#sorry this was aggressively american my app uses miles

[thegeminisage]

the south is like another country

i have an entire essay on how the current radicalism and steep political divide in this country can be traced directly back to the civil war - rural white southerners here playing the part pre-ww2 germany, the part of a resentful, conquered nation assimilated into the nation that conquered them, because if you think about it the south/the confederacy WAS its own nation for a time, that lost a very bloody war, and paid very steeply for it (not that slavers didn’t deserve every bit of misery the “carpetbaggers” threw at them), and the bitterness from that loss/the lost capital from having their slaves freed has been handed down through the generations, to people who now live in abject poverty while their livelihoods are destroyed by late stage capitalism, and their schools are so broke a lot of people here don’t even know how to read, and their towns are eaten alive with meth, and they’re still looked down upon by most of the country for being racist uneducated backwater hicks (to be clear, we should always look down on racism and racists, but it’s not making them any less bitter/ripe for being drawn into the cult of tr*mp’s america and f*cism).

but anyway this post isn’t about that! this post is about how when i go up north and i say “y’all it really is like i’m living in a different country” NOBODY BELIEVES ME. we speak the same language, we’re all americans, right? PFFFFFT. this amazon van thing just drives it home (pun intended). here’s a list of differences from the deep south* to the rest of the country*:

*the deep south here meaning the RURAL deep south. sorry to everyone who lives in cities/the suburbs and/or in border states like maryland and virginia. i’ve been to maryland and virginia and they are technically southern and some of this applies to them but it is not quite as extreme as it is here. the rest of the country includes the other states i’ve been to (california, washington state, new york, etc), which are in mostly every area except the midwest. i cannot personally vouch for the midwest. sorry, midwesterners! rural midwest probably has a lot of things in common with the deep south because rural life is different and also how easily people move around this country, but whatever

this is a long-ass post get ready

difference #1: DRIVING. driving & pedestrians are entirely different un rural areas vs urban areas. for starters, southern towns often do not even have sidewalks. this is because of 1. budget and 2. racism.

budget: rural towns are very spread out, and it costs major $$$ to put sidewalks in. it’s just not worth the trouble, financially, to put a sidewalk where only 12 people are ever going to use it, AND spend the money to maintain it. never gonna happen. racism: initially, suburbs especially in the south were seen as safe havens where people could get away from the stress of living in “urban” (re: integrated) areas. that the neighborhoods were only accessible by car and NOT by people who were too poor (black) to afford automobiles were just an added bonus. 

as such, the first time i left the southeast, i was SHOCKED to see people walking and biking WITH (or indifferent to) the flow of traffic. down here we are taught that if you are walking along the road (or biking, because bikers get lumped in with pedestrians down here), it is very very very crucial that you walk against the flow of traffic, because you cannot expect drivers to see you and not mow you down. the onus is on YOU to get out of THEIR way. additionally, walking in knee-high grass along the side of the road sucks, and because there aren’t many people here, the roads are usually totally empty. so oftentimes pedestrians just straight up walk ON the road. and if you do that you absolutely have to be able to see a car coming from a long way away, because rural drivers on completely empty roads tend to take them at extremely high speeds just for fun. the people who live diagonally across from me have had to replace their mailbox four times because folks take that blind curve at 90mph. i had a cat get hit by a car on that road. (they all live indoors now.) i even witnessed a car accident happen there when i was just outside minding my own business. ever see a tire fly 12 feet into the air and come down into someone’s windshield? that’s what happens when you hit power line pole driving like that.

the first time i ever encountered one of those pedestrian crossing buttons was in california in the early 2010s. i had literally never seen one before because we simply don’t have them here. they’re not very self-explanatory if you have been jaywalking your whole entire life because all you’re taught to do is look both ways and make sure the street is empty before you cross. northern/urban roadways are made so that pedestrians and drivers can both get to where they’re going. in rural/southern areas pedestrians might as well not bother.

interestingly, while not an entirely southern problem, there’s a loose correlation between rural areas and more problems with drunk drivers.

on the driving side, driving in a city is batshit insane. it’s both faster and slower. there is NO space and you’re expected to go whenever you have so much as an inch to worm your way in. there’s more traffic, and the traffic totally dictates your speed. in the south you can change lanes if you want to drive faster or slower and weave around traffic or let it weave around you, but in a city there’s no other lane to change to and if you don’t drive at the speed of the people ahead of and behind you you will die. you turn fast, you brake fast, etc. whenever i come back from driving in a city the people who ride with me think i’m insane. you don’t PULL ONTO A ROAD if you can SEE ANOTHER CAR THERE, what the fuck? meanwhile i’m like “lol that is six miles of space i have plenty of time” and give everyone in my vicinity heart palpitations until i readjust. 

tailgating in a rural area is something only assholes do (done by people on a two-lane road to encourage the person in front of them to go faster because the only other lane is for oncoming traffic), and if someone gets within one car length of me on a two-lane road i can very passively aggressively slow my vehicle to a crawl until they back the fuck off. in a city you’re lucky if you have a twelve inches between your bumper and the next car’s hood ornament.

difference #2: LANGUAGE. this is a small one, but the southern dialect combined with the lack of literacy means i am learning certain things late in life. phrases i have heard verbally with my ears but had never seen written out include: “chest of drawers” which i thought was “chester drawers” - “seven year itch” which i thought was “seven year each” - “albeit” which i thought was “i’ll be it.” i’ve made a deliberate effort to unlearn mine own accent/dialect but i run into weird shit all the time. remotes are mashers, shopping carts are buggies, you put stuff up instead of putting it away, i fix you a drink instead of pouring you one, we shoot the game instead of play it. my mom LITERALLY can’t understand me if i speak too quickly - she has to remind me all the time to slow down and put on my southern.

difference #3: TECHNOLOGY. issue of whether or not you personally have the creepy amazon vans aside, the rural south is behind the rest of the country on technology. things in cities are AUTOMATED. things like the little button you press to cross the street, tickets you take at parking garages, even the parking meters you find in cities, that’s just the beginning of it. one time i came across a little computer touch screen in a MCDONALDS where you put your order in. you didn’t even go up to the counter. you just put your order on the screen and swiped your card and then they got it ready for you and you never had to speak to a human person. self-checkouts, gas pumps where you can swipe your card and not go in and pay at first...the south got those YEARS behind everybody else. in the mid-2010s i went to DC and visited a target for maybe the 5th time ever and i was BAFFLED by the self-checkout. i had no idea how to use it! it was like less than ten years ago and i was IN MY TWENTIES and i had never seen one before! when we send a package we have to talk to a human person. when we order food we usually have to talk to a human person. apps for places like dominos and subway have not been in use here for very long. my county just got doordash LAST YEAR. 

