Alcohol: why we should call time on airport drinking

As the alcohol industry continues to make healthy profits, Britain is left counting the increasing cost of its unhealthy relationship with booze. From overstretched accident and emergency departments to a steady incidence of alcohol-related disease, the cost is massive. The most recent figures reveal that alcohol-related harms cost the NHS around £3.5 billionannually.

And the problems don’t end there. Often the erratic and antisocial behaviour of intoxicated people will have an impact on others. This becomes apparent when walking down any UK high street on a Saturday night, as you dodge obstacles from aggressive drinkers to broken glass.

Alcohol issues aren’t limited to towns and cities, either. Recently, budget airline Ryanair once again called for airports to introduce “preventative measures to curb excessive drinking”, following a flight that had to land unexpectedly when three passengers became disruptive. Airports are places where high security and order are paramount to safety so, really, no alcohol should be allowed whatsoever.

Drunk on board

In recent years, there have been several high profile incidents involving drunk passengers on planes – as well as countless other unreported events. In fact, figures show 387 people were arrested for being drunk at airports between February 2016 and February 2017 – up from 255 the previous year. And a BBC Panorama investigation has found that more than half of cabin crew have seen disruptive drunken passenger behaviour at UK airports.

Problems linked to alcohol consumption in airports and on planes include passengers being too drunk to board, or being out of control on planes. Those who do not board have their bags removed, causing delays for other passengers, while those who board drunk can cause disorder and endanger passenger safety – especially pertinent in the confines of an aeroplane where other passengers can become scared.

Drunk behaviour is not just disruptive to other passengers, however. Air travel involves a tightly integrated, complex set of processes and the effects of drunk passengers can impact this infrastructure. The number of professionals required for the safe management of drunks can divert resources away from normal service, potentially affecting security and the safety of other travellers.

Drunk people have reportedly tried to open plane doors and smash windows while in flight. The extent of drunkenness has caused planes in flight to divert so that the intoxicated and disorderly can be offloaded, again affecting all other passengers’ safety and convenience.

Licensing rules

The government is examining how alcohol is sold in airports, but they stop short of banningit altogether. Instead, restrictions have been proposed to end rules which allow airport bars and pubs to operate outside UK licensing laws. Limiting the number of drinks a passenger can have, both before and during flights, would almost certainly bring this number of alcohol-related incidents down, and result in fewer delays and a more secure and pleasant trip for passengers and staff.

It’s not about being puritanical. Choice is important and many choose to make alcohol an important part of many activities, including their holidays. At the same time, choices have been made to ensure the safety of air passengers and to keep flights running on time. Airport and aeroplane staff, given the choice, would probably prefer not to mop up vomit from those who have drunk too much – or worse, potentially put themselves in harm’s way to protect other passengers.

During air travel, travellers are contained in secure areas, with no choice over their fellow passengers. Removing the irrationality of intoxication from such an activity is not the tyranny of the majority, it is simply asking people to temporarily abstain until they reach their chosen destination. Many passengers choose not to drink and, given the choice, families would likely prefer that their children are not exposed to disorderly drunks.

No one has the right to cause harm to others and it is trivial to expect abstinence while passengers make their way to their destination, whether it is an alcohol-fuelled excursion, a family holiday or a business trip. For those who use alcohol to cope with anxiety, there are more effective and safer alternatives. For those who cannot go without alcohol there are many services available to help with dependence.

Ultimately, the needs of the many must outweigh the desires of a minority who want to “start their holiday early”.

 

http://theconversation.com/alcohol-why-we-should-call-time-on-airport-drinking-100105

Waiter made up story about ‘racist’ tipper: restaurant

A Texas restaurant server cooked up a steaming-hot hoax when he claimed a racist patron stiffed himand wrote “We don’t tip terrorist” on their bill, according to a new report.

“After further investigation, we have learned that our employee fabricated the entire story,” Saltgrass Steak House COO Terry Turney said Monday in a statement to the Odessa American newspaper.

“The customer has been contacted and invited back to our restaurant to dine on us. Racism of any form is intolerable, and we will always act swiftly should it occur in any of our establishments. Falsely accusing someone of racism is equaling disturbing.”

Waiter Khalil Cavil, 20, who is black, had claimed the patron stiffed him on a $108 meal and instead wrote the hateful message.

Saltgrass officials said Cavil no longer works at the restaurant, but did not reveal how they determined it was a hoax.

Cavil could not be reached for comment. He previously claimed that he was inspired by Martin Luther King to share the receipt on Facebook.

https://nypost.com/2018/07/23/waiter-made-up-story-about-racist-tipper-restaurant/

Woman in Green

JIHAD – AND THE USUAL EXCUSE — IN TORONTO

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270831/jihad-%E2%80%93-and-usual-excuse-toronto-robert-spencer

On Sunday night, a Muslim named Faisal Hussain strolled calmly down Danforth Avenue in Toronto’s Greektown, a popular area known for its restaurants and cafes. Hussain pulled out a weapon and started firing into some of those restaurants, murdering two people and injuring another 13.

The most obvious explanation for this is that Hussain was answering the call of the Islamic State (ISIS) and al-Qaeda for individual Muslims to murder civilians in Western countries. The Islamic State issued this call in September 2014:

So O muwahhid, do not let this battle pass you by wherever you may be. You must strike the soldiers, patrons, and troops of the tawaghit. Strike their police, security, and intelligence members, as well as their treacherous agents. Destroy their beds. Embitter their lives for them and busy them with themselves. If you can kill a disbelieving American or European — especially the spiteful and filthy French — or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war, including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah, and kill him in any manner or way however it may be….If you are not able to find an IED or a bullet, then single out the disbelieving American, Frenchman, or any of their allies. Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car, or throw him down from a high place, or choke him, or poison him….

