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Last week's NewsNews article for the week of 3/8/10. Gary Coleman calls
the FAA on discriminatory charges Following the suspension of an air traffic controller at JFK airport, former actor Gary Coleman calls the Federal Aviation Administration discriminatory. The air traffic controller was suspended after letting his children, on two separate occasions, communicate his instructions to air planes at JFK airport. Coleman claims that forbidding kids to direct aircraft is discriminating against short people, something that Coleman, allegedly 4' 8”, can obviously find a problem with. Coleman, whose career soared to incredible heights at the age of 10, believes kids and short people should be allowed to do any job they wish and are qualified for, and thus considers the FAA to be doing some very, very bad decisions when it comes to who gets to work in air traffic control. “I mean, who says you need to be tall to work with telling planes where to go? I could understand if it was flying a plane they had problems with, reaching pedals and stuff can be tricky without stilts, but telling people where to go? That's just crazy!” While Coleman's claims that this is discriminatory against short people might seem very far out there, in all actuality, the suspended man, whose name has not been disclosed, was keeping perfect track of what both his son, and his daughter, were saying to pilots, who seemed to have enjoyed the brief radio encounter. From this one can assume that maybe the FFA just hates kids, or that there is, on the door to the JFK tower, a sign that says “you must be this tall to enter.” Which, obviously, would count as discriminating against the short people, meaning Coleman totally has a point. Further affecting the situation is the FAA's refusal to comment on the claims, which frankly just makes them seem even more suspicious. What does the FAA have against short people? While they may not give us a straight answer, Gary Coleman obviously has his theories. The actor said that there was obviously either some sort of serious mistrust against short people high up in the FAA, or that they were all secretly some form of Nazis but nobody has caught them on their “no hiring disabled folks yet” clause(although, to be fair, maybe a deaf air traffic controller is not the most brilliant idea. Unless they planned routes and just sent those to people like that cell phone game, or maybe someone else talked while they directed, or they could sign, or...). Coleman's theories seem to bear some weight, but nothing can be proven conclusively and he might be in a bit of a strange state after suffering a seizure in late February. In his right state of mind or not, everyone should be able to agree that what voice you have does not matter an awful lot when directing air traffic. FAA and NTSB come up with new airline safety directives By Don Hellion After trying to anticipate what the next means of sneaking a bomb onto a plane by hiding it in clothing, the NTSB has decided on a new tactic. Instead of trying to anticipate where a bomb might be concealed next they have come up with a simple yet potentially foolproof solution. Effective on April 1 2010 ALL clothing will be prohibited on commercial flights. Passengers will be required to remove ALL clothing before boarding. The idea behind this new rule is that if people don’t have clothing on then there is no place to conceal a bomb. It also removes the need for metal detectors and body imaging since everything will be hanging out there for all to see. Additionally it pretty much thwarts any attempt to use women as carriers since Muslims will not allow their women’s bodies to be exposed even if they carry the bomb in their womb they will not be allowed to expose their bodies to view by a male so they would not board the plane. As expected a number of religious groups have raised objections, particularly Muslims and fundamentalist Christian groups. An unnamed source responded that since the people using bombs are Muslims. “Of course THEY would object they are the ones that are blowing up things to begin with. And the fundamentalists are no fun. So who cares about them anyway?” The ACLU has stated that they are looking into the new rules violating privacy rights. The FAA’s response is that premature death is the ultimate violation of human rights. Worries about sanitation by bare bottomed babies defecating in the passenger compartment are being addressed by special seat for infants and toddlers with integral potties to contain any waste products children that are not potty trained would be required to be restrained in these special seats for the duration of the flight. There are still a few other logistical issues to resolve one of which is the handling of the passengers clothing that they wear to the airport. People will need to have their clothing available upon arrival one idea is when the passengers surrender their clothing the clothes are thoroughly inspected to make sure there are no devices that could detonate any explosives incorporated in to the fabric and then they are bagged or boxed and loaded into the Cargo pit in a special section. One thing that will have to be done is to make sure that if the plane has a mechanical failure that the clothing is transferred with the passengers to the new plane so they have something to wear on arrival. The NTSB and FAA are both confident however that once the bugs are worked out that this new system will greatly improve airline safety. Once people get used to the idea of being naked on a commercial airliner it should be accepted. |