight landed without incident and the customers were removed from the flight. We reaccommodated the customers on the next flight to Baltimore and have since conducted a full review of our inflight entertainment.
I really intended to let this subject sit for a while, but I have seen two things that I think are worth passing on. They make this a long item, so consider "classic view."
The two items do not include a response from United to the stranger-the-longer-you-think-about-it case of a pilot who diverted his whole planeload of passengers to Chicago, on a trip from Denver to Baltimore, so that police could board the plane and remove a mother and father and their two young sons. The parents' offense was to have complained about what they considered an overly violent and salacious movie being shown on the overhead screens. I've heard nothing back from the United press office, not even "message received" or "no comment," and at this point I'll be surprised if I do get a response. [UPDATE 12:10pm I have just now heard from Megan McCarthy, Managing Director for External Communications at United. She said she would look into the episodes I've been describing and provide a response. I told her that when she did I would put it up promptly and call attention to it. UPDATE-UPDATE 5:00 pm You can read the United statement here.]
Instead the two items are contrasting accounts of the judgment calls that go with any position of responsibility and that collectively create and express a "corporate culture."
The first is from Chris Manno, an American Airlines captain who blogs under the name JetHead. In "Airline Pilot Confidential: The Teddy Bear Incident" he describes a decision he made, in violation of corporate incentives/pressures and perhaps even rules, because he thought it was the right thing to do. It was "right," he thought, not simply on its specific merits but also for its general representation of corporate and personal values.
This is truly a remarkable tale, and I thank reader ER for alerting me to it. By the end of it you'll understand the power of what Manno means when he says, Not on my watch. This captain has the same job as the one who diverted to Chicago, but not the same profession.
The second is an account from a reader in Australia. It is very long but has a payoff. Also, it includes an on-the-job picture of an airline employee, which I have obviously altered. I've blanked out the employee's face, but in the original you would see that his eyes are closed and he is in blissful repose. Now, the reader:
>>I'm 58 years old, a 2 million mile flyer with United, at the 1K level for 10+ years. Although we live in Australia now, my wife and I are both Chicagoans originally and we still have a condo there.
I've stuck with United thru the bankruptcies, merger with Continental (which actually helped us as CO and now United fly into [the city in Australia] where we live). What you've described is employee malfeasance - a problem that all the airlines struggle to address.
And it should be noted that most frequent flyers have, since 9/11, severely moderated their personalities WHEN ONBOARD THE FLIGHT. I had routinely seen passengers chastising flight attendants and even arguing with them prior to 9/11. After? Pilots and flight attendants have clearly formed a "pact" where the pilots are used (willingly and unwillingly) to "get square" with passengers. As a result passengers have become meek as sheep onboard. And I would anecdotally opine that the ground agents are getting more abuse than before, because of this and other capacity-related issues.
In October of 2010, I boarded a UA flight from Geneva, Switzerland to Dulles. I had been upgraded to business class (along with two other colleagues who had been at the same engineering conference). As is my custom, I changed from my business casual clothing to dark, knee-length shorts and a t-shirt. This was, for any frequent traveler, a "sleeping" flight.
Shortly after I had changed my wardrobe (in the lavatory), a pilot came up to me and said "you can't travel dressed that way". I turned to him with a stunned look and of course asked "why not?". He said it was inappropriate and walked away. A flight attendant came up shortly afterward and said "you'd better change back because the pilot isn't going to let you travel that way". I asked her why that was, and she just rolled her eyes - which told me this pilot might be trouble. There were what looked like elderly Europeans in business class, dressed for travel like it was 1960. They may have lodged the complaint, I don't know. I sat down in my seat, used my blanket to cover my legs, and waited.
The pilot returned, and was clearly agitated. During his diatribe he poked me, which I considered assault. But what does one do about this kind of incident in a foreign country? Should I stand my ground and likely be ejected from the flight at a port where United had no employees (only contract staff)? Even my colleagues witnessing this incident were cowed into silence. I was unsurprised.
I changed back into my boarding clothing.
I toyed with returning to my shorts after departure, because I thought it would be much harder for the pilot to explain a diversion disrupting 250 passengers. And I'm a "Type-A" person, who worked on film production as a sound engineer for 20+ years, where my tactlessness was honed to a knife edge. I'm usually not loathe to speak-out, even on behalf of others.
When we arrived at Dulles I used my express card to race thru immigration, and found a police officer. I explained briefly what had happened onboard the plane, and said I wanted the pilot identified and perhaps a report filed for assault. As the pilot came out of immigration, three police officers stopped him and ID'd him for me. (His name is XX). He saw me standing with another officer 20 feet away and shouted "you'll never fly on United again".
I of course notified United Airlines via the "1K Voice" email address, and as I would be staying in Chicago for a week or so I drove out to their headquarters building in Schaumburg. I eventually told the story to both the customer service rep that I had been in contact with previously, as well as the chief pilot. United also interviewed my colleagues, so they were clearly satisfied that the story I told was accurate and even more importantly, I DIDN'T CAUSE A RUCKUS. And subsequently I was provided with upgrade and discount certificates. But of course I never was told what happened, if anything, to this pilot or why he had acted so irrationally.
So why are these things happening?
Let's use as an example Singapore Airlines, who's onboard staff are among the best in the world. These flight attendants are given one five year contract, and then except for a handful who move up to management, they're out. They are paid much less than US legacy carrier flight attendants, can be fired easily, and more importantly aren't there to make a career.
The US legacy carriers in particular are saddled with many long-serving flight attendants. These (mostly) women were sold on the idea that this job was a career, and a "glamorous" one at that, with long layovers in exotic places, traveling with intelligent, wealthy people. But this idea flies in the face of what the job actually is. A job that requires no education, not even any computer skillls, and has little pathway for advancement. And a job that is protected by still powerful unions. I've spoken to hundreds of flight attendants over the years, and have a good understanding of their thinking. A great many are angry - angry at themselves for thinking this was going to be a career, angry at the airline for going bankrupt and stripping them of wages and benefits. This anger manifests itself exactly as you've described - telling white lies to avoid any further work, reporting passengers as "disruptive" to the pilot, and even more egregious behavior. Many flight attendants refer to vacation-destination flights as "the flying Clampetts". If they hate their job and their passengers, they should go. But they can't, or don't.
If you look at what was Continental Micronesia, a separate company owned by Continental prior to the merger, and their labor situation it's like night and day. This company was based in Guam, which while ostensibly the USA is more akin to the Philippines. The Continental (and now United) flight attendants based in Guam are largely Chamorro or Filipino, and look at these jobs as a tremendous opportunity given their low educational level. I've never heard a cross word or seen a scowl from these flight attendants. They weren't sold a "dream" to be a "flight attendant" and see the world! They were offered a great job, provided with the skills to do it, and pay that is much above what their fellow Guamians would receive under similar circumstances.
The legacy carriers; United and American especially, have a difficult situation. They have a large number of angry flight attendants - the worst of which, because of seniority rules, get the longest, most profitable international routes where UA has to compete with happy flight attendants. For the first time after the merger however I am sensing that UA management is now working to weed out the real troublemakers, something I can't recall them doing at all the last ten years.
This photo, UA 483 on October 23, 2012 from LAX/SFO had a purser who sat in this position the entire 80 minute flight, leaving only one of his colleagues to serve the full business class section. I reported this incident (with photo) to UA, who for the first time in many years seemed generally concerned about fixing this problem.
As for the inappropriate programming on the video. I was successful in getting the "survival in the wild" show with Bear Grylls removed from the entertainment system - the bug eating during meal time was I thought a bit over the top. However I know who to lodge a complaint with. I'm quite convinced that a complaint to the general email complaint line gets barely a look, and usually a "pat on the ass" response. This more than anything is something that United should consider fixing. Jeff Smisek would discover a lot about his employees if they actually read and processed the complaints properly.<<
That really is it for a while, unless I do hear from United.
