More On The Flying Imams

THEY WERE FAKING.

Or so it appears.

EXCERPTS:

Pauline revealed to Pajamas Media that the six imams were doing things far more suspicious than praying – an Arabic-speaking passenger heard them repeatedly invoke “bin Laden,” and “terrorism,” a gate attendant told the captain that she did not want to fly with them, and that bomb-sniffing dogs were brought aboard. Other Muslim passengers were left undisturbed and later joined in a round of applause for the U.S. Airways crew. “It wasn’t that they were Muslim. It was all of the suspicious things they did,” Pauline said.

Another passenger, not the note writer, was an Arabic speaker sitting near two of the imams in the plane’s tail. That passenger pulled a flight attendant aside, and in a whisper, translated what the men were saying. They were invoking “bin Laden” and condemning America for “killing Saddam,” according to police reports.

Meanwhile an imam seated in first class asked for a seat-belt extension, even though according to both an on-duty flight attendant and another deadheading flight attendant, he looked too thin to need one. Hours later, when the passengers were being evacuated, the seat-belt extension was found on the floor near the imam’s seat, police reports confirm. The U.S. Airways spokeswoman Andrea Rader said she did not dispute the report, but said the airline’s internal investigation cannot yet account for the seat-belt extension request or its subsequent use.

A seat-belt extension can easily be used as a weapon, by wrapping the open-end of the belt around your fist and swinging the heavy metal buckle.

Still, it seemed like just another annoying development, typical when flying the friendly skies. Days after the incident, the imam would claim that the steward helped him attach the device. Pauline said he is lying. Hours later, when the police was being evacuated, the steward asked Pauline to hand him the seat-belt extension, which the imam did not attach, but placed on the floor. “I know he is lying,” Pauline said, “I had it [seat belt extension] in my hand.”

Other factors were also considered: All six imams had boarded together, with the first-class passengers – even though only one of them had a first-class ticket. Three had one-way tickets. Between the six men, only one had checked a bag.

And, Pauline said, they spread out just like the 9-11 hijackers. Two sat in first, two in the middle, and two back in the economy section. Pauline’s account is confirmed by the police report. The airline spokeswoman added that some seemed to be sitting in seats not assigned to them.

One thing that no one seemed to consider at the time, perhaps due to lack of familiarity with Islamic practice, is that the men prayed both at the gate and on the plane. Observant Muslims pray only once at sundown, not twice.

“It was almost as if they were intentionally trying to get kicked off the flight,” Pauline said.

A Public Service Announcement

SDG here with an important public service announcement:

Please Note:

  1. Prophecy is a noun — not a verb. It is pronounced "prof-e-see" — not "prof-e-sigh."

  2. Prophesy is a verb — not a noun. It is pronounced "prof-e-sigh" — not "prof-e-see."

  3. Prophesize, also spelled prophecize, is not a word. Do not pronounce it.

Thank you.

(P.S. Feel free to note additional public service announcement in the combox.)

Advent: What do you do?

SDG here to thank everyone who commented on my earlier "Advent, Pre-16 and The Nativity Story" thread.

The discussion (still ongoing!) on The Nativity Story has been particularly interesting — but I don’t want the subject of Advent and Christmas to get lost either. (That’s what I get for cramming too much subject matter into one post… a symptom of posting as infrequently as I do.)

Some readers did comment on practices and customs in their homes (and thank you to those who did!), but I’m hoping there’s more Adventy goodness out there in JA.org reader-land.

What goes on in your home during the weeks of Advent? Do you an Advent wreath? Do you set up a creche? Decorate your house? How and when?

What, if anything, do you do to keep Advent different from Christmas? If you have kids, how do you involve them?

I know one common custom with creches is to set up the whole creche except for the Christ child at the center, and then to place the Christ child in the creche on Christmas eve.

I’ve also heard of a custom involving the Magi figures, in which they are originally placed somewhere at a significant distance from the creche, and are periodically moved closer to the creche, and finally arrive on Christmas eve. Anyone do anything like that?

Do you listen to music during Advent? During Christmas? What are your favorite CDs (or MP3s or whatever)?

Please share your thoughts in the combox!

Rube Goldberg’s Amazing Mechanical Band

There’s an urban legend that the machine depicted in this video is (a) real and (b) made largely of John Deere tractor parts and (c) now donated to the Smithsonian Institution. That’s not true. In reality, it’s a clip of a CGI vid that has been relabeled as part of the hoax. I just think it’s neat, though–and the building of this thing even virtually is pretty amazing in itself.

No New B5 Today. New B5 Tomorrow.

Or soon, anyway.

As folks may know, Babylon 5: The Lost Tales is now being produced as a series of direct-to-DVD mini-movies. The footage for the first pair is in the can. JMS writes:

As I write this, we have finished principal photography on "Babylon 5: The Lost Tales," coming in under budget and finishing a full day ahead of schedule.

