Evil's in the EYES ... The EYES
February 24, 2005 4:53 PM   Subscribe

He looked so angry. And he wouldn't look directly at me. Michael Smerconish pens an article detailing the memories of a airline ticket clerk's encounter with Mohammed Atta on Sept. 11, 2001. Others react, pointing out that you should act on your gut instinct, and completely attack/defend against those who creep you out. Write your congresspersons, and put a stop to angry looking people, today!
posted by Wulfgar! (28 comments total)
 
Was the "gut instinct" due to racism or due to other behavior that he picked up upon? Not too clear, either way.

Anyhow, the government doesn't nail employees for the latter, and in fact, at many steps during a flight — well before 9/11 — staff from check-in to customs are trained to look for suspicious behavior.

The article pretty clearly tries to rationalize racist behavior under a weak veil of "national security". But not surprising, given it is the Philadelphia Daily News.
posted by AlexReynolds at 5:03 PM on February 24, 2005


My gut instinct is to not follow a link to Michelle Malkin.
posted by homunculus at 5:20 PM on February 24, 2005


What was the point of the Michelle Malkin link? It just lead to a blog post of the same article.

I love articles that end with sentences like "We need more like this guy." Yeah, I'm sure he's a model human being. Unless you're talking about Mother Theresa, or, in this crowd, HST, one of every person is more than enough.
posted by graventy at 5:28 PM on February 24, 2005


It's not like people need to be told to be more paranoid now... and if we weren't paranoid enough before then hurray... At least we can remember such a time. Don't people get sick of siege mentality?
posted by missbossy at 5:28 PM on February 24, 2005


What was the point of the Michelle Malkin link? It just lead to a blog post of the same article.

"It's a vital lesson for all of us to listen to our gut instincts the next time around, so there isn't another next time around."

You asked, dude.
posted by Wulfgar! at 5:33 PM on February 24, 2005


Smerconish is the biggest putz in Philly. How this asshole get a radio show, TV spots and a newspaper column (OK, it is the Daily News) is beyond me.
posted by fixedgear at 5:39 PM on February 24, 2005


There exists so many signs and subtle clues to a persons outward behavior echoing his/her inner world, from out right screaming anger to smiley passive aggressive taunts,. I find it hard to imagine grasping just a few of them and then with those I do receive I have to consciously double check to see if I'm projecting my own shadow, my own negative crap.
posted by alteredcarbon at 6:09 PM on February 24, 2005


Christ on a cracker. I used to work in a multiplex; if I'd tried to take down every person who seemed angry, or who refused to make eye contact, or who looked like a walking corpse, I'd have performed dozens of citizen's arrests per day.
posted by hilatron at 6:27 PM on February 24, 2005


1 out of 1,000,000,000 arabs may hijack a plane. I like those odds.

/numbers pulled out of my ass, but you get the idea
posted by adzm at 6:32 PM on February 24, 2005


And subconsciously, I said to myself, 'If they don't look like Arab terrorists, nothing does.' "

Give me a break.

Okay, he's feeling like he could have done something. Fair enough. But he's working the ticket counter. He's not on the friggin' Minority Report squad.

If dirty looks could kill, we'd all be terrorists.
posted by RockCorpse at 6:56 PM on February 24, 2005


One would hope that truly angry people would be questioned before they get on airplanes. I know I've had to sit next to some pretty unhinged people who made the flight a living hell for all involved.

It's hard to say, however, how good our gut instincts are. Atta looks like a terrifying person, probably the scariest person I have ever seen, but I'm not sure I can separate my image of him from the knowledge I have of his actions. I think we are deluding ourselves if we trust our memories of people, as much as we are if we claim we can we can trust our instincts.

I only say this because I lived in a small city and frequently saw a man who turned out to be a genuine mass-murderer, a real monster. To this day, I really can't sort out my memories of him from the horror of the experience.

But this Michele Malkin really creeps me out. If I see her headed for a clock tower, I'm outta there.
posted by gesamtkunstwerk at 7:04 PM on February 24, 2005


Can I file a report about a terrorist who is bald and under two feet tall? Then finally I might be able to fly without sitting next to a crying baby.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:10 PM on February 24, 2005


If dirty looks could kill, we'd all be terrorists.

So true, so true.

Incidentally, my instinct is telling me that I need to have Faint of Butt arrested. Dunno why. Instinct.
posted by davejay at 8:00 PM on February 24, 2005


I feel for this guy. He wants to feel that he could have done something. And Atta may very well have unsettled him, and appeared exceedingly creepy.

But, that's not grounds to actually do anything, nor is that taking into account any of the angry-seeming people who are basically harmless, or the calm-seeming people who may have run from the airport later to smother someone to death. And sure, he may be a little racist, but according to Avenue Q, everyone is.

He's the guy who unwittingly sold one of the tickets to 9/11. He has a right to nurse ill feelings.

Malkin, on the other hand, is a fucking whack job.
posted by Sticherbeast at 8:34 PM on February 24, 2005


Simple truth is all of us, at one time or another, get creeped out by someone for no particular reason. Does it mean anything? Not to me...but it might to you. So I guess my point is moot. But I do live in Philly and know this guy.