This is a long item; for "classic view" click here.
1) On Tuesday morning I wrote to United Airlines' media relations office about the incredible but apparently true story of a pilot who made an unscheduled landing at Chicago's O'Hare airport, on a flight from Denver to Baltimore, so that police could come aboard and take away parents who had complained about what they considered a risque and violent movie being shown on the overhead screens in front of their two small sons.
In my note I identified myself as a reporter; sent them the item I had done; gave them the real names of the complainants and the reported real name of the pilot; gave my phone and email contact info; and said I would give equal prominence to whatever they said in reply.
It is now the wee hours of Thursday morning, and ... so far nothing. I'll let you know if I ever hear back. Maybe United's CEO Jeff Smisek will address it in one of the promotional videos by him that all passengers get to see before take-off.
2) My wife and I flew from LAX to Dulles today, and thanks to our palmy Global Services status we got upgrades out of economy -- but with seats in separate rows.
We decided to be content with our good fortune and not to ask other people to switch so we could sit together. You will get the joke it you check here.
3) Illustrating that there are exceptions to every rule, the cabin crew who dealt with us today were friendly, relaxed, and with a sense of humor and adaptability, rather than seeming officious and put-upon. To anyone at United if you ever see this: I am talking about UA 653, LAX-IAD, on April 3, 2013.
On the other hand: the plane landed at 9:09, and the first bags appeared at 9:52, but ... this is travel.
4) In the pre-roll house-ad video that United inserts before its safety instructions, there was a change from the now-familiar "let's hear from Jeff Smisek" feature. Instead it was a little tone-poem about how everyone at United knows that customer service comes first, that the impression they leave on customers determines the future of the airline, how nothing matters more than being caring and considerate, and so on. My main reaction was, Maybe they realize they have a problem, since it is the absence of precisely this attitude that, in my now-very-long experience, has distinguished United.
To be more precise, while the ground and flight crew of many Asian airlines act excited to be in the glamorous air-travel industry -- something not possible or credible in the North America industry; and while Southwest has its own jokey culture; and while Alaska Airlines has a small and attentive feel; and so on; my strong impression of United is that most of its employees don't seem very happy to be working there. They come across as beset by their twin enemies: management on one side and the surly traveling public on the other.
Here is an episode that crystallized this impression for me. Last year I was at Dulles for an early-morning flight to San Diego, which was delayed and then an hour after scheduled departure time was finally cancelled outright, for mechanical reasons. These things happen. A hundred people surged to the customer service desk to figure out options. (The auto- rebooking note I got from United rescheduled me for a flight nine hours later.) The woman at the desk saw the horde coming and began packing up. "I'm on break!" she said. "I've been here since six-thirty this morning!" Which of course is when the rest of us had arrived. Considerately, before leaving she did call to see if someone could replace her, as someone eventually did. I promise you, this happened just the way I am describing.
5) But maybe points #3 and #4 are signs of a culture change. America is the land of constant renewal and second and third chances, so I will hold that thought in mind about the new United. While also wondering if I'll ever hear about point #1 -- the pilot who decided that parents who complained about movies should be turned over to the police, and another 100-plus people on the plane should be delayed and diverted at the same time.
[Widespread Chinese ignorance of the "June 4 1989 episode"] reminded me of something another teacher told me. She had asked her students from China if they had heard about the death by starvation of 30 to 40 million people during the so-called "three years of natural disasters" in the early 1960s. Her students responded with stunned silence, as if she, a teacher in Hong Kong, was brazenly fabricating history to attack their mother country.
2) Christina Larson, in Bloomberg Businessweek, about new evidence on the birth-defect epidemic being caused by pollution in China. Sample:
In the U.S., for every 10,000 live births, there are 7.5 infants with neural tube defects. In Shanxi province, that number is 18 times higher: 140 infants....