because i am 31, and because the south is so technologically behind, i am actually old enough to remember how when you used to go to a gas station an attendant would not only pump your gas but wash your windshield for you while you just SAT IN THE CAR. that seems like something from the 50s but it actually was a thing here in my childhood IN the 90s. i wish i was making this up.

difference #4: INFRASTRUCTURE. this sort of goes hand-in-hand w/ the last point because so much of our infrastructure is made of technology, and it’s also more of a rural/urban thing than a south/north thing. but just for fun here’s a non-exhaustive list of things i don’t have in my town:

starbucks* - the first time i went to a starbucks i was in my 20s

a public pool - we used to, but now the only pool here requires a YMCA membership. the only baseball diamond in this county is also at the Y.

walmart

in fact, ANYWHERE to buy clothes that is not a goodwill or other secondhand store. i cannot buy clothing unless i order it online or LEAVE MY TOWN. almost all of the clothing i own is from walmart because it’s one of the only places in my entire county where you can actually PURCHASE clothing.

grocery store chains? pffft. my town has two entire stores and both are small southern chains. i didn’t go into a publix for the first time until two years ago when i went to florida. i’ve NEVER entered a whole foods.

food delivery? yeah, no. like i said, we got doordash last year, but before that the only place you could get delivery from was a pizza chain. we only have two pizza places in my town that deliver, and one is a local place, not attached to any chain, so i can’t spend my loyalty points there. (it’s very expensive there too.) last year it was CLOSED for six months because the manager got caught dealing meth. every last one of the delivery drivers was trafficking it for him. they all got fired and had to restart from the ground up. for that short time, it was not possible to get any food delivered to your house whatsoever.

a hospital/ambulance services - if someone is sick, we have to take them to the hospital in laurens, the town next door (about 15-20 minutes by car). the town i live in lucky - we have our own police and fire departments. (acab but you know what i mean.) joanna is a smaller town next to mine that isn’t a real town - it’s been demoted to a census designated area because only 2000 people live there. if they have an emergency, they have to use OUR fire and police departments, and LAURENS’s ambulance/hospital system

after-school places kids can go to keep from getting into trouble. we have the Y, if you have money (no one here has money), and we have churches, but mostly schools can’t afford to run too many extracurriculars. there’s nothing to do here but church and meth.

food banks: zero. we have food DRIVES sometimes where people will come from further away and bring free food, but if you’re hungry, there’s nowhere you can go for help - you have to wait for help to come to you.

libraries: we don’t have our own library. we have a branch of the county library that’s physically located in our town. but we share books with the rest of the entire county, so everything is always checked out or at the other branch. 

*we technically have a starbucks that’s in the local college campus, but only college students are allowed to be there. they’ll still serve people without a college ID because no one gives a fuck, but you can’t linger and loiter and hang out like you do in a normal starbucks. we also have one in the barnes and noble in greenville, which is about an hour away by car, but again, it’s a mini starbucks that serves a limited menu and none of that weird Starbucks Culture™

here’s a few things i don’t have in my ENTIRE COUNTY:

movie theaters - technically. we have a Historial™ one-screen theater in laurens that shows one movie for two weeks a month after it hits regular theaters and then switches to another, and if you miss it, too bad. this is a VERY recent addition - it wasn’t restores until i was in my 20s as a kid and a teenager i had to ride in a car an hour or more to go to the movies.

target. only commies and yankees have target. down here we do walmart.

malls

arcades

skate parks/skating rinks

bowling

museums

zoos/aquariums

campgrounds

fairs. our county fairground got razed a decade ago because there just werent enough people showing up to justify the expense. so no more fairs. you have to have people to fund things and down here there just aren’t enough people anywhere.

you get the idea. we don’t have entertainment. like i said, nothing to do but church and meth.

CLASSES FOR STUFF: knitting classes, dancing classes, driving classes? nope. gymnastics, karate dojos, golf, knitting groups, books clubs, cooking classes? [GAMESHOW BUZZER]. you can’t even hire a clown for a birthday party out here. we do have a shooting range. ONE. in the entire county. and a race track. and a rather infamous former kkk memorabilia store. they made a movie about that (serious tw for this trailer - they’ve got white hoods, burning crosses, pepper spray, the whole nine), which, yes, takes place in laurens, aka right next door to me. i used to walk by that place all the time when i was playing pokemon go. haven’t seen the movie but the shooting locations in the trailer make laurens look a lot bigger and prettier than it really is in real life - especially the racetrack, which, in the trailer, is actually PAVED. (this is inaccurate to real life.)

EDUCATION: lots of people can’t read. we have two schools for illiterate adults, one religious college, and one branch of one of the state colleges that has a skeleton staff and a fuck ton of computers (you basically just go there to distance learn/e-learn - if you want to take real classes from this college, you have to drive at least an hour.)

support groups/group therapy: almost none. we have al-anon and weight watchers, but that’s about it. there’s only half a dozen therapists in my entire county, and none that operate from my town. mental healthcare down here is bullshit.

on food: we don’t have many sit-down restaurants, where servers bring you your menu and your food. if you don’t count waffle houses, my town has 4. my county has 9. in and out, 5 guys, applebees, ruby tuesday, red lobster, olive garden, panda epxress? forget it. those places were and still are rare treats. i’ve only been to an olive garden twice. red lobster once. whenever i leave my county i BEG for chinese because there’s only two chinese restaurants in our entire county and one of them is crazy expensive and the other one sucks. 

we also don’t have the more important stores you need to like, live. if we need to exchange our router at a charter store? yeah, we don’t have one. need to visit the sprint store to get your phone repaired? nuh-uh, we don’t have any phone stores either. my family recently switched to at&t because it was the only company that had a physical location in our county. before that, we had to drive an hour for even the smallest repair.

on a grimer note: we don’t have homeless shelters! homeless in laurens county? too bad for you. we do have homeless PEOPLE. they just have nowhere to go except the churches

hospitals? only kind of. like i said, our county has one, but it’s not equipped to take seriously sick people. when my mom had a heart attack she had to be driven straight to greenwood, which is 45 minutes away if you’re not in an ambulance. they obviously made it faster than that, but still. that was scary. it took them a long time to get here. i had a distant relative of mine die before the ambulance made it because they were SO far out in the sticks, even further than me.

we also don’t have any specialty stores. sporting goods, gamestops, shoe stores, florists, craft stores, bookstores, best buys...forget it. if you can’t buy it at walmart, you just can’t buy it. the exceptions: my TOWN has one jewelry store, two hardware stores, and two auto repair stores. my COUNTY has three clothing stores, none of which are in my town, one place that sells used TVs, and one movie rental place. thrilling, right? i can rent a movie if i drive out of town. (i know streaming killed the rental business, but we also only had two places when i was a kid, if you counted the rental section in the grocery store.)

so, yeah. i know the term “shithole” is really loaded these days, but rural areas are just plain less developed, and often in seriously poor repair because nobody fucking uses them. there USED to be more stuff here - my mom was on a bowling league, and as a kid i had a birthday party at a skating rink - but late stage capitalism and drugs destroyed it all. people ran out of money to do things like skate and bowl and so those places closed. the south is full of empty store fronts and deserted strip malls slowly being eaten by kudzu. my brother got out of this town and whenever he winds up back here (not often) he remarks on how completely and utterly dead everything feels. “my friends who live in greenwood now think they’re all rural,” he said once. “they complain constantly about how remote it is. but they have no idea. they wouldn’t make it five minutes out here.” greenwood has its own movie theater, mall, starbucks, homeless shelter, food bank, and hospital.

so, yeah! if you were wondering what rural white southerners are so fucking mad about, that’s part of it. propaganda and xenophobia and racism has their anger directed ENTIRELY at the wrong people, but it’s hard to argue that the anger itself isn’t just a little bit justified.

difference #5: CULTURE. specifically culture around food, and the culture around the civil war. i could write an entire other essay about the culture of the church being everything because the church IS the only semblance of infrastructure we have and this is why the south is so homophobic, but we’ll skip that for now.

food: this is a quickie, because i sort of touched on it already, but there are like, almost NO vegetarian options here. there’s very limited choices of cuisine. it’s ALL waffle house and soul food. we have a lot of mexican places because we’re physically close to the mexican border, but aside from that, forget finding like indian or thai or japanese or anything like that. no sushi. forget finding a menu that has meals that are halal or kosher. there’s just. no culture here. no variety. you know? like i said, our entire county doesn’t even hit double-digits for proper sit-down restaurants.

civil war: i’m not going to go into the big stuff since i sort of covered it at the top and also this post is getting way too long, but to other white rural southerners there is legitimate baggage around the fact that my mom married a yankee and that i am half-yankee. and he’s not even a real yankee! he was born up north but raised in southern florida. (florida is weird. the further south you go geographically, the less southern you are culturally.) yet: my family makes jokes that are sometimes not jokes about this. when i drop this information in casual conversation people get that look on their faces like: ah, that explains it. it being that i am not religious and don’t laugh at racist jokes and maybe i am queer?? (strangers tend to be unsure about this last part, even when i’m wearing rainbows.) it’s because i’m half-yank! that explains everything! the xenophobia is SO strong here that white people are even xenophobic at OTHER WHITE PEOPLE. 

so in conclusion when i say the north is like another country, it’s because the people who raised me think of it like another country. and culturally! it is buck wild! the differences that there are! when i leave this town i feel like i step into fucking star trek! if you are not from the rural south, and you have never been to the rural south, please do not come here! i’ve been to a few different places now and this is definitely my least favorite one. 

[maybe-writing]

Trevor could not think of many, if any, times in his thirty years of life that he dreaded going to his childhood home as much as he did right now. He dragged himself up the well-kept sidewalk, with the perfectly manicured lawn on his left, and the evenly watered flower bed on his right. He climbed up the beautiful wooden steps, ornate with ceramic garden gnomes and smiling turtles. He pulled open the screen door, and firmly face-planted into the sparkly white front door.

Trevor rapped, almost furiously but not too aggressively mind you, on the door until he got an answer. A woman in her sixties, with a half-painted face, and hair still tightly wound in curlers opens the door to greet him “Hi Trevor honey, so glad you could do this for us.”

“Hey mom, it’s not a problem.” It was a problem.

“Yeah, well the car is in the shop, so we had no other way to get to the polls.”

“Quick question. You never lock the front door when you are home. Any reason?”

“Oh, you can never be too careful in these crazy times.” His mother glided through the kitchen to move a few things and make a space for the make-up mirror, “These neighborhoods are getting quite dangerous.”

Trevor’s face couldn’t help but to show all of his furious confusion. He whipped his head around to the large bay window positioned quite squarely at the front of the house. Outside, two women in their late forties, covered head to toe in neon. Shoes, leggings, track jacket, fanny pack, even the hair ties that held their hair up in a tight perfect ponytail were matched. In sync as they shuffled past the front yard.

Mr. Abernathy in his yard, maintaining his already well-maintained lawn, as he always had since Trevor was six. Next door, a new young family that he had never met, barely older than Trevor was in his yard. He was tossing a football with a five-year-old, his platinum blond hair trimmed neatly into a precise mushroom. A woman was brushing the sunflower golden hair of a three-year-old girl in a bright pink dress. Trevor looked back at his mother bewildered. How could this woman think this slice of all-American, sugar free, all organic, Anglo-Saxon wet dream of an echo chamber could be remotely dangerous?

Trevor moved into the living room, “I’ll just be a few more minutes to put my face on,” his mother called from the kitchen island. Trevor nodded as he stepped behind his father watching a local news station. They were interviewing the candidates for the mayoral election. They were talking to the man who was currently polling the highest, taking his photo op. John Smith, not a very unique sounding name, but that’s the name he picked.

Trevor can see his father out of his peripherals, locked onto every word. Trevor was more fixated on the man, and he used that word very loosely, on the screen. His emaciated cheeks almost seemed to vacuum into his mouth every time he talked. They highlighted his sharp pronounced cheek bones. His sunken eyes, with harsh dark circles, made the yellow tint in his irises more noticeable. And Trevor couldn’t help acknowledging how soulless they were. His voice was hoarse, raw, and definitely sinister.

“So, this is the guy?”

“He wants to keep the city safe” his father remarked with gravel and venom in his statement.

“Those bumps on his forehead seem new, and like they are still growing.”

“You just want to find the worst in people.”

Trevor leaned over the couch to try and get his father’s attention, “He’s possessed by a demon. That is the main point of his campaign.” Trevor gazed at his father who seemed to be going through extra effort to avoid eye contact. “He told people to call him John Smith, because his true name can’t be translated from Latin.”

“I thought you were supposed to be Mr. Open-minded now.” The way he said it, Trevor knew it was meant to be an insult, but it didn’t quite faze him. So he simply leaned back and waited.

“I’m ready. Thanks again so much for this,” his mother said. Trevor nodded sweetly but disappointed. His father pulled himself from the couch in a manner reserved for unhappy buffalo. “Say thank you Jeff,” his father let out some semblance of the words ‘thank’ and ‘you’. Trevor’s mom glared at him and hinted at a try again. Jeff mumbled out what sounded like a statement relatively close to ‘mind your business Peggy’.