This first DVD, entitled "Voices in the Dark," covers the same 72 hour period of time as Sheridan travels on board a Presidential Cruiser en route to Babylon 5 from Minbar for a celebration marking the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Interstellar Alliance. One part of the story follows Sheridan as he picks up an unexpected visitor on the edge of Centauri space, Prince Regent Dius Vintari, and a warning about what will come afterward delivered by the techno-mage, Galen. The other part of the story is set aboard Babylon 5, as Colonel Lochley summons a priest from Earth space to deal with a problem that may have dark supernatural overtones. The two parts of the greater story intersect at certain key plot and thematic points, so that they overlap and complement each other while telling separate, but simultaneous, stories.

READ MORE ABOUT WHAT’S GOING ON AND LOOK AT THE FIRST-RELEASED PRODUCTION PHOTOS.

Advent, Pre-16 and The Nativity Story

SDG here, inspired by Jimmy’s fascinating post about purple in Advent to offer a few brief thoughts about Advent, including some 30-year-old observations about Christmas commercialism from Pre-16, and a plug for The Nativity Story — as well as (ahem) my coverage of it at Decent Films.

Every year at this time, of course, countless Christian families struggle with the annual pre-Christmas hype, which now seems to begin shortly after Halloween, and is in full swing by Thanksgiving. The notion of Advent as a distinct season of preparation, of recapitulating Israel’s long anticipation of her Messiah, seems lost amid a hectic welter of consumerism and commercialism.

As a result, lots of people are "Christmased out" long before the 25th. Forget about the Octave of Christmas — let alone the traditional 12 days — let’s just bring on New Year’s and get the whole "holiday season" over and done with for another year.

Of course there’s also the annual anti-commercialism backlash (for all the good it does), and the "Keep Christ is Christmas" campaign. At the same time, it may be worth noting that the evils of Christmas consumerism may have been slightly exaggerated.

For a couple of years now, a 1977 essay by then-Cardinal Ratzinger on Christmas commercialism has been getting some attention, probably because of his ascension to the Chair of Peter. Last year it was cited here, then this year it cropped up in the paper I write for, the National Catholic Register ("Have a B16 Christmas"). The official Yankee cap tip, though, goes to Wheat and Weeds for printing the following excerpt in full:

Nowadays a theologian or preacher is all but expected to heap more or less sarcastic criticism on our popular way of celebrating Christmas and, thus, to contrast impressively the sentimentality of our celebration with the reality of the first Christmas. Christmas, we are told, has been commercialized irredeemably and has degenerated into a senseless marketing frenzy; its religiosity has become tacky.

Of course, such criticism is largely justified, even though it might too readily forget that, behind the facade of business and sentimentality, the yearning for something purer and greater is not entirely extinguished; indeed, that the sentimental framework often provides the protecting shield behind which hides a noble and genuine sentiment that is simply reluctant to expose itself to the gaze of the other.

The hectic commercialism is repugnant to us, and rightly so: for it is indeed utterly out of place as a commemoration of the hushed mystery of Bethlehem, of the mystery of the God who for us made himself a beggar (2 Corinthians 8:9). And yet, underneath it all, does it not originate in the notion of giving and thus the inner urgency of love, with its compulsion to share, to give of oneself to the other? And does not the notion of giving transport us directly into the core of the mystery that is Christmas?

In the offertory prayer of the Christmas Vigil liturgy, we ask God for the grace to receive with joy his everlasting gifts that come to us in the celebration of Christ’s birth. Thus the concept of gift-giving is squarely anchored in this liturgy of the Church and, at the same time, we are made aware of the primal mode of all giving at Christmas: that God, on this holy night, desired to make himself into a gift to mankind, that he turned himself over to us.

The one genuine Christmas gift to mankind, to history, to each one of us, is none other than Jesus Christ himself. Even those who do not believe him to be God incarnate will have to admit that he has enriched and gifted the inner existence of generations upon generations.

So there you have it. Maybe you don’t have to feel guilty every time you set your foot in a mall or order another package from Amazon.com. OTOH, there are probably better things you can be doing as well, so…

With five kids, Suzanne and I are always looking for ways to make Advent more special and, well, more Adventy. I’m definitely looking forward to checking out the book Jimmy mentioned, The Catholic Home, to see how we might expand or enhance our family practices.

FWIW, here are a few quick notes about Advent in our house. If you have any suggestions you’d like to share, by all means note ’em in the combox!

As part of our effort to minimize the pre-Christmas hype and accent the distinctive nature of Advent, we wait until the third week of Advent — the week of the pink candle on the Advent wreath, the week of special joy at reaching the halfway mark — to trim the tree and hang lights on the house. (Actually, depending on the weather, we might hang lights earlier, but we don’t light them until the third week.)

We do an annual Jesse tree with OT and NT readings for every day of Advent. (Not the one in this example, but it gives you the idea.)

While it doesn’t directly relate to the meaning of the season, of course as Christmas approaches we watch It’s a Wonderful Life. Last year we watched The March of the Wooden Soldiers, and probably will again. Perhaps this year we’ll watch some version of A Christmas Carol too (I like ’em all).

And, starting this year, I believe we’ll have a new Advent tradition: watching THE NATIVITY STORY (opening in theaters today), the first major Hollywood movie that focuses on the real real meaning of Christmas since, well, practically ever. Hopefully we’ll catch in in theaters this weekend; next year we’ll watch it on DVD.

GET THE STORY.

Read more. Read even more.