Over a 10-year period, the researchers gathered placentas from 80 stillborn or newborn infants in Shanxi with the disorder. Based on their analysis, they confirmed that those infants had been exposed in utero to significant levels of pesticides, industrial solvents, and especially polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are released into the air when fossil fuels are burned.
3) A Chinese language report saying that as many as 15 percent of overall recent deaths in China may be due to pollution; to similar effect in the NYT.
4) A Xinhua report saying that March in Beijing -- when we were there -- was the smoggiest in modern history.
And this is without even getting into the dead pigs, the new cases of "bird flu," etc. China is a big, exciting country. But it has very serious problems, and different problems from those in the Western world just now.
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Bonus, these are not about China but among the offerings not to miss from the Atlantic recently:
A) Matt O'Brien on why David Stockman's "sky is falling" recent piece was so wrong-headed;
B) Robert Vare with an extended appreciation of Michael Kelly;
C) John Gould on why the return of Hannibal Lecter is more interesting than you might expect; and
D) - Z) Ta-Nehisi Coates's reports from Europe and Conor Friedersdorf's reports from all over , both too numerous to itemize with links right now but worth seeking out.
Ten years ago today Michael Kelly, then the editor of the Atlantic, was killed while serving as an embedded reporter with the Third Infantry Division during the early stages of the invasion of Iraq.
He and I disagreed about many things, notably including the war in Iraq, of which he was a passionate supporter. His advocacy of that war was based on what he had seen Saddam Hussein do in the aftermath of the first Gulf War, which Michael chronicled in his book Martyrs' Day. As all the elegies and commemorations noted after his death, Michael was a powerful, very talented, enormously big-hearted figure, whose death in Iraq was an almost unimaginable tragedy. He was a wonderful editor of this magazine. Like everyone at the Atlantic and many other people in journalism, I remember exactly where I was -- in my case, on an Amtrak train back from New York to Washington, the morning after I'd done some anti-war TV program -- at the moment I heard this news.
I don't have the heart to include this among the "Ten Years After" reckonings of the decision to go to war in Iraq. His colleagues -- and readers -- reflect on what they lost, the loss being greatest for his wife and sons.
Three years ago I mentioned an intriguing, easy, collaborative cloud-based outliner named Thinklinkr. It doesn't seem to be around any more, and its official blogsite doesn't appear to have any entries since 2011, so ... the wheel turns. Following today's earlier note about memento mori, this is probably a useful reminder that the concept applies in the tech world too, and even to cloud products that aren't made by Google.
Thus we have a natural intro to "Little Outliner," shown above. It is an extremely simple online outlining tool designed by Dave Winer, creator of a long string of influential programs and applications (including those wonderful early outliners ThinkTank and MORE). Here Winer has collaborated with a young developer named Kyle Shank. A difference between Little Outliner and, say, the seemingly departed Thinklinkr is that Winer's and Shank's new product stores its info locally on your own computer, so it wouldn't vanish if the program or company does.
You can read a nice Gigaom interview with Winer about the program here. While we're at it, Workflowy is another interesting, light, cloud-based outliner that unlike Thinklinkr is still around. And you can never go wrong with a look at Dave Winer's history of great outliners, at Outliners.com. I also examined this historical theme a while back, in my homage to the greatest outliner of them all, the late and lamented GrandView.
>>As a pilot for United Airline's with more than 2 decades of industry experience, I am saddened by your experiences on United and even more saddened by your public attempt to shame the employees at United. My defense is three fold. First, your sample rate is tiny in comparison to the number of workers and daily flights. Second, the public's insistence on cheap fairs is driving the quality of employee down, and third, you fail to realize that employees react to their management more than they do to the customer. If there is a failure to be found then why not look at management and it's policies of demoralizing workers at every turn.
I've been running a series of "Ten Years After" items on the political, financial, strategic, and moral ramifications of the American invasion of Iraq, which was in its early stages in April, 2003.
