Apparently, some passengers were nervous because a man was wearing a t-shirt similar to this one on a Quantas flight.
As a fun refresher, here is the scene from The Princess Bride starring Mandy Patinkin as Inigo Montoya.
I vote this move on Quantas as the All-Time Biggest Pop Culture Fail.
My thanks to Author Angela Quarles for pointing me to this article.
Blogs and Articles in No Particular Order
An internet scandal! And yours truly had a front row seat. About a year ago, a person named Terrell Mims was caught red-handed stealing blogs from Cracked.com and other places and printing them verbatim as his own. This week, he tried it again under a new name. Kristen Lamb has the story. Plagiarism and Terrell Mims–A Chronic Case of EPIC Stupid
My former Constitutional Law professor, Richard B. Collins, pointed me to this article this week as an example of how the Hands in Washington are washing each other to our detriment. Fiscal Footnote: Big Senate Gift to Drug Maker
A couple of things to restore our faith in humanity after that. . . .
Tennessee Homecoming King Nominees Give Crown to Another Teen
Waiter Who Refused Service to Customer Becomes Web Hero
Guiding Angel, Tiffany & Col, c. 1890, wikimedia commons
A visual treat from historical mystery writer K.B. Owen. Art Nouveau as Inspiration
Bad Bible Stories: When Good Girls are Whores by Author Ellie Ann. If she ever gets tired of writing, she really has a way with recounting a tale.
Jenny Hansen asks, Are Your Spammers Trying to have Sex with You Too?
Stacy Green’s INTO THE DARK Guest Post and Giveaway. A chance to win your copy of her mystery/suspense book, which I am told is awesome.
Some say that standardized tests have destroyed our school system, creating conflicts of interest for teachers who will lose their jobs if students don’t perform. Some teachers have had enough. Standardized Text Backlash: Some Seattle Teachers Just Say ‘No’
Looking for a great detective novel? Catie Rhodes can recommend a few. My Favorite Female Sleuth
Have some words are phrases you’re sick of hearing? Julie Glover does. Banish these Words and Phrases!
One of my all time favorite videos, Jane Austen’s Fight Club. It comes and goes from the internet so catch it while you can.
Thanks for featuring me!
I have a comment on the Princess Bride t-shirt fiasco. but I’m not sure how to articulate it. My thoughts have to do with what I said at Christmas about people running around looking for something they can point a finger at and say, “That offends me.”
It does seem more than a little paranoid. I mean, last time I checked, terrorists didn’t wear their occupation on their name tags. 🙂
Thanks for the shout-out! By the way, as the only person alive who found The Princess Bride to be a complete waste of two hours, I wouldn’t have understood the cultural reference to Inigo Montoya either because I have happily blocked most of the movie out.
I don’t understand, but I think you’re awesome anyway, Julie. Thank you for being brave enough to say that in public. 🙂
Do I get any points for liking Young Frankenstein or Monty Python’s Holy Grail?
Totally. 🙂
OMG, Julie! You are the only person I’ve ever met…I freaking love that movie. *shakes head*
Thanks so much for featuring me, Piper! LOL on the Princess Bride t-shirt deal. What kind of world are we living in? That is an awesome t-shirt and one I may buy, lol. Thanks again:)
I’m thinking I need one for my next plane ride, myself. 🙂
Thanks for the recommendations. Some of them i knew about (Ellie Ann, of course) and some I didn’t and I will check them out.
You’re welcome. 🙂
RE: The T-shirt. I think having it on at the wrong place was the wearer’s fail. It’s possible to be too clever for your own good. Killing and dying are pretty sensitive topics lately.
It’s sometimes a difficult balance between catering to legitimate sensitivities and enabling social nonsense. I think it’s difficult for many of our generation to imagine that there are people who are unfamiliar with The Princess Bride. 🙂
The t-shirt thing…ugh. Not sure people have much of a sense of humor anymore. And they’re so paranoid it’s ridiculous. That’s about as ridiculous as the Kindergartner who was suspended for threatening to shoot a friend with a bubble gun. I know I’m going to sound like an old fogie, but I played guns as a kid and I didn’t grow up to shoot anyone. I also played violent video games, and I watch violent movies. Again, no urge to kill anyone. Kids playing guns and guys wearing t-shirts aren’t that big of a deal, haha
As for the standardized testing thing, good for them! Kids are tested way, way too much I think. From what I’ve seen in various classes, there isn’t really any difference in the effectiveness of high stakes testing vs. low stakes testing. I tend to think tests should be one facet of measuring progress, among others, but not the main focus. Honestly the emphasis on high stakes testing and the way that NCLB is structured to me smacks of social engineering and a cynical attempt to sneak privatization of the public school system under the radar. After all, schools that do bad on the tests get their funding pulled, while schools that do well get their funding and more if they do well. Schools that don’t do well tend to be in poorer areas, which could use the funds, while schools that do well tend to be in wealthier areas, where property values are higher. School districts are generally funded by property taxes (which is unconstitutional in Ohio at least, but nobody seems to be doing anything about it).