They all settled into his car, Jeff in the front seat and Peggy in the back, “There is a polling station on Maple Street.” Peggy cooed from her spot in the car. Trevor punched the address into his GPS and noticed that it was only 20 minutes away.

Trevor’s head filled with a multitude of ideas, and the possibility of changing his parents minds in 20 minutes was impossible. As he pulled out of the driveway and rolled onto the street, every neighbor they passed gave a big wave. They were clearly planning something horrible.

Why did Trevor agree to this? He couldn’t have something else to do today? He could have stayed home with his wife. Lord knows it was needed at this time. He should have said no, but they were his parents. He could stall, until they had no choice to give up and go home, “It looks like there is a branch of my bank on the way. You guys mind if I stop?”

“You’re the one driving,” Jeff grumbled, “It’s none of my business.” Peggy reached from the back to swat his arm as he stared out the window. They exchanged a small mumbled conversation of hushed inaudible words.

Trevor parked his car and informed his parents he would be back in a flash. Much to his dismay there was no line. The one time he would have been happy for a line at the bank. His snail pace through the rope guides seemed weirder than he intended. He had no desire to make the poor teller believe he was trying to rob the place, so he moved at a normal pace.

“Hi, how can I help you today?” the bright-eyed girl said in a not too threatening, please don’t have a gun, tone.

“Yeah, can I get my balance on my accounts.” Trevor said, only then realizing how stupid it sounded.

“If you have the app, you can do it yourself.”

“Yea, I know,” Trevor mumbled practically defeated. The girl finally connected the dots and took down his information and began looking up his account.

Is this really the best he could do? Meandering around a bank? This was amateur hour. “I’m sorry, it seems the computer is going a bit slow” She has clearly done this before. If he was going to do this, he was going to need to work a bit harder.

The computer found the time to finally get the balance and the teller printed it up, “Is there anything else I can get you today?” She asked, and Trevor had a few ideas but nothing remotely good enough. He could actually rob the bank, but that seemed like a lot of paperwork. He thanked her and made his way back to his car to deal with his ornery father.

“Are we all good?” Jeff said through a scowl. Trevor drove down the path set by the GPS. Trevor recognized where he was and where he was going now. The female voice told him to make a right at the light. He sat there waiting for the light to change, and the longer it took the more he built up his courage. Once the light turned green, he drove straight.

“I thought you were supposed to turn left?” Peggy called from the back.

“This is a better way,” Trevor never remembered ever lying to his parents, “we can avoid the traffic.”

“Make a U-turn” the robotic female voice said from his phone.

“We just go this way and be there in no time.”

“Make a left turn,” Trevor turned off the GPS.

“This way doesn’t seem faster,” Jeff growled after ten or eleven turns down back roads and side streets.

“Just the next left and we should be within spitting distance.” Spitting distance? When has Trevor ever said that? He knew where he was, so he knew the street was going to be backed up enough to hold them off.

As they turned onto a practically empty street, Trevor felt like the universe was really working against him today. He wasted fifteen minutes and was only a few miles away from the destination. There was a breakfast place near, and at 9:30 in the morning it could be a good way to waste time.

“I didn’t have breakfast yet; you guys ok if we stop? We have time.”

“That sounds fun,” Peggy beamed. Jeff mumbled an incoherent form of ‘fine’.

“Table for three?” the dark-haired girl asked as she grabbed the menus and silverware. As she walked them to an empty table in the empty restaurant, Trevor felt the universe was playing a cruel trick on him for playing a cruel trick on his parents. The waitress barely let them sit down before trying to get them drinks, and headed off in a flash.

“So I need to ask,” Trevor stated to break the tension “What is so appealing about this guy?”

“Well I know you lost your faith but we haven’t,” Jeff barked.

“I still very much consider myself a Christian, which is why I can’t see myself voting for a prince of hell.”

“In case you didn’t know,” Jeff huffed “he is consistently surrounded by priests and religious leaders praying for his well-being and anointing him.”

“Other people call that an exorcism,” Trevor stated without looking up from the menu, “Besides that feels like a fruitless effort. Whomever used to own that body is clearly dead.”

“He wants to make real changes.”

“Burning down churches will make some real waves.”

“He won’t burn down every church,” Peggy tried to add, “he didn’t mean that.”

“I’m sure your church is safe. Didn’t Pastor Griffin make a sermon about voting for him, because God said so?”

“You don’t get it.”

The waitress seemed less eager to return to the table this time around. After dropping off the food she practically ran away. The silence was necessary but still awkward. “He wants to put something in place to avoid any more of those riots.”

“Those ‘riots’ started out peaceful, much like this breakfast should have.”

“It always starts ‘peaceful’ with them.”

“Chloe’s doing great, since you asked in such a nice way. She’s pregnant, twenty-one weeks. So, you’ll be grandparents.” His father’s face didn’t move. His mother forced a smile that almost looked like she filled her pants with something foul. “Don’t choke on your meal with excitement.”

“Well as long as you don’t name it anything ridiculous like Dayquan or Latasha.”

“Why would we do that?” Trevor asked angrily.

“You know how THEY are.”

“They?” Trevor almost felt punched in the gut, “Have you always had a problem with Chloe being black?” His parents have always been nice to Chloe. He met her in college and when he brought her home after his third semester they were welcoming. Then again,he remembered how

his parents were also pretty upset about the one black kid in his high school being an affirmative action and how it would affect Trevor getting into a good college.

“We just thought you would be with someone different.” Peggy said under her breath.

“They destroy our cities, try to take over by marrying our children, and he wants to make sure that it doesn’t happen by strengthening the right people.”

Trevor felt the biggest wait fall on his shoulders “I finally get it.”

“He’s the only one who gets it.” Jeff snapped.

“No, I do,” Trevor said solemnly, “so let’s finish up here and we head to the polling station.”

Trevor settled the bill and drove the last few miles to take his parents to complete their civic duty. These weren’t people who were brainwashed or led astray by the serpent magic of a hell beast. These were who they were, and he was talking to them.

Jeff marched back to the car proudly displaying his ‘I voted’ sticker. He plopped down into the seat triumphant and arrogant. “All good?” Trevor asked.

“Yup,” Jeff said with no gravel, but all the smugness.

“Great,” Trevor said kindly. Jeff's eyes slightly narrowed but a grin slithered across his face.

The car ride back was much shorter, without any pit stops, and silent. Trevor pulled into the driveway of his parents’ home, “Thank you,'' Jeff said softly as he poked his head back into the car.

Trevor knew his father took the change in behavior as compliance to the cause, and that didn’t bother him, “Of course,” he could think what he wanted.

As Jeff and Peggy walked back into the house, Trevor had to accept who they truly are. He had to accept that he would change, or they wouldn’t be there for the birth of their grandchild. Either way, he would never dread having to pull into this driveway ever again, because he would be doing it less often.

[malonepolitics]

What the heck are we doing?

September 30 - October 5, 2018  Suburbs of Detroit, Michigan

Maybe we have lost our minds, but it seems in many ways the US has also. 

Not being very active in politics in the past (voting, of course, and making some contributions to some past campaigns) we suddenly are in the thick of it joining a group of like-minded folks to campaign for two issues and a US House candidate in Michigan. This recent activism is not a very long story, since it only started a little over a month ago when we attended a series of lectures by David Domke on the history of voting rights in the US.  About the middle of the second lecture Linda leaned over to me and said, “Oh-oh, we are not going to finish this series without getting involved”.   Indeed she was right.  Within a couple of weeks we had attended organizational meetings and signed up with the group called “Common Purpose” to go to Michigan for a week. We have just finished up this interesting, a little scary and very satisfying trip.  Here I recount a few highlights and thoughts on the experience.  If you think this might be a typical  “L & S Malone trips” blog, sorry, this is serious stuff.

The preparation

We attended the first organizational meeting of Common Purpose on Sep. 15 where we realized it was only OUR first meeting. There have been many more in the past including previous campaign trips all over the country.  There were a lot of rah-rah “team building” and motivational talks at this meeting, but looking at the group of people who are seriously involved is indeed motivational.  While not really into this sort of thing, I felt the vibe.  Toward the end of the meeting the group, maybe 200 strong, split up into groups associated with about 10 different states to which a trip was planned to help with particular campaigns.  Before we knew it we were talking with Ron, the Michigan trip leader (the only trip for which the timing would work for us).  Linda and I looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders and signed up.  Within a few days we had our plane tickets, motel and car reservations, so we were committed.

I must say that Linda is the main instigator.  I am not so much of a joiner for this sort of thing.  I detest being called on the phone by robots even if a real person is on the other end, and I am not much for knocking on strangers’ doors.  It seems that almost everyone in the group agrees to some extent with these sentiments, but all assured me that I could get over my phobias and would feel good about doing this no matter what.  We attended one additional meeting two weeks later for “training”, etc., and there was again lots of rah-rah and kumbaya stuff but also a very interesting small group discussion.  I ended up in a group of four; one union member/organizer, one previous politician and an older (my age), African-American guy who had been invited to this meeting by his son who is part of the leadership team.  It turned out that this guy and I had something in common.  We had both grown up in the South in segregated schools.  OK, not the same experience, but in discussions we realized that there were more similarities than one might think. As kids we both accepted school segregation as just the way was even if it didn’t seem right.  Neither of us, at the the time, realized how destructive it was.  We made plans to try and get together again some time later to compare our growing-up experiences in the deep South from our very different backgrounds.

The only other preparation we did for the Michigan trip was to read some campaign material handed out and go online to get a feeling for the issues from newspapers and web pages, both pro and con.  There are three state initiative proposals on the ballot two of which we were needed to campaign for. “Proposal 1″ regarded marijuana legalization, which we were not involved with - but maybe could have used.  “Proposal 2” is a redistricting plan to try to do away with gerrymandering.  Michigan has some of the most bizarrely shaped congressional districts designed solely by the the party in power behind closed doors to make sure they stay in power.  This gerrymandering also has the effect of keeping minority party members in power even if they do little for their constituents.  Consequently, not many actual politicians from either party are strongly supportive.  The initiative campaign is totally grassroots and non-partisan.  The name for this initiative is “Voters not Politicians” with a tag-line of “Lets get the people to choose the politicians rather than the other way around”.  “Proposal 3” is the “Promote the Vote” initiative, which seems not to have a lot of opposition.  It is a fairly complicated initiative of seven items to remove many obstacles to registering and/or voting that currently are relatively subtle but effective voter suppression provisions.  Michigan’s laws are nowhere near as egregious as in many southern states but still could benefit from improvements to just get more people to vote.  Perhaps our most important and interesting campaign was for a challenger to the current US House member in the fairly Republican 8th congressional district.  Elissa Slotkin jumped into this race fairly recently easily winning the Democratic Party’s nomination.  With a very strong background in international relations and national security she has recently taken on health care and environmental issues as ones that Michiganders have increasing concerns about.  The poles currently have the candidates almost tied, so a win for her would be a real coup. Somehow we would be doing something in an area near Detroit, MI to help with these three campaigns.  We were told to be prepared for phone banking (ugh) and door belling (scary).  What the heck are we doing joining such activities?

The Trip

Our flight to Detroit left last Monday at 7am.  Yuk.  Fortunately for us our lovely daughter Erika was on a slightly later flight to Pittsburgh where she was leading a national training workshop on affordable housing issues for municipal departments.  She picked us up at 5am in a car-to-go (clever girl) in plenty of time for our uneventful flight. Fourteen of our sixteen member, Team Michigan (motto: “pedal to the metal”  facebook: #commonpurposemichigan) folks were on the same flight.  We rented a car and took two others to our Red Roof Inn motel; very basic (no pool, no spa, no exercise room, no breakfast, no mints on our pillows but clean with a comfortable bed).  Our first activity was a training session that evening at a local tavern where, it turned out, we did not have a separate room as planned but rather were in the main, very loud area at a long table.  Two local campaign staffers came to brief us who were, unfortunately, nearly impossible to hear.  A happy result was that when the pub’s owner heard who we were and what we were doing comp-ed us the dinner and drinks (should have ordered the lobster dinner and top-shelf bourbon).

The following morning we all met at a breakfast place where we had a separate, quiet room and got trained on “Proposal 3”, our first cause, and also on how to use the smartphone app called “MiniVan” (nothing to do with multi-passenger vehicles).  This app provides the names, addresses, ages and a map of our canvassing area and also a way to record our results for each “door”.  Each of our three campaigns provided us with “lit” (literature) and “turfs” (down-loadable lists of 30 - 50 addresses).  One could work from a hard-copy and clipboard form, which the old hands swore by.  However, even a few of them switched to MiniVan when they realized how simple and convenient it was. Training for Proposal 2 and the Slotkin campaign took place either after the first lunch or the second morning.

