Sticking to My Stance

There have been stories in the news lately that Steven Slater was the rude person on the flight from Pittsburgh to New York on Jet Blue.  I think it is odd that it took so long to find passengers who were unhappy with Steven Slater’s service.  I think there is more to the story than the media is telling.

The story that is not being told is that the higher-ups are all against Steven Slater.  They made sure to sneak their opinion early as the story unfolded.  They sneaked in the “Somebody could have gotten hurt” line referring to when he disengaged the emergency chute.  They claimed that he “stole” the two beers even though that theft isn’t one of the trumped up charges against him.  Then they went out of their way to mention that he was having sex with his boyfriend when the police arrested him.  Since there were no disgruntled passengers to interview at that time, the media subliminally went anti-gay.

The media thought they had a coup when Slater’s ex-wife was interviewed.  The coup was failed because she had nothing but nice things to say about her ex-husband.  They did find somebody three days layer who claimed to be on that flight.  She just happened to be at the airport and the media just happened to know she was on that flight.

I was raised to question what you are told and to make sure there is no ulterior motive in the person giving information.  That means researching everything and asking questions.  This is how I was able to find out where babies come from despite my parents telling me that they came from storks.

I have every reason to believe Steven Slater’s side of the story and to dismiss the countless accusations otherwise.  Let this be a lesson to question everything the media tells you.

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Steven Slater is My Hero

Steven Slater was a Jet Blue flight attendant.  He was best known for a series of incidents that occurred yesterday.  There was a plane from either Pittsburgh or Honolulu (I often confuse the two cities) that just landed and was about to approach the gate.  An unruly passenger ignored the standard instructions of not leaving the seat until the plane came to the complete stop.  Mr. Slater approached the man and reminded him that he had to be seated because the plane had not stopped.  The passenger ignored him and got his bag from the overhead compartment.  The bag hit Steven Slater in the head.

Slater went on the public address system and said some words unfit for this blog.  He grabbed a couple beers and left the plane by the escape ramp.  He grabbed his bags at the bag area and went home.  He was soon arrested and brought to a nearby jail for processing.

This reminded me of my last day as a movie theater manager.  The theater had just increased the prices of movies from $6.25 to $7.00 and the price of concessions also spiked up.  The movie “Oceans 11” did well in many theaters, but the massive price increases killed the revenues of the theater.  The following weekend, I lowered the price of admission to $3.00, a large drink to $1.49 and a large popcorn to $1.49.  Word got around and the theater was full.  The concession stands were busy.  The theater made money even after the price cuts.

The regional manager came down that Monday and fired me.  I wanted to show my displeasure without ruining the movie going experience of those who have been faithful to the theater.  The plan was simple:  Make a reel-to-reel movie explaining what I did and why I did it and to boycott the movie theater.  I borrowed my parent’s reel-to-reel video recorder and recorded my message.

When I returned to the theater, I was able to convince Lou the custodian that I took home a trailer reel and needed to return it to the projection room.  It was difficult, but I was able to switch the faceplate of the trailer of “Shrek” to the reel I provided.

I bought a ticket for that evening’s show going  incognito  and sitting in the back.  The movie came out pretty good and people seemed to be preceptive to the message.  There was stuff on the film already, but I didn’t realize that until after the message was over.  It was a movie of my parents enjoying each other’s company on the kitchen counter.  The images scarred the unsuspecting minds of the moviegoers and especially mine.  I wouldn’t eat at my parents for six months.

This video is dedicated to courageous people like Steven Slater and hoping more people will be like him: