JetBlue Mea Culpa, The Price Of Civil War, Delta Update, Pedophile Update, Incarcerated, And A Big Spider (Wednesday's Second Hour)
Hey guys. We kick off the hour with a big old apology from JetBlue. They are oh so very sorry for basically imprisoning people on a tarmac for many hours. Oh and they're also very sorry that their reputation is trashed. Isn't it crazy how one bad day can cause a company to crash and burn? Perhaps I shouldn't use the phrase "crash and burn" when referring to an airline. Anyway, in a Randi Kaye piece we learn that people are now talking about a Passenger's Bill of Rights. One woman who was stuck on an American Airlines flight has gotten thousands of people to sign a petition on her blog. So what are your rights as of right now? Uh, yeah, you basically don't have any. It turns out that Congress has previously pushed for an offical Passenger's Bill of Rights, but the airlines have always squashed any attempts. I'm shocked. I wouldn't look to Congress anyway. They're having enough trouble with the Bill of Rights. The airlines seem to think it would be better if they just handled this stuff themselves without being forced by Congress. Because that always works. No, wait, it never works.
Next up we have a Kiran piece on the JetBlue flight. I'm guessing the only reason for this piece is that now they have EXCLUSIVE video and pictures. Whoop dee doo! Yeah, not much point here since this story is a week old. However, we do learn that JetBlue has a new policy now that passengers should be moved off the plane if they've been stuck more than five hours. Five hours? Lord. After this we get a rehash of the Clinton/Obama/Geffen story.
Transitioning now to a Michael Ware piece that is prefaced with a major warning from John. This one is graphic folks. We see the fallout of the civil war through video clips...and actually I can't blog this. There is nothing I can say. You have to see it. Good on CNN for bringing a little reality, though I think we need a lot more. One thing mentioned in the piece that definitely caught my attention was that today is the one year anniversary of the Golden Dome mosque bombing in Samarra. If you're feeling a little deja vu, you're not the only one. See, on February 12, 2007, I blogged that that was the one year anniversary. In a state of comfuzzlement, this blogger went to the transcript. So as it turns out, February 12, 2007, was the anniversary using the Muslim calender year, so consider this a retraction. Thanks a lot to whatever producer wrote that line. Your cleverness confused me and resulted in truthiness. Bad producer! And for those wondering, I consulted with a Muslim friend and apparently the Muslim calender is in lunar months, thus the difference. There you go.
Next up we have Jeff Koinange with an update on his Niger Delta piece. We know Jeff went to the Niger Delta to talk with people involved with the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) and while there he saw Filipino hostages. We also know that after the piece originally aired the hostages were released. Well tonight we get to see them reunited with their families. Yay! Jeff then joins us and he's wearing a suit. That's definitely a different look for Jeff than how I'm used to seeing him. Kiran asks if the issue is over with now and Jeff tells us no. Just recently two more Filipinos were kidnapped, as were three Croatian oil workers. Jeff doesn't think the battle for the delta will ever end until all parties sit down and talk together. I'm not holding my breath.
On now to a David Mattingly update on that 29 year old who posed as a 12 year old. I really see no purpose for this piece other than the fact that they now have tapes of the guy talking. Who cares? I know there's the freak factor that fascinates people, but after seeing the orginal piece I really didn't need to see anymore. So we'll move on to Sholah Lynch and another installment of her documentary film "Incarcerated." This portion is mostly about prison as a revolving door. On any given day one in eight black males are in jail or prison. That's a pretty bad statistic. Even worse is that the US is number one in incarcerations. Yay us? Being number one at something is nice, but I would have gone with something like, you know, health care. One of the reasons for the revolving door is when people get out there are no job opportunites for them because employers are usually loath to take the risk. The whole thing is one massively messed up situation and the system needs major reform.
