Rusty Saber: Fliers with extra-wide loads face airlline's wrath

It has been awhile since Rusty and I have commented on the news. Truly perceptive readers may have noticed the Rusty Saber has shrunk down to appearing only every other week. I'll get to these items before they get any older.

You probably heard about Southwest Airline's plans to enforce a 22-year-old policy requiring, shall we say, larger passengers taking up a seat-and-a-half to pay extra. Rather than on a per seat basis, fares will be on square inches occupied.

Anyone ever seated on a crowded flight next to an extra-large traveler, one who spreads out over onto their seat, may be saying: "Right on, baby!" However, it is a fact that the typical American fanny has "flowered" enough that public transportation seats may need to be wider. What troubles me is who must tell passengers they are too hefty to fly on a single ticket. Surely ticket agents won't be required to ask passengers to do pirouettes in order to get a glimpse of them from every angle.

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to be the one to say: "Sorry big guy (or gal), but there is way, way too much of you to fly on a svelte' ticket; you need a baby beef' ticket!"

Rusty Saber to the rescue: put chair-like structures at the check-in counter sort of like the racks where passengers measure carry-on luggage.

Passengers sprawling over the tush-measuring thingamajigs would have to pay the extra freight. I think the per-ton rate is an idea whose time has not yet come.

News stories keep on cropping up concerning demands that ethnic athletic mascot names be done away with. I guess the demand is for expunging all ethnic mascots. Will Notre Dame have to change its mascot's name? The Fighting Irish is ethnic. In fact, I'm Irish. However, I can think of no reason to be offended. But, it is ethnic.

The Boston Celtics? Celtics are not only Irish, but also Scot and Welsh; that's a lot of people to be insulted. Then we have the Minnesota Vikings. The Viking mascot insults Scandinavians, another ethnic group. Adding insult to injury, the football team's Viking mascot wears those "Hagar the Horrible" cartoon horns. If all ethnic mascots have to go, the Viking is toast.

This story from Savannah, Ga., proves that being incredibly stupid isn't against the law, but things people do can be. A 23-year-old elementary teacher was arrested (pay attention here, I'm not making this up) for helping her students play a prank by stealing a live duck from a park and releasing it in the school building. Although she wasn't charged for being incredibly stupid, she was charged with obstruction, contributing to delinquency of minors and public drunkenness. Did she say something like this to the students: "OK, kids. For our next field trip I will get drunk as a skunk, then we will go to the park, steal a duck, bring it back to the school and turn the little quacker loose in the school building. Won't that be a neat learning experience?"

Another school-related story is about police being called to a Syracuse, Utah, school when an 11-year-old girl brought a bag of methampetamine from home to school for show and tell! Apparently Daddy and/or Mommy was being a bad influence on the child. The girl and her 2-year-old brother were turned over to Children and Family Services, while the parents tried to explain why the child was able to find the drugs lying around the house. The suggestion by anthropologist Margaret Mead may be valid in this case licenses shouldn't be necessary to get married, but should be required for couples to have children.

In your mind's eye, try to visualize this incident from Fargo, N.D., where authorities have a man held for "psychiatric observation."

All he did was run naked on the main runway at Hector International Airport. Try as he would, he was unable to take off well he was able to take off his clothes, but he didn't get off the ground. It all started when he was caught breaking into a car. He ripped off his clothes, jumped a fence and made his futile effort to become airborne.

If anyone ever deserved psychiatric observation, it has to be this guy. Are you able to visualize this event in your mind's eye? It makes quite a picture. That's the news for now.

(Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University.)