I don’t know how many of you caught the story about the woman who wrote an alarmist story about a domestic flight she took recently. The short version is that the flight also had a Syrian band traveling aboard, i.e. a group of Arab men who all seemed to know each other. The woman wrote this article for Women’s Wall Street and backed up her racially motivated fears with research after the fact (this is what we call rationalization).
Well, it turns out the whole thing was an episode of over-the-top hysterics by a closet wannabe racist. Salon had a good column on this and finally, we have a post at Salon’s blogs that runs down the latest on this saga, including some details that indicate the woman may have misstated some of the details in her story and some stupid ideas that people are now advocating as a result.
Of course, you can read her followup piece of hysteria if you want her updated side of the story. It basically consists of what ifs that have no foundation in fact.





August 6th, 2004 at 3:44 pm
Can’t find it right now, but one of the blogs (Atrios, maybe?) linked to an article that interviewed the air marshalls on that flight, and they indicated that they were concerned that her hysterics could actually be a plot to get them disclose their identities.
Looks like the original story cycled off the page, but you can check out Atrios’ post.