Freaky Friday (not the movie)

oday I came across a couple of stories that caused me to come very near to choking on my tongue (is that possible?) and writhing to the point of near concussion. The second of these stories dates from February 2008 but, what can I say, sometimes I’m a little slow on the uptake.

Freaky Friday Stories:

1.  A Muslim family was removed from an AirTran Airways flight at Reagan National Airport on New Year’s Day after paranoid, non-Muslim passengers overheard a “suspicious” discussion. Passengers on an AirTran Airways flight overheard members of a Muslim benignly discussing “the safest place in an airplane” and, the next thing the Irfan family knew, nine nine of their relatives, including three small children, were taken off the flight and detained by security. 

Sadly, Atif Irfan, a 29-year-old Alexandria, VA, lawyer, admitted:

“My wife and I are generally very careful about what we say when we step on the plane,” adding that they have received suspicious looks in the past. “We’re used to this sort of thing — but obviously not to this extent.” Irfan said he thought he and the others were profiled because of their appearance. The men had beards and the women wore headscarves, traditional Muslim attire. (Source: CNN.com)

Irfan felt that the FBI agents treated him and his family with the utmost decency and “professionalism.” Unfortunately, Irfan could not say the same for the representatives from AirTran who, he felt, disrespected his family and his faith:

“Really, at the end of the day, we’re not out here looking for money. I’m an attorney. I know how the court system works. We’re basically looking for someone to say … ‘We’re apologizing for treating you as second-class citizens.’ ” he said. (Source: CNN.com)

At first, unbelievably, AirTran would not rebook the Irfan family. Eventually, after having convened with AirTran officials, the airline offered to refund the Irfan’s airfare for their original trip (that they missed) and to reimburse them for the replacement tickets that they had to purchase themselves.

Good grief.

Finally, as of this afternoon, AirTran has issued the following “apology”/statement:

“We apologize to all of the passengers — to the nine who had to undergo extensive interviews from the authorities and to the 95 who ultimately made the flight,” the statement said. “Nobody on Flight 175 reached their destination on time on New Year’s Day, and we regret it.” (Source: Associated Press/MSN.com)

AirTran finally apologized to this poor family, yet lumped the entire passenger list into the same statement???

Please tell me we are better than this.

2. Anne Trubek’s article on GOODmagazine.com entitled “Stop Teaching Handwriting.” In case that title is too abstract for you, please allow me to translate: Trubek makes the (ridiculously negligent) argument that handwriting is hazardous to our children’s health and should be heretofore dropped from the primary school curriculum (following in the steps of the Kiwis). Trubek (not to be confused with that A-hole Alex Trebek) advocates for the elimination of penmanship instruction due to the near-fatal blows to her child’s self-esteem. See, if your kid, like Trubek’s, can’t produce a legible lower-case “g” then, well, your kid will need an unlimited supply of therapy and will most likely start twitching and convulsing every time s/he approaches someone by the name of Gregg. (*Sidenote: I grew up with a kid named Gregg Flagg. How traumatic would THAT be if you were “g”-deficient??)

Anyway, making an argument based on potential blows to a child’s self-esteem holds no relevance as far as I’m concerned. Anything and everything could cause a child to have increased low self-esteem. I mean, I experienced anxiety every day in my elementary school lunchroom because, unlike my friends, I never had actual fruit in my little brown bag. The closest I came was Del Monte Diced Peaches in Heavy Syrup. And a Hostess Apple Pie, which was really, like, 99% sugar. Meanwhile, my friends’ mothers clearly cared more for them, because they were busy wolfing down crispy apple slices and anally peeled orange skins in impressive, unending ringlets.

But, once lunch was over and I sulked back into our classroom, you know what always boosted my confidence level? Handwriting exercises in our huge writing tablets with our huge pencils and huge erasers nearby. My mom may have been anti-fruit, but I had near-perfect penmanship and knew exactly what to do with those dotted lines. Sometimes I even added little flourishes at the end of my hugely scripted words. Why? Just because I could, that’s why. 

Amazingly, Trubek is a freelance writer (!) and a college professor; yet, she claims:

The only time I pick up a pen is to sign a credit-card receipt. Let’s stop brutalizing our kids with years of drills on the proper formation of a cursive capital “S”—handwriting is a historical blip in the long history of writing technologies, and it’s time to consign to the trash heap this artificial way of making letters, along with clay tablets, smoke signals, and other arcane technologies. (Source: GOODmagazine.com)

Artificial?!? SMOKE SIGNALS?!?!? I don’t even know what she’s talking about. How is the use of our own hand/finger motions artificial, but pressing a button to produce a letter NOT? Whatever. I’m just glad that carrier pigeons are apparently still on the “KEEP AROUND” list.

So… like Trubek, I am also a freelance writer and a college “professor” (ABD, d@mn it!). And, as I’ve transitioned from my role as grad student into my role as instructor, I have found that some students now prefer to take “notes” on their laptops rather than on old-school with pen-on-loose-leaf paper. Which begs another question: is loose-leaf paper becoming obsolete?? Poor Mead. Still, of the 20 students in my writing class last semester, only two of them consistently brought their laptops to class for note-taking purposes (or, as I occasionally suspect, for IM/Facebook/E-mail/surf-the-internet- purposes as well, which I generally try not to think about as I’m teaching). The vast majority of the class still uses an “artificial” pen and “artificially” writes in a notebook, often mapping the discussion in a way that would be rather impossible on a computer. Furthermore: have you heard of BLUE BOOKS?!?

So, I’m sorry, but I refuse to accept that handwriting is an unnecessary skill. Also: what about Post-Its?! EVERYBODY uses Post-Its. I mean, come ON!

Anyway. Enough about Trubek and her unfortunately ungifted-at-handwriting son. But, still, I bet he compensates for his illegibility in another area… like, say, dodgeball.

*Post-Script: I prefer not to enter “handwriting vs. computer” territory because it will only make me very angry and very sad. As someone whose art most often relies on my lettering skills, I find it more and more frustrating to hear proponents of technology-as-more-efficient. Certainly, computers and various software programs grant opportunities for quick, large-scale reproductions; however, the handwritten word will always hold more weight and intimacy and historical/personal relevance as far as I’m concerned. How sad our world would be if we no longer wrote each other notes or postcards or love letters? or Post-Its? 

*Post-Post-Script: I am currently obsessed with the following book, and I suggest that you all take a gander if you have any interest/appreciation for the handwritten word:

*Post-Post-Post-Script: National Handwriting Day is January 23rd.