Each morning and afternoon groups of 2 or 3 people would head out in a car to do one or two (or for the hot-shots three) turfs in a session. Most turfs were in the mega-suburbia of Rochester Hills (white-flight area 25 miles north of Detroit).  I have never seen such expanses of green lawns lined up as far as the eye could see; actually, not so far in the twisty, cull-de-sacky developed subdivisions of 1980s-90s vintage.  Typically we would pull up and leave our car in the middle of a turf and spread out in three different directions walking between addresses listed in our app.  They were rarely every house since they were targeted to voters who were either unknown or undecided.  Those known to be either strongly for or against the issue/candidate were not canvassed since it would be a waste of time in either case.  At first we were under the impression that mostly we were to sample preferences, but it soon became clear that it was OK…. actually expected, that we would do persuasion on those contacts who were undecided.

I was very nervous at first…. and never got totally comfortable, with ringing a door bell and if someone answered (only about 1/4 to 1/3 of the time), introducing myself and why I was there and then trying to sell them on the issue/candidate. Most people were at least minimally polite, some very gracious, even if they were on the other side politically. A few were down right rude and one who came up to me on the street was aggressively nasty; asking if I had a permit to be in the neighborhood, threatening to call the police if I didn’t leave and he would be watching me.  We skipped a few houses right around his.  It left a bad taste in my mouth but provided an interesting story to tell at dinner that night.  Our sub-group of 9 people staying at the Red Roof Inn would compare notes each night over dinner.  We all seemed to be having similar experiences of generally interested, polite people with the rare unpleasant one. The positive experiences far outweighed the few bad ones. Here are a few Linda and I remember:

An older couple (90 and 91) both come to the door.  I ask if they know about Elissa Slotkin.  They say, “not much”.  I give a long-winded shpeal about who and how great she is and why they should vote for her.  They say, “OK, we will”. I say, “what about signing a reminder pledge card that will be sent back to you shortly before the election”.  OK, they sign it and then thank me for the good information. Then, as I am leaving they tell me that now they remember Elissa and were going to vote for her in the first place.

I ring a slightly down-at-the-dumps looking house.  A man comes to the door and the name I have is for a woman.  I ask if she is there.  He yells to the other room and the woman comes out, sees my Elissa Slotkin button, comes out of the house and closes the door.  I ask her about Elissa, and she quickly says she knows all about her.  I start to say more and she whispers over her shoulder to me as she goes back in the house that she is a strong supporter and will vote for sure.  I put her down as a supporter and note that her “roommate” is not.

A refreshing interlude occurred on our last day.  A young man is zooming down the street on roller-blades being pulled by his dog.  As he sees our Slotkin buttons he gives a big wave and yells that he is voting for her.

Some of our most interesting, but semi-scary work was in an area another 30 miles north in a very rural area near the town of Holly, MI where Elissa lives on her family’s farm.  Our turf houses were either along a busy rural highway or off a muddy back road.  There were NO lawns here; though one woman was out on a riding mower in what could have been a pasture.  In a few cases as one headed into the woods to find an “address” one imagined the banjo theme from Deliverance playing in the distance.  All had long drives and many had big, barking dogs.

I head down the drive toward one, and here comes rover barking like mad to scare me off.  I give him a good glare and then a nice voice and he starts wagging like mad as the owner comes hoofing down the drive to call off the dog.  The name I have is for a woman whom I ask for.  He leads me around back of his house and onto his porch.  As soon as I say ask about Elissa he and the woman both start talking a mile a minute about how great she is and how bad the Republican in office now is and how the ranker in DC is just terrible and how Elissa has the right attitude and on and on and would I like a glass of lemonade and I should be careful turning my car around that I don’t get stuck. What?  You are walking?  You better sit for a while and rest up and be careful walking on the highway.  No one does that.  Oh, and don’t go to the guy who lives next door.  Old whoever is a nasty old Trumpest who will shoot you if you come on his property.  “OK”, I say, “so I can put you down is a supporter and old whoever next door as a no”?  The lady then says, “Yep and put down our son, who is in town now, as a yes and our daughter, who is in New Jersey right now, as a yes.  Oh, we better call her to make sure she gets her absentee ballot in”.

In the same area Linda found a couple of old dudes sitting on a back porch looking over the local lake smoking cigars.  They looked to be Bubba and Bubba but were quite friendly.  However, the one not on the turf list says something like, “She’s the one John McCain hates. She looks a little slimy to me”.  But the other guy pipes up, “Naw, she’s OK. I’ll probably vote for her”. After a bit more chit chat they indicate that they are just out here in the woods doing “man stuff”.  Linda, says “Ok, good luck. Have a nice evening” and heads quickly for the next address.  Nobody wants to know what Bubba and Bubba’s man stuff is.

One address I had was down a long drive with a few run-down, out-buildings on either side, and the house on my list is not much better.  It looks as if someone lives there, but it is just a tar paper, tin roof shack itself.  I think it has electricity but hard to tell the front door from the side one.  After knocking both and getting no answer I look through to the back yard where drying on the line are two large and one smaller pair of full sleeved long-johns, complete with drop bottom.  I guess they had just done the family laundry getting ready for winter.  Really sorry I didn’t get to meet the family or get a photo of the place.

This rural turf was certainly the most spread out and took the longest to do, but the reward at the end was great.  We were all invited to Elissa Slotkin’s farm to meet the candidate.  She was running behind filming an ad for TV, so we waited in a screened-in porch drinking beer and snacking on chips.  After a bit she joined us.  Some pizza arrived, and we sat around eating and chatting about all sorts of issues….. actually, just politics.  She is a very impressive lady with energy and stamina that is hard to believe. What a treat for us. She took the time for us foreigners after a very long day.  Even posing with us for a group photo (Elissa is the lady in a blue top, front row, left of center).  We didn’t get back to the motel until after 11pm.

After four very full and satisfying days of pounding the pavement my feet were toast.  Our step counters indicate somewhere around 13 - 18,000 steps a day (5.5 -7 miles).  As many know, I am a cyclist.  Walking is for losers.  Oops, I signed on for the wrong activity.  But still I (and all of Team Michigan) would rather this than phone-banking.  Linda and I left on Friday afternoon but could have done another turf in the morning.  I feel guilty that we wimped out and slept in a bit. With the help of another team member, Richard, who was leaving on the same flight we did a quick pilgrimage to the graves of Rosa Parks and Aretha Franklin and then did a drive-through, tourist visit of downtown Detroit before heading to the airport. We got back to Seattle, and because of the gracious lift Richard’s wife provided, we were in time to attend a fund raiser for “Rebuilding Together - Seattle” at MOHAI.  Yikes, too much civic duty stuff in one week. 

 After I have had some time to recover and cogitate on the past week I may fill in another post with erudite missives covering a newbies reactions to getting out of ones comfort zone in politics.  I also may add some statistics about how many doors knocked, people talked to, dogs kicked, votes secured  (from our leader’s calculations).  In the mean time thanks to the the whole Team Michigan for your companionship and encouragement to us newbies.  A particular big thanks to Ron, our leader whose low-key, but totally organized plans kept us busy in an efficient way but never pressured us to take on more than we could comfortably do.