Finally tonight we have a clip of Anderson and Jeff Corwin in the Amazon and by the way they've been freaking promo-ing this thing throughout the show you'd think we were getting naked dancing or something. Yeah, that's not what we're getting. I just hate the manipulation. I know 360 isn't the only show that does this because when Keith Olbermann does a special comment they preview it through the whole show and then air it last. It's annoying is all. Anyhoo, Anderson and Jeff have stumbled upon the Goliath Tarantula, which is one of the biggest spiders in the world. "That's huge," Anderson says. Jeff is just beside himself. Anderson? Not so much. "'I've got to tell you, I am shaking with excitement," says Jeff. Anderson replies that, "I'm actually just shaking." Heh. I knew he was going to say that...and not just because they aired that little portion last hour. Sometimes he's very predictable. As the guys move a bit the spider moves too and this causes Anderson to jump. It wasn't quite as bad as the frog freakout, but still funny. Jeff then goes off on an animated lecture all about this spider while Anderson keeps an eye on that sucker the whole time. I do not blame him. That's it for tonight.
Ever been stuck on a plane? What did you think of Michael Ware's piece? Are you afraid of bugs like Anderson?
Next up we have a Kiran piece on the JetBlue flight. I'm guessing the only reason for this piece is that now they have EXCLUSIVE video and pictures. Whoop dee doo! Yeah, not much point here since this story is a week old. However, we do learn that JetBlue has a new policy now that passengers should be moved off the plane if they've been stuck more than five hours. Five hours? Lord. After this we get a rehash of the Clinton/Obama/Geffen story.
Transitioning now to a Michael Ware piece that is prefaced with a major warning from John. This one is graphic folks. We see the fallout of the civil war through video clips...and actually I can't blog this. There is nothing I can say. You have to see it. Good on CNN for bringing a little reality, though I think we need a lot more. One thing mentioned in the piece that definitely caught my attention was that today is the one year anniversary of the Golden Dome mosque bombing in Samarra. If you're feeling a little deja vu, you're not the only one. See, on February 12, 2007, I blogged that that was the one year anniversary. In a state of comfuzzlement, this blogger went to the transcript. So as it turns out, February 12, 2007, was the anniversary using the Muslim calender year, so consider this a retraction. Thanks a lot to whatever producer wrote that line. Your cleverness confused me and resulted in truthiness. Bad producer! And for those wondering, I consulted with a Muslim friend and apparently the Muslim calender is in lunar months, thus the difference. There you go.
Next up we have Jeff Koinange with an update on his Niger Delta piece. We know Jeff went to the Niger Delta to talk with people involved with the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) and while there he saw Filipino hostages. We also know that after the piece originally aired the hostages were released. Well tonight we get to see them reunited with their families. Yay! Jeff then joins us and he's wearing a suit. That's definitely a different look for Jeff than how I'm used to seeing him. Kiran asks if the issue is over with now and Jeff tells us no. Just recently two more Filipinos were kidnapped, as were three Croatian oil workers. Jeff doesn't think the battle for the delta will ever end until all parties sit down and talk together. I'm not holding my breath.
On now to a David Mattingly update on that 29 year old who posed as a 12 year old. I really see no purpose for this piece other than the fact that they now have tapes of the guy talking. Who cares? I know there's the freak factor that fascinates people, but after seeing the orginal piece I really didn't need to see anymore. So we'll move on to Sholah Lynch and another installment of her documentary film "Incarcerated." This portion is mostly about prison as a revolving door. On any given day one in eight black males are in jail or prison. That's a pretty bad statistic. Even worse is that the US is number one in incarcerations. Yay us? Being number one at something is nice, but I would have gone with something like, you know, health care. One of the reasons for the revolving door is when people get out there are no job opportunites for them because employers are usually loath to take the risk. The whole thing is one massively messed up situation and the system needs major reform.
