The right whingers are like a bunch of children at summer camp sitting around the camfire and trying to scare each other silly with ghost stories. The only difference though, is that the children at summer camp never succeed in doing it.

I posted this at Michelle Malkin’s site also, because I have solved the mystery.
Having travelled in the Middle East, it sure looks to me like prayer time. Muslims pray 5 times a day at specific times, and before they pray they do ablutions(wash up). That’s why they were all taking turns in in the lav. The nods and eye contact were acknowledging to each other that it was time to pray. The rolled up cloth object was a prayer rug. The congregrating in small groups was just them trying to pray together, discreetly. And yes, many Arab musicians travel around the US to perform in cities with big Arab populations. I’ve got a CD of Simon Shaheen, a famous Syrian musician, recorded live in the US. But I’m going to give Annie the benefit of the doubt and say she was just ignorant and not racist. I really don’t expect the average American to know this stuff. But perhaps the flight attendants could use some training. Striking up a conversation with one of them rather than sitting there getting paranoid is a good idea, but the husband should have done it. A Muslim man is not likely to respond with a big smile to some strange blonde woman who is obviously travelling with her spouse.

Yeah, I started spinning up a Fanatical-Apathy homage skit, with Daoud the oud player explaining this wierd blonde lady who kept checking him out on the airplane, like she wanted him to proposition her, and you know, we’ve all *heard* about Western Women and their insatiable natures, but wallah, there was her ?husband?pimp?sugar daddy? sitting right there, giving them all the evil eye, too, so what was he supposed to do? And even though he gave her the opportunity to “bump into him by accident” in the aisle on the way back from the loo, she never took it, but all the other guys in the band agreed, she was *definitely* hot for him and trying to catch his attention…

Okaaaay, we’re “emotional” as opposed to what, emotional? unemotional? The only things which are unemotional are a) inanimate objects like rocks, chairs, clouds, b) (probably) “lower” life-forms without obvious sentience like algae and maybe protozoa, c) psychopaths.

If she means *irrational* as opposed to possessing feelings, then she should say so, and answer for it. Of course, given the recent Doug Hines “Squeal like a hog!” meme, you have to wonder what AU she’s posting from, if she thinks that only those of us who are XX are irrationally afraid of things.

In any case, the only woman she’s qualified to speak for is MM, unless she routinely hangs around with irrational, terrified, ignorant women instead of well-informed, thoughtful, prudent women like those of us in the Rebellion.

“A Muslim man is not likely to respond with a big smile to some strange blonde woman who is obviously travelling with her spouse.”

I probably wouldn’t smile either. I hate air travel, it always makes me nervous and tense, and I’m not a nice person to be around mid-flight. Or maybe he’s shy, or was having a bad day, or is a very stoic person by nature. It doesn’t even have to be a cultural issue, but that’s yet /another/ level to her possible misunderstandings.

The theme I took from her entire rather paranoid rant is that there are a hundred different completely benign reasons for any one of each of those things that alarmed her.

I’m neurotic by nature (and not in the “women are emotional” way – whatever that is) but if I’d been freaking out over a similar situation, the first thing I’d do once I was safely on the ground is smack myself in the head and try to learn a lesson from my own misguided paranoia.

Not write a column about it.

Yeah, but are you a conservative columnist, twig? That’s the difference right there. They get *paid* not to think, and to do it continuously, and shamelessly, in public.

However, criticizing the emotional tone of the story rings a bit hollow. I know this sounds misogynist to some, but women are “emotional.”

You know, this commenter (my new friend, Blogsomething, the one who works for the anti-Joe Wilson committee, I believe) is right! It was wrong of me to make fun of Annie for saying she was chilled to the bone when that Middle Eastern man gave her a dirty look. I should have realized that Annie is just a woman, and women naturally get hysterical about stuff like that. That’s why God gave gave them husbands.

That’s why God gave gave them husbands.

And that’s also why men shouldn’t marry each other — they don’t need husbands, you see.

And if two women get married, neither one of them will have a husband, and then what are you gonna do?

See, this all makes sense, if you just think it through.

I would pay good money to see a battle of wits between sz and mm. Of course, sz might refuse to battle an unarmed opponent…

PC or no PC, they should have searched them all before they got on the plane. I am liberal/progresive but not a fool like some people on both the right and the left, and understand that common sense needs to win out over knee jerk quota-ism. Search ’em all!