Also see: facebook: #commonpurposemichigan

Now, it’s time to take a break, kick back and watch some soccer with a beer this weekend.

[zeroviraluniverse-blog]

Recent airline controversies | Fox News

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Recent airline controversies | Fox News

From a lawyer who claims United Airlines gave her seat away to a Democratic congresswoman, to a singer allegedly barred from an airline lounge over her footwear, airline controversies are neither few nor far between.

The rising prominence of social media, and a near-monopoly of the airline industry, are contributing to the growing news of airline customers being unduly inconvenienced as they travel, attorney Arthur Alan Wolk, who specializes in aviation law, told Fox News.

These incidents are “happening more because airlines feel that they’re empowered to abuse their passengers more and feel that there are no consequences,” Wolk said.

Wolk says that chances of the airline industry improving for customers is bleak, even “nil.”

Read on for a look at some recent airline controversies.

Family matters

A woman upset about sitting next to an 8-month-old boy and his mother was booted from her flight on Feb. 6, the Daily Mail reports. The trip was operated through Endeavor Air, a subsidiary wholly owned by Delta. 

Mother Marissa Rundell told the Daily Mail that the woman “came to the back and slammed her bags down. She said, ‘This is f—ing ridiculous. It’s bulls— having to sit in the back of the plane.’”

Rundell claims she asked the woman to watch her language — twice — and was told to “shut the f— up and shove it.”

Rundell posted a video to Facebook of the female passenger, writing, “Thank you to the lovely Delta flight attendant for not letting this women bully us.”

In the clip, the woman asks to be seated elsewhere, declaring, “I’m not sitting near a crying baby.”

“She brought up having to sit next to a crying baby (he wasn’t crying or fussing at all),” Rundell told the Daily Mail.

In the video, a flight attendant tells the woman she can take the next flight, but the passenger says she can’t.

She also asks for the flight attendant’s name, which the attendant gives, along with her employee ID number.

“Thank you, Tabitha,” the woman said. “You may not have a job tomorrow.”

Tabitha tells a crew member she “want[s] this lady off the flight,” which prompts the woman to begin apologizing.

Rundell confirmed to the Daily Mail that the woman continued to argue with a gate agent who came to remove her from the flight, but ultimately left the plane after coming back to her seat and fetching her belongings.

“We ask that customers embrace civility and respect one another when flying Delta,” a Delta representative told Fox News via email. “This customer’s behavior toward a fellow customer on a flight from New York to Syracuse was not in keeping with those standards. We appreciate our Endeavor Air flight attendant’s commitment to Delta’s core values and apologize to the other customers on board flight 4017 who experienced the disturbance.”

Political privilege?

United passenger Jean-Marie Simon says the airline gave her first-class seat on a December 2018 flight to Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Texas Democrat. United, Simon claims, threatened to yank her from the flight after she complained and took a photo of the politician, the Houston Chronicle reports.

A gate attendant at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston told Simon during boarding that her ticket wasn’t in the system, the newspaper reported. Told her seat was taken, Simon was reportedly put in Economy Plus and received a $500 voucher.

“We were concerned by this issue and took immediate steps to fully understand what happened. After thoroughly examining our electronic records, we found that upon receiving a notification that Flight 788 was delayed due to weather, the customer appears to have canceled her flight from Houston to Washington, D.C., within the United mobile app,” United told Fox News in a statement. “As part of the normal preboarding process, gate agents began clearing standby and upgrade customers, including the first customer on the waitlist for an upgrade.”

Simon disputed United’s claim that she canceled her ticket.

“Since this was not any fault of mine, the way the individual continued to act appeared to be, upon reflection, because I was an African-American woman, seemingly an easy target along with the African-American flight attendant who was very, very nice,” Jackson-Lee said in a staatement. “This saddens me, especially at this time of year given all of the things we have to work on to help people. But in the spirit of this season and out of the sincerity of my heart, if it is perceived that I had anything to do with this, I am kind enough to simply say sorry.”

Simon told the Houston Chronicle that the congresswoman’s remarks were accusing her of racism.

“I had no idea who was in my seat when I complained at the gate that my seat had been given to someone else; there is no way you can see who is in a seat from inside the terminal,” Simon told the newspaper.

Footwear fail

English singer Joanne Catherall, a vocalist for The Human League, made international headlines after she said that she was denied entry to a business-class Qantas lounge in Melbourne, Australia. 

“Denied access @Qantas business class lounge in @MelairMelbourne Airport apparently Ugg (Australia) Boots are deemed sleepwear by the lady working there although no problem in any of the other lounges so far,” she tweeted. “Helpfully she suggested I go to one of the shops & purchase some shoes.”

“Hi Joanne, we endeavour to remain consistent and uphold our Lounge’s dress guidelines to all our guests,” the airline tweeted, including a link to its domestic-lounge dress guidelines, which considers Uggs sleepwear.

“Why would an @UGG boot I wear outdoors in all weathers be classed as sleepwear in @Qantas lounge but nowhere else that I have ever been on this earth ?” Catherall asked.

“Hi Joanne, we don’t accept them in our lounges as you can see on the dress-guidelines,” another airline tweet said.

“Strange I had no problem in either the Perth or Adelaide @Qantas lounges wearing my Uggs even though they are apparently on the no go list in those 2 airports as well,” Catherall tweeted.

The airline’s reply here? “Understood Joanne, bear in mind each lounge is subject to the discretion of the team. We’ll pass your feedback on so we can improve our services.”

“We completely understand that no one likes being declined at the door but we’ve always had smart casual dress standards for our lounges, which are similar for those in place for most clubs and restaurants,” a Qantas spokesperson told The Independent. “Over the past couple of years, we have had clear feedback from lounge members that they wanted these existing guidelines to be applied more rigorously.”

Lewd comments

Randi Zuckerberg, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s sister, claimed that a fellow passenger on her Alaska Airlines flight to Mexico made “lewd sexual remarks” toward her.

Zuckerberg claims that the staff on the flight stood by and let it happen, with one flight attendant reportedly telling her, “Don’t take it personally, this guy just doesn’t have a filter.”

Shortly after her flight, on Nov. 29, Zuckerberg penned a letter to Alaska Airlines detailing the incident.

“He started talking to me about touching himself, kept asking me if I fantasized about the female business colleague I was traveling with, rated and commented on the women’s bodies boarding the aircraft as they walked by us, and many more equally horrifying and offensive comments,” she said in the letter, as seen in her Twitter post.