Hussain’s family, on the other hand, was ready with a different explanation. His parents issued a statementsaying: “Our son had severe mental health challenges, struggling with psychosis and depression his entire life….While we did our best to seek help for him throughout his life of struggle and pain, we could never imagine that this would be his devastating and destructive end.”

This might be more convincing had we not heard it so many, many times before. Just a few of many available examples:

Last week in Paris, a Muslim hit a 69-year-old Jewish man, knocking him to the ground, and then dragged him by the hair, all the while screaming “Allahu akbar, long live Hitler, death to the Jews.” The attacker was sent for a psychiatric evaluation; French authorities are apparently not even considering the possibility that he is a jihad terrorist with Islam’s special hatred for Jews.

Likewise in June 2017, a Muslim who stalked through a Jewish area of London screaming “Allah, Allah” and “I’m going to kill you all” was not a jihadi. A police spokesman explained: “He was detained by officers under the Mental Heath Act. No one was injured. This is not being treated as terror-related.”

Also in June 2017, a Muslim in a Metro station in Lausanne, Switzerland began screaming “Allahu akbar,” causing commuters to run away in terror. But there was nothing to be concerned about: the prosecutor explained that “this is a person who was afraid his life was in danger. At the height of his crisis, he began to face paranoia. Then he called to God for help. This is what he did last Friday in the subway shouting Allahu akbar.”

In March 2017, a Muslim in Germany attacked a 59-year-old man riding his bicycle, bashing his skull with a hammer. Police announced: “The suspect may have a mental illness” and stressed that this was not a jihad attack, as the attacker was simply  “mentally ill.” Another Muslim in Germany who wounded nine people with an axe in a train station was also not a jihadi; he had “mental health problems.”

In May 2016, a Muslim screaming “Allahu akbar” and “Infidel, you must die” stabbed four people, killing one, at a train station near Munich. Nonetheless, Bavarian security officials immediately denied that he “had an Islamic extremist motive.” Then what caused the attack? Bavaria’s state interior minister Joachim Herrmann said that the attacker had “mental disorders.”

A Muslim was arrested in June 2016 for a jihad plot to attack tourists and police. He was found with a knife and a machete. According to the Telegraph, “the suspect has a history of psychiatric problems and has been diagnosed as schizophrenic, but is considered nonetheless ‘truly radicalised’ with a ‘serious profile.’”

In August 2016, a Muslim stabbed six people in London, murdering one of them. The BBC reported that “the Met Police’s assistant commissioner for specialist operations, Mark Rowley, said the investigation was increasingly pointing to the attack being ‘triggered by mental health issues.’”

That was also the verdict in the case of Gyulchehra Bobokulova, the Muslim woman who in May 2016 beheaded a four-year-old girl and then paraded her severed head through the streets of Moscow. She screamed “Allahu akbar” while brandishing the girl’s head and said that Allah had ordered her to behead the girl. She seems to have had an Islamic State boyfriend. She had become religious not long before the beheading, and started wearing hijab. She says the beheading was revenge for Russian airstrikes on Muslims in Syria. She told her son to pray five times a day and live in accord with Sharia. Despite all that, however, she was declared insane and not brought to trial.

In Uruguay, a Muslim screaming “Allahu akbar” stabbed a Jewish man to death, and later explained that in committing this murder, he had “followed Allah’s order.” But a judge ruled that he was “suffering from chronic psychosis of schizophrenic type” and “was not able to appreciate the wrongfulness of his actions.”

In the same way, a Muslim who was shouting “Allahu akbar” outside a Brooklyn synagogue in July 2016 and had two knives in his car was, according to the New York Daily News, nothing to be concerned about: “investigations by the NYPD and FBI showed Joudeh, 32, was emotionally disturbed and not a terrorist threat.”

Mental illness is also the cause of anti-Americanism among Muslims. Military Times reported that in November 2015, “a Jordanian police captain opened fire in an international police training facility, killing two Americans and three others. The government subsequently portrayed the police captain as troubled.”

Of course. What else could he be?

What those who dismiss jihad activity as mental illness never consider is that it could be both. If Faisal Hussain really struggled with mental health issues throughout his life, as his family claims, he may have considered himself to be under a curse from Allah, and decided to do something great in order to get into the deity’s good graces. And Islam teaches that there is no deed greater than jihad: a hadith has a man asking Muhammad, “Instruct me as to such a deed as equals Jihad (in reward).” Muhammad replied, “I do not find such a deed.” (Bukhari 56.4.2785)

If Faisal Hussain was tormented by the idea that he had sinned, he also might have been trying to make sure the scale holding his good deeds outweighed the scale holding his evil deeds (cf. Qur’an 21:47) by performing what is, in Muhammad’s view, the greatest deed of all.

There is, in sum, no reason why an act of jihad terror cannot be performed by someone who is on the psychically marginal edge, and plenty of reasons why someone who is psychically marginal might opt for jihad.

But we are certain to hear even more the same old excuses in the coming days, along with admonitions that only by rejecting “Islamophobia” can we prevent future Faisal Hussains. The mental health of would-be Islamic jihadis will be, like everything else, made the responsibility of non-Muslims, just as it is the responsibility of non-Muslims to bend over backward to accommodate Muslim demand so as to prevent “radicalization.”

The jihad imperative in the Qur’an and Sunnah, however, is open-ended. Jihad is to be waged against all infidels, not just to those who are “Islamophobic” and not appeasement-minded. And so all the claims after this latest jihad attack that Muslims are the real victims of jihad and require special accommodation may well result in that accommodation in Justin Trudeau’s Canada, ostensibly to prevent more Faisal Hussains from going round the bend, but it will do nothing to blunt the force of the advancing jihad.

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and author of the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Iran. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.

 

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