Joe Sharkey At Large

A passenger barely makes his connection after another “weather-related event.” (right)

I don’t know how much weirder air travel can become in this memorable Summer of 2007. Have a look at the following report on a two-foot-long wing section that fell off a Northwest Airlines DC9 into somebody’s back yard. The flight was later grounded, but Northwest said the missing wing chunk was “not a safety issue.”

“McFARLAND, Wis. (AP) - A southeastern Wisconsin family found what appeared to be a piece of a Northwest Airlines plane in their back yard.

‘I was coming out with the laundry basket to hang my laundry, and I noticed … a large, large piece of metal in my yard,’ Judy St. Clair told WISC-TV in Madison. ‘I thought, Oh, my goodness. That looks like an airplane wing. But I thought, How can that be?’

The two-foot-long chunk of metal tore through the branches of the ash tree in her back yard.

St. Clair said she turned it over to McFarland authorities, who alerted the Federal Aviation Administration.

WISC-TV confirmed with Northwest Airlines that after Flight 1449 from Detroit landed in Madison at 9:21 a.m. Wednesday, an inspection revealed a missing flap. The DC-9’s return flight to Detroit was grounded.

The airline said it was investigating. ‘The approximate 2-foot-long piece used to reduce drag was not a flight safety issue,’ airline spokesman Dean Breest said.

Northwest said it wanted to make sure the found part was from its plane before commenting further.”

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An update on the “Camp for Climate Action” global-warming protests planned for Tuesday through the following Tuesday near Heathrow Airport, already the most screwed-up major airport in the world:

It’s hard to say how many people will show up for the week-long “encampment,” which has the potential to further disrupt Heathrow (if that’s possible).

In a move widely denounced in London as boneheaded, BAA, the Spanish company that runs the airport, provided copious free publicity to the protest earlier this month when it blustered into the High Court, like Manuel from Fawlty Towers rushing out of a smoke-filled kitchen, babbling about seeking an injunction that would allow police to arrest people on public transit who merely appeared to be headed for the protest.

The High Court, demonstrating why Britain should have thought about getting itself a proper Constitution a long time ago, gave BAA a bit of what it wanted, allowing for the prior restraint of several leaders of the protesting groups. But the sweeping injunction sought by BAA was denied.

However, the publicity will probably do wonders for turn-out.

The umbrella organization for the Climate Camp has now announced the site.

And it’s interesting to see that the groups, who had previously maintained that there would be no direct action to disrupt Heathrow, seem to have changed their tune. Now they’re promising “civil disobedience” and “direct action” that “will cost the aviation industry dearly.” I’d say they have been emboldened by BAA’s invincibly stupid reaction to what might otherwise have been a minor event consisting of a couple of hundred eco-zealots in a field clanging pot lids and wailing that “aviation is not a necessity.” (Which it isn’t, if you’ve got nowhere to go).

No matter how many people show up, it’s difficult to predict what opportunities the more “activist” among them might actually have to take “direct action.” Certainly, the police will be mobilized in force. It might well be that the “direct action” consists of disrupting access roads and traffic.

But it could be more.

If I had a choice (and lucky for me I do), I’d avoid Heathrow as much as possible. I’d especially be wary starting this Tuesday. Indications are that the “direct action” part of the protest will be on Sunday, Aug. 19 through Monday, Aug. 20.

And campers: Do Not Enter the Kool-Aid Tent Unless Instructed by the Tranquility Team! Among the Camp’s announcements is this bizarre one, under the “Practicalities” section:

“General Camp emergency”

“The camp has an emergency bell which we will demonstrate on site. If you here this alarm, stop what you are doing, stand still, and wait until you get further instructions from the tranquillity team.” [Spellings sic]

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Why you never, ever want to spend even one summer day in the Hamptons.

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(Wildwood, NJ, above)

Here’s another example of why you can’t trust the advice on online leisure-travel sites, not to mention the advice given by a lot of travel writers.

USA Today has an AP story this morning on the ‘Top 10 Amusement Parks Outside Orlando” as determined by TripAdvisor.com. On the list: Coney Island.

Coney Island was once a great amusement park center. From the late 188os till about 1964.

Today, besides an ancient roller coaster, the Cyclone, that many aficionados love, the place is basically a beach, a hot dog stand, and a boardwalk with some storefronts. The “amusement park” — doomed to demolition this fall — is something on the order of what you’d see at the St. Adalbert’s annual carnival.

Trust me, Coney is not worth a side trip if you’re visiting New York.

A place that should be on any such list (but knowing about it would require that a writer –egad!–actually travel): the seashore/boardwalk town of Wildwood, N.J.

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Audacity, the old joke goes, is murdering your parents and then throwing yourself on the mercy of the court because you are an orphan.