Some of the federal funding is based on the number of students in a school. Number of students is to some degree dependent on the area and how good the school is. Parents in underperforming school districts are given the option of having their kids moved to schools in other districts, including charter schools and private schools. They can get a voucher to these other schools. Charter schools are technically public schools, but they’re privately owned and operated although they do have to adhere to at least some of the state standards, if not all of them. Private schools have even less standards to adhere to, if I recall correctly, and get more leeway in terms of curriculum. So you can forgive me for being cynical when I say that the current structure is built to filter students (and therefore money) and state money from public schools to privately run schools. It’s just another instance of corporate welfare, and it’s a gigantic mess that nobody seems to have the hutzbah to fix haha. There’s some ideological motives behind it too of course, and some religious motivations as vouchers can be used to enroll in private religious schools, but most of it is just making money for corporations involved in the education industry.
Tell me what you really think, Andrew. 🙂
I’m with you about the standardized testing. It’s ruined my kids’ education to the point that I’m ready to let them drop out, get their G.E.D.’s and move on to college. And we’re in one of the best school districts in the nation.
I’m not sure how it is everywhere, but here, as you describe, charter schools are private schools on the public ticket. However, the ones around here provide an educational experience that ditches a great deal of the self-serving, self-perpetuating bureaucratic nonsense that keeps the public schools so tied up they can’t function effectively. That being said, I’ve see all kinds of maneuvers on the part of the district administration to thwart any kind of charter schools out of existence. It is a genuinely adversarial relationship, and it’s all about the money.
Thanks so much for sharing your experience. 🙂
If The Count had been on the flight…he should have been worried!
Thanks for the blog love!
An excellent observation. 🙂
Piper – OMG, ROFL, and all sorts of other acronyms I can’t think of right now…Jane Austen’s Fight Club! I’m dying here! What a riot.
Thanks for the Friday funny, and also for the blog post shout-out!
Have a great weekend,
Kathy
Is that the best, or what? I never get tired of it. 🙂
Mullins was flying into Auckland when it happened – made big news here. Actually, I never cease to wonder at the way stuff from small & obscure NZ seems to hit world attention these days. And what good taste in movies he has! Our online media had this to say about it: http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/blogs/moatas-blog-idle/8222806/The-tale-of-the-inconceivable-T-shirt (Moata Tamaira’s very funny).
I have to share a story that happened to us on a Qantas trans-Tasman flight. We were coming back to Wellington from a weekend in Sydney and were served the in-flight meal (you know, you’ll starve in 3 hours if you don’t get fed…) which was exclusively made of the two foods I have an intolerance to. I mentioned this to the flight attendant. ‘We’ll fix it,’ she said. A few minutes later she came back with a much larger meal that smelled wonderful. ‘It’s from business class,’ she said. ‘I hope it suffices.’ Inconcievable! And so, while everybody around us in cattle class was choking down ships’ biscuit and gruel, I got to dine on duck.
My wife has never let me forget it. Ever since, whenever I complain I about something, she tells me, ‘Don’t forget…you got the duck.’
Wow. I haven’t seen an in-flight meal of any kind here in the US in almost twenty years. So I’m seriously jealous of your duck and wondering if Quantas would please put a few routes in my corner of the world. I would feel compelled to wear a Princess Bride t-shirt, though.
What a great link! Loved that write-up. Thanks for pointing me Moata’s way. 🙂
For whatever reason, I have a face TSA loves to hate. The family joke is the extra time needed at the airport while I get through the pat down, the X-ray, and the machine that blows air on you. Two pieces of advice travelers- don’t do something obvious like where a tshirt with death threats and NEVER wear harem pants even if you think they are the best choice for 16 hours in the air. TSA has a wild imagination and they imagine it all in the harem pants.
Jane Austin Fight Club, devillishly cool idea. What’s next Chuck Dickens MMe?
Crazy that the Inigo shirt freaked people out. Just goes to show that there is no sense of humor about certain subjects at an airport. Great stuff this week. I loved that video! Can you imagine the fun those actors had making it?
I read about that homecoming king in Tennessee. All kinds of awesome that.
Agreed. 🙂
Hahahaha! That’s hilarious. I’ve seen that shirt, but never thought “gee, that person is a terrorist.” Mandy Patinkin should’ve picked a scarier name.
I know. I’d seen it before, too. Never occurred to me that someone wouldn’t realize it was a joke whether they had seen the movie or not. 🙂
I have to say the Princess Bride T-shirt fiasco makes me a little sad. Is that movie so long off everyone’s radar that the quote was not recognizable? A shirt like that should make a passenger giggle or should at least elicit a head nod of appreciation the reaction shows me that the movie really just isnt as well known as it should be. Maybe they should have forced the passengers to watch the movie on board rather than forcing him to remove his shirt 🙂
I like your solution of showing the movie in-flight. I understand what you’re saying about the sadness. I guess I’m hardened to it after fielding questions like, “Who’s Carly Simon?” and “What was Watergate?” for the past decade with my teens. 🙂
OK, I NEED that t-shirt!! And a More Cowbell one too. 🙂
Thanks for including my post. It’s always an honor to be in your Friday mashup (even if it takes me until Sunday to pop online). Here’s wishing you a week of groovy shirts…