I caught this piece in the Times a couple of days ago and forgot to call
it out. I thought it was hilarious in a kind of, “Give me a break/Lighten Up America” way. The essence of the piece is
this: a woman named Lorrie Heasley was booted from a Southwest Airlines flight recently because she wore
a shirt that featured pictures of
Bush, Cheney and Condi Rice with a caption that read, “Meet the Fockers”…except that it didn’t exactly say Fockers,
if you catch my drift.
It seems that several passengers complained about the shirt, and asked flight attendants to do something about it. It
was too much to ask, it seems, for them to avert their gaze or put their attention on “ignore”. And believe it or not,
Southwest actually has a contract that allows airline personnel to remove passengers wearing clothing that is “lewd,
obscene or patently offensive.” Or they can ask that person to remove the offensive clothing…which itself raises
interesting questions about what is lewd, obscene or patently offensive (boobs or bad words..take your pick).
Anyway, the matter caused a small furor among bloggers,
radio show hosts, and
free speech advocates. Many articles and
bloggers pointed out (rightly so, I would think) that the offensive word is question is so common nowadays that we
shouldn’t really care (apparently none of the people who complained watch much Deadwood, let alone the Sopranos). What
was objectionable, they say, was more likely the political message rather than the obscenity. Either way, whether you
find the piece an entertaining comment on the ongoing culture wars in America or just plain silly, it’s worth a
read.