TSA bans reading on international flights

[Steve Kl.]

For what it's worth, I flew from Detroit to Boston yesterday. Not only did I
get through security in about 15 minutes, I was also easily able to fly
standby on an earlier flight than I'd originally had a ticket for. There was
zero mention of any new regulations on the flight. The flight is less than
two hours -- I definitely got up to use the bathroom somewhere over the
Adirondacks, definitely within an hour of landing.

I read my book the whole way in. If there were any blanket restrictions (pun
intended), none was made known over the intercom.

- Steve

On Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 2:32 AM, Dennis Baron <debaron at illinois.edu> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dennis Baron <debaron at ILLINOIS.EDU>
> Subject:      TSA bans reading on international flights
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> There's a new post on the Web of Language:
>
> TSA bans reading on international flights
>
> On Christmas day, a man from Nigeria tried to blow up NW 253, a
> transatlantic flight about to land in Detroit, by using explosive
> chemicals sewn into his underwear. The Transportation Security
> Administration (TSA) immediately responded to this new terrorist
> threat by ordering passengers not to read during the last hour of
> their flight.
>
> The bomb-maker sneaked his bomb onto the plane past tight security
> checks in Amsterdam, and when his planned explosion fizzled, he was
> subdued not by security officials (there were none on the plane) but
> by passengers and the plane's flight attendants. But in order to
> discourage similar attacks in the future, the TSA has seen fit to
> order passengers to remain seated while the plane begins its descent,
> to return their seat backs and tray tables to their upright position,
> and to stow all personal items, including books and magazines.
>
> read the full post at the Web of Language: http://bit.ly/weblan
> ____________________
> Dennis Baron
> Professor of English and Linguistics
> Department of English
> University of Illinois
> 608 S. Wright St.
> Urbana, IL 61801
>
> office: 217-244-0568
> fax: 217-333-4321
>
> http://www.illinois.edu/goto/debaron
>
> read the Web of Language:
> http://www.illinois.edu/goto/weboflanguage
>
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