But Northwest Airlines continues to write new definitions for the word. Today, Northwest Airlines proudly announced that it has again been chosen as the “charter airline” for the Indianapolis Colts, Super Bowl XLI champions, for the coming NFL season.

Northwest said will utilize Boeing 757 and 747 aircraft, as well as anAirbus A330, to support the Colts’ 10 road trips during the 2007 season.

“Northwest Airlines is pleased to be an official sponsor of the Indianapolis Colts and transport the team for the seventh consecutive year,” said Bill Wernecke, director of charter department for Northwest.

Northwest described its charter operations this way: “One of the preferred charter carriers in the college and professional sports world, Northwest will serve as charter airline for a number of athletic teams in 2007, including 10 NCAA Division I college football teams and eight NFL teams.”

Well. Isn’t that nice. They’re diverting 757s, 747s and an A330 to charter ops.

And what is it those of us without Super Bowl rings most associate these days with Northwest Airlines?

Delays! Cancellations! Unavailability of extra airplanes to handle demand! Service that evokes Albania in 1972!

Here’s some news Northwest wasn’t crowing about yesterday. In July, according to FlightStats.com, Northwest cancelled 1,895 flights, the most by far of any airline. In August, with no real relief in sight, Northwest has reduced its schedule by another four percent.

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If you’re traveling in Bangkok this summer and you happen to see a cop wearing an armband with a pink Hello Kitty face on it, do not be unduly alarmed. It just means the officer has committed a minor departmental infraction, like showing up for work late, and is being punished by having to wear a humiliating pink armband depicting a cute kitty cat, as reported today in the Times.

“It will be very embarrassing to walk around with Hello Kitty on your arm,” one officer confided to the paper, which added: “Stronger measures could be next for corruption and other more serious infractions.”

Like the Garfield Guilt Seal? The Snoopy Sash of Sorrow? Or, horrors: the Cathy Badge!

–end

Some of the usual suspects in the media were quick to accept the New Republic’s strange defense last week that it had checked out its Baghdad Diarist’s questionable reports from Iraq about witnessing astonishing atrocities by fellow soldiers in Iraq and found them to be accurate, citing anonymous corroborators.

Nevertheless, the New Republic observed piously, the Army, in launching its own internal investigation, has short-circuited that of the New Republic’s intrepid editors.

Wait a minute: Jayzus, their defense is based on anonymous sources!

I think this war is an atrocity that will haunt even my children’s generation, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to buy into some obviously phony reporting by a clearly questionable character who happens to be married to a New Republic reporter/researcher. (In journalism talk, that title means glorified editorial clerk).

And by the way, I had no similar problems with the veracity of recent, solid reporting on the same subject in the Nation magazine.

But from the get-go, it seemed to me, the florid writing by this chump, whose real name turns out to be Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp, smelled wrong. By the way, that’s Pvt. as in private and not even Pfc. as in private first class. For a buck private, as I said in the initial post on this subject on July 26, that Beauchamp boy did seem to have an awful lot of mobility.

The Weekly Standard now is reporting online that Our Hero has confessed to fabricating the allegations. The New Republic — scene of the infamous Stephen Glass fabrications — has continued to stand by them. For how long?

[Update, Aug. 8 -- The Army issued this statement yesterday: "An investigation has been completed and the allegations by Pvt. Beauchamp were found to be false. His platoon and his company were interviewed and no one could substantiate the claims." The New Republic, despite admitting that one of the anecdotes it published was false, continues to stand by the other stories.]

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France’s new right-wing president, Nicolas Sarkozy, ran for office with an image campaign that depicted him as the man on a white horse. But you can trust me on this: That ain’t a horse M. Sarkozy is riding (above).

It is a pony.

And if you look at the video from which the above still is taken (sorry, no link available), you will see that the great equestrian is bouncing around on his saddle at a slow canter while trying to balance himself with a tight rein. Meaning the poor horse — I mean, pony — is getting thumped on its back and yanked on its mouth. That’s the definition of lousy horsemanship.

Dismounted, Mr. Sarkozy recently shocked the French establishment by taking a summer vacation at an expensive lakefront estate in New Hampshire. While on his boat Sunday on Lake Winnipesaukee, N.H., Sarkozy “lost his temper with two American news photographers covering his vacation, jumping onto their boat and scolding them loudly in French,” according to WBZ Radio in Boston, which interviewed the photographers.

The photographers had received permission from a security patrol boat to photograph Sarkozy from a distance. The men said they watched through their lenses as Sarkozy gestured toward them and his boat began moving in their direction. Coming alongside the photographers’ boat, an infuriated Sarkozy, clad in swim trunks, jumped on board and began shouting at them in French, which neither photographer understood

[My note: To their credit, the photographers whose boat was illegally boarded by the crazed Frenchman did not shout after him: " .... and the horse -- er, pony -- you rode in on!"]

