Deborah Wolfe, a Canadian citizen who was just breast-feeding her son and changing his diaper while en route between Houston and Vancouver, says her "subversive" actions led to her being threatened with detainment, RCMP involvement and legal charges for terrorist action against a U.S. citizen in international airspace while on an American flight during a time of war....
Wolfe began to nurse the baby again, using her own bib and blanket. She says the man got out of his seat, walked over to hers and stood staring at her. She says she approached him afterward and twice asked if he had a problem with her feeding her son.
"He marched past me and to the very back of the cabin to talk to the flight attendant," she wrote. "He told her, 'This woman just assaulted me.' ... He then explained that the asking of two questions by a 'foreign national' in international airspace made him feel the victim of terror and as such he wanted to file an assault charge."
She says the flight attendants also began to call her and her travelling party "foreign nationals in international airspace on an international flight during a time of war." And she was informed both of the complaint and that it could be upgraded to a Level 3, which meant possible mandatory detainment by U.S. authorities for 24 hours, RCMP involvement and criminal charges for an act of war upon an American.
Fly Air Canada. They have prettier planes.
PS...Turtablism is, I'm told, 'the act of spinning vinyl records on turntables and "scratching."'
Posted by aloysius at April 22, 2003 08:34 PM |In my experience Continental is better than Northwest about infants. I have had several screaming arguments with Northwest employees ("aren't you even going to try to fix my stroller that the baggage people broke so I can get out of the airport?") At least the plane in question had a changing table in the restroom.
Airlines can be really weird about kids. The last time I had a problem on a plane with a passenger objecting to something related to a small child, I asked the flight attendent in a very loud voice if the offending passenger could please be upgraded to first class.
Wolfe could have smiled sweetly and let the baby get wet and uncomfortable and not nurse during pressure changes. The baby would take its own revenge. That would have made the offending passenger and the flight attendents much more unahppy than the occasional glimpse of tit. She was clearly too good a mother for that.
This isn't so much for me about why Canadians might hate us, except for the bit invoking Homeland Security stuff. It's more about why mothers of small children hate airlines and flight attendents.
Posted by: Kathryn Cramer on April 24, 2003 10:28 AMHi, Kathryn!
There was an editorial in the Economist a couple of years ago with the charming proposal that there should be a segregated class on airlines for under-fives. Of course, it was partly the Economist doing their cutsey Oxbridge let's-play- devil's-advocate-thing, but still: they wouldn't have said it if they didn't think it would strike a chord with a bunch of their readers. I don't doubt for a second that air travel with an infant is something the airlines don't make as easy as they could.
And, to respond to your last point, that homeland security stuff is pretty weird for visitors to the US (as well as some of its citizens, no doubt.) There was a sfnal moment at ICFA this year when CNN announced somberly that the most highly-rated terrorist target in the state - and so the only area with no airplane overflights allowed - was Disney World.
Posted by: Graham Sleight on April 24, 2003 03:26 PM