Alaska Airlines began an investigation into the incident, the airline said in a tweet.

The passenger who allegedly made the comments was temporarily suspended from the airline, Zuckerberg wrote in a later tweet.

Mother’s concern

Harvard Law student Briana Williams claims she and her daughter were booted from an American Airlines flight over the summer after she requested the 4-year-old’s stroller while the plane was delayed, the New York Daily News reported.

Williams, 24, told the newspaper their Aug. 21. New York City-bound flight was delayed for several hours. The plane reportedly went back to the gate and passengers were told to get off.

Williams asked the airline staff for the stroller, which had been checked, while she was exiting, the paper recounted. The staff declined.

“I told a crew member that I was not going to be leaving the aircraft without my stroller,” Williams said. She later spoke to the “very disgruntled and aggressive” pilot, and says he contacted police to boot her from the flight.

Williams and her daughter were put on a flight in the morning, the report said.

“The pilot put me in a potentially dangerous situation with law enforcement as a young, black woman, saying that I was a ‘threat,’” Williams, who intends to pursue legal action, told the paper. “This type of rhetoric paralyzes the African-American community, and I want to ensure that policies are put in place that regulate the pilot’s discretionary abilities.”

She says she turned down American’s offer of 25,000 miles.

The airline told Fox News putting her on a different flight was in “the best interest of everyone involved,” and said it offered her the miles. The carrier also said it “does not tolerate discrimination of any kind.”

MOM CLAIMS AMERICAN AIRLINES REMOVED HER FROM FLIGHT OVER STROLLER

Patriotic display

In October, a Georgia woman said she was prohibited from singing the national anthem with fellow passengers aboard a Delta flight which was also carrying one of the four U.S. troops killed that same month during an attack in Niger.

Pamela Dee Gaudry, who is married to a Vietnam War veteran, enlisted the support of other passengers and planned to sing the anthem to honor the fallen soldier and his family. But in a now-viral Facebook video, Gaudry said she was prevented from singing by the chief flight attendant, who informed her the song was against Delta’s policies.

She also said in her video that she was “humiliated” by what she saw as her “lack of courage” for following orders and not singing.

Since her video, Gaudry said she has been offered an apology from Delta, and the airline also confirmed that the national anthem is not against its policies.

Seat change without explanation

In a series of tweets, right-wing commentator Ann Coulter slammed Delta for giving away her seat to another woman on a flight from New York to West Palm Beach, Florida, on July 15, 2017.

Coulter later told Fox News that as she was boarding, a “ticket agent snatched the ticket” and informed her that her seat had changed due to an “emergency.”

DELTA PAYS WOMAN $4,000 TO GIVE UP HER SEAT

She said that she sat in the original seat anyway until she was told to move by a stewardess who was not able to give an explanation for the seat change.

“[The other passenger] was not an elderly person, was not a sickly person, a very tall person,” Coulter said.

Party of five

A family of five said they were unfairly kicked off a JetBlue flight on July 2, 2017, after a confrontation with an airline employee.

Tamir and Mandy Raanan said they were traveling from Fort Lauderdale to New York with their three young daughters – one of whom kicked the back of another passenger’s seat.

Mandy said she apologized to the other passenger, but the family were still asked to leave the plane.

JetBlue said in a statement that the incident was not as innocent as described. “After a verbal altercation that included physical threats and profanities against a nearby customer, the aircraft door was reopened and our airports team politely asked the customers to step off to discuss the situation,” JetBlue said.

The airline thanked its employees for their “professional handling” of the situation and said it would “investigate whether the customers’ behavior warrants restrictions on JetBlue travel” in the future.

Quite the ‘erreur’

Lucie Bahetoukilae, who only speaks French, handed her ticket to an airline employee and boarded a plane in Newark, New Jersey, thinking the next stop would be Paris. When she got to her seat and found another woman in it, a flight attendant sat her in an empty seat.

Nearly 3,000 miles later, Bahetoukilae touched down in San Francisco.

In what United Airlines deemed a “horrible failure” in May, Bahetoukilae boarded the wrong plane after her flight’s gate switched at the last minute. She said the announcement wasn’t made in French, and she didn’t receive an email notifying her of the gate change.

CHELSEA HANDLER TO ‘BOYCOTT’ DELTA OVER MISTAKEN PRICE HIKE

Once in San Francisco, Bahetoukilae had to wait 11 hours before United was able to get her on a flight to France.

“She could have been a terrorist and killed people on that flight and they didn’t know they didn’t catch it.”

– Diane Miantsoko

Diane Miantsoko, the woman’s niece, told WABC-TV that she was worried about United’s security protocol.

“With everything going on in this country, people have to be more careful,” Miantsoko said. “They didn’t pay attention. My aunt could have been anyone. She could have been a terrorist and killed people on that flight and they didn’t know they didn’t catch it.”

United apologized for the mistake in a statement and said it is “working with our team in Newark to prevent this from happening again.”

Whose seat is it, anyway?

Delta apologized after a California couple and their two children were booted from an overbooked plane when the parents refused to give up an extra seat they had purchased.

Brian Schear said he, his wife and two children boarded a flight from Maui, Hawaii, to Los Angeles on April 23, 2017, and were asked to give up an additional seat they had purchased for their older son — he had ended up taking a different flight. Since the son wasn’t present, Schear said the family planned to use his seat for one of the younger children.

AIRLINE COMPLAINTS DOWN LAST YEAR DESPITE MORE CASES OF BUMPING

But the flight was overbooked, and Schear was asked to give up the seat. When the family refused, they were made to leave the plane. The family booked new tickets home on another airline.

“We are sorry for the unfortunate experience our customers had with Delta, and we’ve reached out to them to refund their travel and provide additional compensation,” the airline said.

‘I’d rather go to jail’

Dr. David Dao was seated on a United fight in Chicago bound for Louisville, Kentucky, on April 9, 2017, when he was asked to give up his seat on an overbooked flight to make room for crew members.

Dao refused, explaining that he was a doctor who needed to be at work early the next morning.

“I’d rather go to jail.”

– David Dao

“I’m not going,” Dao repeatedly said. “I’d rather go to jail.”

Disturbing cellphone footage showing Dao being dragged off the plane, seemingly unconscious, by security officials went viral. During the altercation, Dao suffered a concussion, lost two of his teeth and broke his nose, his attorney said.

Dao and United “reached an amicable settlement” later in April.

“We look forward to implementing the improvements we have announced, which will put our customers at the center of everything we do,” United said in a statement at the time of the settlement.

Fox News’ Michael Bartiromo, Kaitlyn Schallhorn and Madeline Farber contributed to this report.