Finally tonight we have a clip of Anderson and Jeff Corwin in the Amazon and by the way they've been freaking promo-ing this thing throughout the show you'd think we were getting naked dancing or something. Yeah, that's not what we're getting. I just hate the manipulation. I know 360 isn't the only show that does this because when Keith Olbermann does a special comment they preview it through the whole show and then air it last. It's annoying is all. Anyhoo, Anderson and Jeff have stumbled upon the Goliath Tarantula, which is one of the biggest spiders in the world. "That's huge," Anderson says. Jeff is just beside himself. Anderson? Not so much. "'I've got to tell you, I am shaking with excitement," says Jeff. Anderson replies that, "I'm actually just shaking." Heh. I knew he was going to say that...and not just because they aired that little portion last hour. Sometimes he's very predictable. As the guys move a bit the spider moves too and this causes Anderson to jump. It wasn't quite as bad as the frog freakout, but still funny. Jeff then goes off on an animated lecture all about this spider while Anderson keeps an eye on that sucker the whole time. I do not blame him. That's it for tonight.
Ever been stuck on a plane? What did you think of Michael Ware's piece? Are you afraid of bugs like Anderson?
posted by eliza at 8:31 PM
9 Comments:
I'm voting for shots of the nekkid dancing. Better than a nasty fat spider, anyway....
Oh BTW, if you want to watch the sloth fall out of the tree again, click here!
I didn't see the Ware piece but if you know where I can find it online, would you mind letting me know?
Thanks!
@anne-A great Michael resource:
mickware.com
I think I'll link this to the blog.
I was stuck on the tarmac in Minneapolis/St. Paul for five+ hours back in the early '90s. Snow storm - well, it's Minneapolis, after all... They kept closing the runway and plowing it and letting 2-3 planes take off and then closing it again. Our plane got out of the queue several times to go get de-iced again, which made me feel real good about our status. (And de-icing stinks up the interior of the plane. Gross.)
Of course it was a big project review and my majority funder was on the same plane - kept strolling back to my seat to make snide comments about researchers who locate in Minneapolis and the odds of my ever getting funding from HIS organization again. (He was kidding - I got more funding the next year.)
I was considering using the inplane phone to call 911 and say Delta was holding several hundred people hostage, but I thought better of it. And by the time I got to DC, I pretty much considered that I'd stopped smoking. But I started again, the second I hit the outdoors.
A travel-agent friend told me they don't go back to the gate because if they're parked at the gate, the crew isn't drawing flight pay. So they hold us hostage for money - ransom, really... Grrrrrr.
For as long as I can remember, Michael Ware has been telling us about death squads, and the tortured bodies of ordinary Iraqis that are found on the streets of Baghdad every morning.
We finally got to see a small part of it for ourselves. It's disturbing, but it's REAL. It's important that we witness it and acknowledge it, even though there may be very little we can do about it. To me, looking away would be akin to denying the pain and suffering of these people and their families.
@anne & eliza: The video of that piece isn't on the Mick Ware site yet, but since the site is very regularly updated, it should be there very soon.
@arachnae-Heh. You must still be annoyed because it got you to leave a rare comment. ;) Yeah, I don't think 911 would have worked. You do that now and they'd probably shoot you. :)
@dannie-Michael Ware has been on top of this stuff from the very beginning. I think he might have been the first tv reporter that I saw talk about the death squads. Independent journalists have been writing about them for years. It's actually been going on for a long time-the info just took a while to break into the mainstream media.
@eliza - I'm annoyed now and it was 10-15 YEARS ago. At the time I thought I was going to experience Plane Rage. Was fantasizing about pulling open one of those doors and sliding down the escape chute and making a mad dash for the terminal.
And when I found out they kept us in pens like cattle so they could draw more PAY... well, slkdfroiweurowefnkjdsfjsdnfs!! If I'd known that at the time, simple assault might have happened.
@eliza: Being told about tortured bodies is one thing; being shown those bodies is quite another. Even the most vivid descriptions (in print or on television) couldn't possibly have the impact that these images had.
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