I’m happy to see that a number of publications, like the Advocate and Edge Boston—not to mention the quick brown foxes over at Gothamist—are picking up Lauren Collins’s worrisome tale of an American Airlines flight attendant who harrassed and threatened a snuggling, paying, non-terrorist, regulation-ounces-of-liquids-carrying couple, gay men coming back from their first vacation together. The next time I fly American, and the next time you fly American, let’s do this. If one of the people you’re traveling with is the same sex as you, cuddle up. Hold hands. Smooch, whisper endearments, lean as you sleep. Let’s freak out the entire airline until they admit their mistake and promise never to do it again. We are Claudius and Claudius!
The argument that this particular “Texas-haired” flight attendant (I’m surprised TNY‘s copy dept. has stuck to stewardess, incidentally; who uses that word anymore? I don’t think it’s being crazy P.C. given that it hasn’t been all women in a while) was an anomoly is a poor excuse. On no less a source than AirlineCareer.com, where you can take a short quiz to determine your fitness for a career in the skies, it’s stressed: “From greeting, serving, and assisting passengers to making announcements, you’ll always be representing the company in a customer service role. Because it’s very important to project a positive image, airlines are very careful about selecting candidates who have experience working with the public.” Not to mention all the gay flight attendants; what do your employees think of this, American? (More trivially, this reminds me of an entertaining conversation I had recently on an airport-to-town bus about Snakes on a Plane—the vast majority of assorted workers from the flight were planning to see it, and took quite a bit of pride in being associated with the industry under consideration.)
Actually, those who know me have heard an idea I’ve cooked up in recent months. No one likes Valentine’s Day, correct? Single people hate it for the obvious reasons, people in couples think it’s a bother—if you’re really in love you can give stuff to your sweetie whenever, and the sticky consumerist mud-puddle of it is just unseemly. Let’s make Valentine’s Day a sane, spirited boycott for civil rights instead: Until gay people can sleep on each other’s shoulders on airplanes and marry and adopt children without any interference, straight people won’t buy your stupid cards, go out to your stupid Valentine’s-themed restaurants; we’ll avoid any jewelry stores, eschew chocolate caramels, and so on. It’s like Buy Nothing Day and A Day Without Art combined, plus a cozy bed-in for everyone. Don’t sit at the lunch counter of the people who won’t serve ten percent of the population. Who’s with me?
Later: a kiss-off, if you will.
Later: Here’s Consumerist’s take.
Later still: I just happened on this absurd justification from an American Airlines spokesperson: “Our passengers need to recognise that they are in an environment with all ages, backgrounds, creeds, and races.” So…should the crew of the plane also recognize that, or are they off the hook?

This piece [see comments; actually a press release] from Yahoo News has a lede that in some journalistic circles would be considered most irresponsible in its syntax:

BOSTON, Sept. 18 /PRNewswire/ — Pulitzer-prize winner Sylvia Nasar (“A Beautiful Mind”) defamed world renowned Harvard mathematics professor Dr. Shing-Tung Yau, in an article about a noteworthy mathematical proof in The New Yorker magazine entitled “Manifold Destiny” (August 28, 2006), according to a letter written by Dr. Yau’s attorney, Howard M. Cooper of Todd & Weld LLP of Boston. In the letter, Dr. Yau has demanded that The New Yorker and Nasar make a prominent correction of the errors in the article, and apologize for an insulting illustration that accompanied it.

Let’s not put the declarative cart before the reportorial horse, shall we? And, given recent events, may we decide for ourselves if an illustration is insulting? In any case, the piece concludes,

The allegations made in the letter will be discussed in detail in a webcast open to all interested parties scheduled for Noon EDT, Wednesday, September 20, 2006. Log in information will be posted on www.doctoryau.com. The letter sent to The New Yorker is available at his website.

Update: Via Romanesko, an actual journalistic account of the matter (or antimatter) in the Boston Herald, with Remnick’s comment:

David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, said yesterday he had only recently received Cooper’s letter, but the magazine “painstakingly checked the facts” in the Aug. 28 article “as we do with all pieces in The New Yorker.”
“I would have assumed that Professor Yau and his attorney would have waited for a full response to their letter before forwarding it to the press,” Remnick said.

Further update: The Boston Herald‘s Jesse Noyes follows up with a story headed “New Yorker: Math Prof’s Charges Don’t Add Up.” An excerpt:

Cooper’s letter said that the article’s authors, Pulitzer Prize-winner Sylvia Nasar and David Gruber, knowingly defamed Yau and never gave him a chance to respond to charges in the story.
But The New Yorker said the article was the result of four months of reporting and hours of meticulous fact-checking. The authors spent over 20 hours interviewing Yau, conducted approximately 100 other interviews with people in Yau’s field and even traveled to China to research the story.

Related on Emdashes:
Math Is Hard