I must be masochistic . . .
... to be writing about Northwest Flight 327 again.

The amount of email and commentary I have received about my previous posts about "Annie Jacobsen's Terror in the Skies, Again?" article in Women's Wall Street, and her follow-up piece, is pretty daunting.

Sorry, there is just no way I can respond individually.

Most by far have ranged from expressing simple disagreement with my skepticism to taking me to task for not understanding we are at war and that all necessary measures must be taken, etc., a fact that I simply defy anyone to read through my site and conclude I somehow missed. Very, very few folks have been actually offensive, for which I am grateful I hope will continue.

But precious few of the people criticizing me have actually dealt with Annie's text itself. For the fact remains that Annie's story is simply a scarily well-written shaggy-dog story.

What she and many others have is a lot of suspicion, but the fact is - and I guess I need to keep emphasizing it - her suspicions were all unfounded. Michelle Malkin wrote that people (like me, I guess) who say that "nothing happened" are,

acting like 9/10 sheeple. Better a false alarm than a flaming plane.

Except that there was no flaming plane precisely because it was a false alarm. Again: nothing happened . For some reason I get the impression that a lot of you think that's bad news.

Joe Sharkey of the NY Times wrote about the flight today. He spoke with Mr. and Ms. Jacobsen and Federal Air Marshal Service spokesman Dave Adams. There isn't a lot new in Sharkey's account except some remarks by Adams that FAMS thoroughly searched the lavatories on the plane and found nothing suspicious or out of place.

"We interviewed all 14 of these individuals,'' Mr. Adams said. "They were members of a Syrian band" traveling to a gig at a casino near Los Angeles, he said, adding that their names were run through "every possible" data bank and terrorist watch list. "They were scrubbed. Nothing came back." ...

"They gave their little performance in the casino and two days later they flew out on a JetBlue flight from Long Beach to New York," Mr. Adams said.

Like Jacobsen, I would like to know the name of the band. In fact, I called the FBI press office in Washington, DC, today to ask that question and others. Unfortunately, when the FBI spokesman called me back, I was on another call and couldn't take his. I'll try again tomorrow.

Michelle posted an email to her:

Mark Powelson, a former PBS executive and San Francisco magazine editor familiar with the world music scene ... makes some interesting points, especially with regard to the lack of any complaints by the ethnic grievance whiners who usually come out of the woodworks when they've been unfairly harrassed.

Well, one does wonder where the professionally aggrieved are. But my guess is that Sharkey's piece, which Powelson had read, helps answer the question:

Imad Hamad, the regional director of the Michigan office of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said that he knew nothing more about this incident than what Ms. Jacobsen had reported. "I think this level of high anxiety has been implanted in our hearts and minds, and even those who are good people with good intensions cannot help but to look at things in a very suspicious way," he said. "We've got to be vigilant as citizens, but we also have to be calm."

A pretty calm answer, and one indicating he really didn't know about the flight until Sharkey told him. Why? This story didn't "break" in traditional media. Annie's story hit first on Women's Wall Street, a web site, late last week. The blogosphere picked up on it pretty quickly and it spread through the 'sphere and though email chains. Both these means of dissemination practically guarantee that oldline media would treat it like it was radioactive, and they did, until it hit on sites and shows like Hugh Hewitt and other mass media. Even so, the oldline media ignored the story over the weekend.

The professional grievance industry Powelson refers to is very establishmentarian. They have well-polished PR organs and a highly-choreographed dance with the media in which the media are the led partner. But the grievance groups are blog unaware. I think the reason they weren't protesting "harrassment" of the band was that they didn't know about it. Why the band didn't tell them I don't know, but please, that they didn't is no cause for suspicion.

I literally make my living interpreting texts. The art of doing so was part of my Master degree curriculum. There are two terms useful here. "Exegesis" is the art of "drawing out" from a text what it is relating, the art of interpreting what is there. "Eisegesis" is "putting into" the text that which is not there, springing from the readers preconceptions.

Frankly - I hate to be so direct - most of you are reading Annie's piece eisegetically, pouring into it your own fears and preconceptions and (dare I say it?) prejudices. For what does Annie herself actually relate? Only this:

My husband and I noticed Arab men boarding the airliner and that made us scared.

Before and during the flight, the Arabs did some things that made us even more scared, especially their trips to the loo. At least some of the other passengers and crew expressed or displayed concern or fear also. These fears compounded until the plane landed.

There were federal air marshals aboard, but they didn't do anything.

The plane landed safely and normally. We all egressed as rapidly as possible.

Agents from multiple LE organizations met the plane and detained the 14 men. They were investigated and released. FAMS identified them as a band playing a gig in a casino near LA.

We were interviewed by the FBI and gave sworn statements, then went on our way.

That's pretty much it, folks. That is what is in the text about what actually occurred. Annie does a lot of dot connecting from one TSA alert or warning to another, then connects them all to the 14 men, who were in fact guilty of nothing except stupidity or inexcusable unconcern/arrogance at how their fellow passengers were reacting to them. Both are detestable, but not criminal.

From this tiny globe of actual facts most of the blogosphere and its commentators have constructed a galaxy of narrowly-averted tragedy. I know eisegesis when I see it.

Of course it would be good to know more about the band; that's why I called the FBI today and will again tomorrow.

Michelle says, "I Believe the Jacobsens." Well, I believe them too, in matters of fact. I said from my first post that I didn't think that Annie's story was a hoax, as she had already been accused of perpetrating. But when you isolate the factual content of her piece from the speculative content, what you have to decide is not whether to "believe" her or not, but whether to agree with her self-admittedly fear-induced interpretation of the facts.

And, as I already wrote, to that question no certain answer can be given. I don't agree with her conclusions, others do. And there I bid the matter farewell unless my conversation with the FBI turns up something new, or something new breaks elsewhere.

Update: Then again, there is this comment by one Steven Malcolm Anderson on Dean Esmay's site

I'm very disappointed in Rev. Donald Sensing. Wittingly or unwittingly, he has chosen to align himself with the enemies of our country and our civilization. All Muslims must be profiled and sternly watched. The first suspicious move by a Muslim should result in his being thrown off the plane, while the plane is in flight. Better a dead Muslim than another 3000 or 3,000,000 dead Americans. They are NOT "poor, oppressed victims". They are our enemies. ...

There are many sharp retorts that occur to me, but they aren't terribly pastoral so I'll let them go. Besides, Anderson's cruel stupidity speaks for itself.

by Donald Sensing, 7/20/2004 06:06:20 PM. Permalink |