Smerconish kind of blew into Philly like so much unwanted flatulence. He's like some used car salesman trying to get you to buy something you really don't have much interest in. He obviously comes from the mindset that radio listeners flip around a lot because every two seconds he's pounding away the days forensic topic, pleading for callers. I have to admit though, he gets some PR mileage out of his antics.
posted by j.p. Hung at 9:01 PM on February 24, 2005


Michelle Malkin:

In my guts, I know she's nuts.
posted by Reverend Mykeru at 9:09 PM on February 24, 2005


And subconsciously, I said to myself, 'If they don't look like Arab terrorists, nothing does.'


this line is BS. It's something you tell the reporters after the fact to seem important. He didn't think a thing except "rich bastards flying first class to LA" or "damn foreigners", but now that he has the opportunity to get his 15 minutes, it's "I KNEW THEY WERE TERRORISTS ALL ALONG!"
posted by ParemosLasMaquinas at 9:33 PM on February 24, 2005


I find it hard to imagine grasping just a few of them and then with those I do receive I have to consciously double check to see if I'm projecting my own shadow, my own negative crap.

The hardest part is making the shadow conscious. That's why Jung called it the shadow.

Robert Bly, who spoke here to the Institute eight years ago, wrote a small, excellent book on the human shadow. One of the most effective metaphors he uses to describe the shadow is that of a long bag that we drag around behind us. He says we come into the world with a 360-degree personality. Then we start putting in the bag all the parts of our personality that our parents, our teachers, and later our friends do not like... Whenever we feel loss of energy, we can assume that energy is trapped in the bag. Whatever we have put into the bag regresses into a more primitive state as a result of being caught there.

The contents of the bag get our attention by being projected out onto other people. The shadow identifies itself with some opinion or institution, or, most often, with someone of the same sex who we strongly dislike. That is the way the material in the bag notifies us that it’s there. So the first stage is recognizing that certain people and certain situations repetitively attract our ire. The second stage requires the difficult realization that most often those characteristics we single out in others are actually reminiscent of the unacceptable parts of ourselves...


"Who is it that can tell me who I am?"
posted by y2karl at 9:46 PM on February 24, 2005


ParemosLasMaquinas - you're exactly right.
posted by davebush at 10:00 PM on February 24, 2005


Smerconish rates movies on his website.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: 1/5
Starsky and Hutch: 4/5
posted by davebush at 10:09 PM on February 24, 2005


Spot on y2karl.
posted by alteredcarbon at 10:12 PM on February 24, 2005


As someone who smiles too much and stares at people's ear when they speak to me, I don't look forward to the illegalization of creepiness.
posted by spazzm at 12:32 AM on February 25, 2005


Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: 1/5
Starsky and Hutch: 4/5


From that, I know that Smerconish is an enemy of all that is good, in my gut. He must be imprisoned.

I really don't get how idiots like this get a national forum. Smerconish: he absolutely will not be able to separate reality from creation in his mind. He no longer has any idea what his real reaction was on that day -- it has been completely obliterated by what happened after 9/11. Most people don't seem to grasp how incredibly fallible their memory is, particularly in the grip of powerful emotions stirred up by something as momentous as 9/11.

As for Malkin: even if we take her seriously (which it is hard to do with such a raving idiot), all that would happen if security people acted seriously on everybody's "gut instinct" is that security would grind to a halt and become useless. There would be so many false alarms as to make airport security completely useless.

But whatever makes Malkin's brain-dead fantasy world feel safe.
posted by teece at 3:10 AM on February 25, 2005


Reg required? Is there a MeFi login/password?
posted by Oriole Adams at 8:22 AM on February 25, 2005


Re: reg required. There wasn't at first. They must have a "if the hits go over XX make 'em reg" thingie installed.

Re: MM. I read it, noted the two uses of "!' (which made it seem very amatuerish) and thought, this is a real journalist? Then, I saw that it was by MM. Guess that answers the question...
posted by e40 at 9:29 AM on February 25, 2005


Jackie Pflug noticed a strange man aboard Egypt Air flight 648. He was perspiring heavily, despite the cool weather, and when he sat down he protectively guarded his briefcase, loudly chastising a passenger who bumped it. His eyes kept darting back and forth, he seemed restless, and Jackie put on her Walkman to distract herself from his odd behavior. When the events unfolded, he indeed turned out to be one of several terrorists that hijacked the plane.

In the early 1990s, I was in line for check-in at Heathrow Airport. I happened to notice a swarthy-looking man in a jumpsuit (similar to a mechanic) walking past a large "NO SMOKING" sign with a cigarette dangling from his mouth onto a jetway and into a waiting plane. When he came back in, I noticed he didn't have an ID badge pinned to his suit like the other employees had. I was getting jumpy, but my travel companion implied that I was making something out of nothing, so I kept my counsel. Our flight left without incident, so it turned out to be providential that I hadn't said anything.

Bottom line, gut instincts are probably wrong as often as they're right. Can we really start acting on each one "just in case"?
posted by Oriole Adams at 10:10 AM on February 25, 2005


Unless you're talking about Mother Theresa, or, in this crowd, HST, one of every person is more than enough.

One Mother Teresa is plenty, too. People who do charity work are great. People who refuse charity to people who refuse to accept Jesus as their lord and savior, forsaking their own ancient religion, are not.

/off topic
posted by salad spork at 10:13 AM on February 25, 2005


Babies need to travel too, Faint of Butt.
posted by agregoli at 10:23 AM on February 25, 2005


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