US: Prophylactery causes bomb scare on plane

Passengers on a flight from LaGuardia NY to Louisville KY were alarmed when a man strapped a box on his head and another on his arm, and the plane was diverted to Philadelphia. But it was OK, the man was an Orthodox Jew carrying out his prayer ritual. My mother who was Reform, and who married out, would have thought this rather amusing. She didn't have a lot of time for that stuff, to put it mildly.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8472937.stm

Fear is taking over! Did nobody think to ask him what he was doing?
"Excuse me sir, could you please sit down?"
"I have to pray"
etc

Surely his little cap gave him away, he wouldn't have fitted the profile of a terrorist.

Then again, any religion that is so strict you must pray at a specific time no matter where you are is ridiculous - or should I say "more ridiculous"!

Interestingly I heard about this just after watching Charlie Brooker's Newswipe on which he was talking about fear and how the news just report fear.
He mentioned a suicide bombing in Oklahoma in 2005 that got barely any coverage because it was a lone white guy, DW had never heard about it.
I did a search on line and it was interesting to read how the media tried to latch onto the fact he had a Pakistani room mate in college as to whether he could have converted to Islam. Once they couldn't find that link they weren't interested in the story.
It seems that the media make the conclusion first and then look for the evidence to support it.

Surely his little cap gave him away, he wouldn't have fitted the profile of a terrorist.

Some people might disagree.

Then again, any religion that is so strict you must pray at a specific time no matter where you are is ridiculous - or should I say "more ridiculous"!

Yup.

Whew.  Thank God there's no such thing as Jewish terrorists... 

Surely the crew of a plane flying out of New York City would have dealt with Orthodox Jewish pasengers before.

Then again, any religion that is so strict you must pray at a specific time no matter where you are is ridiculous - or should I say "more ridiculous"!

Similar for Muslims, I think.

Similar for Muslims, I think.

That's why I said "any religion"

Whew.  Thank God there's no such thing as Jewish terrorists... 

There are. They are called the IDF.

There are. They are called the IDF.

Dang. Tremula, you should have known I was being sarcastic.

Dang. Tremula, you should have known I was being sarcastic.

I guess! Kach...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kach_and_Kahane_Chai

...is described as a terrorist organisation by even the Israeli government. Also the Israelis have used the IDF and other agencies such as Mossad in ways that fit the definition commonly used to define terrorism.

And see here about Baruch Goldstein

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_the_Patriarchs_massacre

So maybe those plane passengers were right to be scared...

Have there ever been any Episcopalian extremist terrorists?

So maybe those plane passengers were right to be scared...

But they weren't "right to be scared" though, because there was no threat. It's the politics of fear.

I have to say I am no Religious buff and I had no idea that there was such a prayer ceremony in the Jewish religion.  I am not ignorant to other religions I just am not learned in the details. 

So in my eyes as a passenger seeing a man acting odd with boxes strapped to his body would probably freak me out a bit.

I agree that the flight attendance should of known and explained what he was doing, but you never know maybe none of them even knew what he was up to.

The government has everyone so wound up in a tizzy about terrorist it can be silly at times.   Though, I personally would not want to end up on the one plane where someone didn't ask 'what the hell is that man doing' and not end up landing safely

And now we hear that the British Government have raised the threat level, because of "chatter", nothing concrete given to us, just to tell us it's increased, it's not as though there's anything any of us can do...."be more vigilant", oh ok, I was ignoring that abandoned suitcase in the airport before!
David Milliband on Andrew Marr this morning "well, I can't go into detail about the intellegence, just that the level is raised" - we wouldn't have an election coming up would we?

It reminds me of (not personally!) those events of war hysteria in World War One when Londoners smashed the windows of shops with "German" sounding names and even kicked to death daschunds and other "German breeds" and German Shepherds had to be rename "Alsatians".

German Shepherds had to be rename "Alsatians".

So that's why.

Have there ever been any Episcopalian extremist terrorists?

They just offered cake or death (link)