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Michael Boyd, of the Boyd Group consulting and forecasting firm, is one of the most incisive analysts of the aviation industry. Even though airline customer service is horrible and getting worse, as delays and cancellations mount, the airline industry is profitable now after many years of loses. But a crunch is coming, Mr. Boyd predicts in his weekly report today (scroll down to “Aviation Industry: Start the Revolution”) .

The F.A.A. — a favorite target of Mr. Boyd — has failed miserably to keep up with demand while squandering huge sums of money, he says, and a real “fuel hammer” is coming this fall, meaning “the airline industry may have run out of time” to get things fixed.

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You can’t fix stupid, as the classic line by the standup comedian Ron White goes.

But you sure can define it. And today it takes only three letters: BAA.

The British Airports Authority (BAA) — the company that runs Heathrow and other airports in Britain and around the world — really hit the publicity jackpot when it went to court in London requesting a sweeping injunction against a planned week-long environmental protest near Heathrow starting Aug. 14.

The protest is called the Camp for Climate Action. Its organizers want to block any expansion of Heathrow, but more generally they want to draw attention to aviation as a source of CO2 emissions that contribute to the climate change crisis. They also intend, a statement says, to “raise awareness of the need to fly less.”

Organizers of the encampment have said they plan at least one day of active protests to disrupt Heathrow operations. They said will not do anything illegal like attempt to block runways, though they been clear that other unspecified “peaceful” protest tactics are being planned. The encampment is to be held at so-far unspecified sites near the airport.

OK, that could mean problems, and BAA Heathrow of course has every right to make preparations to minimize them. After all, Heathrow already firmly holds the title as the world’s most screwed-up major airport. Heathrow is designed to handle 45 million passengers a year, and it now handles more than 67 million. And hair-trigger British security authorities have added to the chaos with arbitrary new hassles.

But what does BAA Heathrow do? It rushes to the High Court in London applying for an injunction that, according to British press reports, would provide for the widespread arrest of protesters bound for the airport.

How, you might ask, could this amazing feat be accomplished in a democratic nation with ancient legal traditions with names like habeas corpus?

Well, BAA — which is owned by the Spanish company Ferrovial — asked the British court to give police the authority to pre-emptively arrest identifiable members of 15 separate environmental and preservation groups as they make their way to the airport. BAA included in its request the ability to have Heathrow-bound passengers arrested on the Piccadilly underground line, and even at Paddington Station, where protesters would board the BAA-owned Heathrow Express. The Piccadilly line has since been dropped from the request.

And who are these scary environmental groups? Well, some are well-known activists coalitions, including AirportWatch. PlaneStupid is another. Groups such as the National Trust also are among the suspects. You know the National Trust, the big preservation organization that looks after 612,000 acres of British countryside and coastline, as well as hundreds of historic properties?

The president of the National Trust is Prince Charles. The previous president was his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, who is now presumably off the hook when the coppers come round looking for provocateurs. Up against the wall, Charley boy! Here’s a coin to call yer old Mum.

The court is still trying to sort out BAA’s application for the injunction.

[Update, Friday, Aug. 3 -- The High Court said it would rule Monday on the injunction request. Meanwhile, a leader of one of the protest groups said BAA's bungling had brought unanticipated widespread attention to the event. "BAA has done all my press work for me," said John Stewart, who heads Hacan Clearskies, a group of Heathrow-area residents who have organized to stop airport expansion and reduce noise. "The injunction is just one long press release for us." Stewart was quoted in the Richmond and Twickenham Times newspapers.]

BAA, digging itself deeper, reacted to the uproar and ridicule by really saying it only wanted to block illegal protesters bound for Heathrow, and maybe just their ringleaders. It was widely pointed out that (outside of Franco’s Spain and similar prescient law-enforcement environments) you couldn’t really tell who was going to be an illegal protester until they actually got to the airport sites and did something against the law.

As drafted, the injunction would conceivably cover 5 million citizens of Great Britain, the newspapers pointed out.

In a statement, BAA replied: “Contrary to media reports, the injunction will not affect anyone lawfully traveling to and from Heathrow Airport.” [My italics] BAA said that the injunction “will only affect those individuals who wish to [my italics] conduct harassment, trespass, obstruction and/or use any unlawful means; to deter obstruct or prevent the lawful operation and/or development of the airport; or to prevent persons from traveling to, from or at the airport.” [Uh, BAA's grammar and punctuation].

OK then. Glad you made that clear, BAA.

Meanwhile, if you’re going through Heathrow in mid-August, watch what you wish for.

[Update, Aug. 6 -- The High Court granted BAA a narrowed version of its sweeping injunction request today in a ruling that nevertheless would have been described in the U.S. as a form of prior restraint, but which the British media seem to find unobjectionable.]

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