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American Airlines 1800-299-7264 Flight Support Number

An Open Letter to CEO Jeff Smisek On United Airlines’ Blasphemous Safety Video

…ual recompense. In the video message that was played before my last United Airlines flight, you expressed your desire to greet each and every passenger; you invited us to sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight. If I could greet you now, I would want to know: were you unaware of the monstrosity that was about to follow? There, rising above the hiss of the pressurized air, as the video monitors snapped to the image of an engorged sun bursting from be…

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Why the Hell Does Hell Still Matter?

…. The common claim that hell has been on the outs in America since at least 1800 is simply untrue. If anything, 1800 represented a turning point in the other direction. The idea of universal salvation had appealed to both elites like Chauncy and common folk in the late-1700s. The promise that all humans would eventually be saved represented an extreme backlash against the dominant Calvinist notion that God chose only some for heaven. Universal sal…

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Mile-High Identity Politics: What We Can Learn From the Same-Sex Seating Controversy

…nd other non-black students at the high school. Many cultural progressives supported the meeting, claiming that power issues in the broader culture and the long history of oppression of African Americans justified creating this protected space. There is a parallel to be made to the situation on the plane. Women have long been marginalized by men. A man asking a woman to move on a flight may reasonably be interpreted as another chapter in a seeming…

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Hajj Journal: The Journey Begins and Ends

…ly swarm to three million persons! But others travel to Jeddah too on this flight, including Muslims and non-Muslims. Jeddah is a port city; and as the major airport hub for Saudi Arabia, this flight has all types. Now, I’ve been on many planes, but this is the first time I’ve been on a plane where 50% of the seats are business- and first-class. Sorta gives you an idea who comes to the Kingdom, among Muslims and non-Muslims alike: big business. Ok…

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Our Failure To Understand Ferguson: A Cognitive Explanation

…n relegated to living in ghettos. As a result, Rothstein told me, “African American family incomes are about 60% of white family incomes, but African American wealth is about 5% of white family wealth. And that difference is heavily attributable to federal race-based housing policy.” It might be psychologically satisfying to blame unemployment on individual laziness, or segregation on prejudiced white homeowners, but this would miss the forest for…

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Denzel’s Profane Preaching: A Religious Movie for the Rest of Us

…d gathering—on his way to a lurching belly-flop in an adjoining field. But Flight, like most of the other religiously-themed scripts to which Washington agrees to lend his star power, is no Kirk Cameron morality play. As in The Book of Eli, in which Washington played a post-apocalyptic loner who creates a trail of gore during a violent spiritual pursuit of the lone remaining copy of the Bible, the celluloid preaching in Flight is rated R. In addit…

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Along Came a Spider: What the Pope Doesn’t See

…y, as many of the dioceses in the United States become uninsurable and the number of Catholic churches dwindles. As membership shrinks, the number of ordinations decreases, and the coffers dry up, perhaps the Vatican and its leadership will be forced to look at its decrepit, hierarchical structure, and fix it. I doubt it, however. Like the spider who crawled across Pope Benedict’s robes this weekend in Prague, everyone except the Pope can see the…

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The Best-Laid Plans of Mice and Humans

…The travel agent said this change was required from the Saudi end; thus my flight into Jeddah from Paris had to be changed. But in order to make this two-hour adjustment, I lost my direct flight to Paris. The difference is, instead of leaving in the evening on Sunday, my departure time is 8:45 a.m. Not such a big deal ordinarily, but remember, I have to bathe, make my intentions, and take up ihram at some point before I arrive in Jeddah. The best…

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What Does a Moral Economy Look Like for the 99 Percent?

…y left the airport and began marching a mile to the headquarters of Alaska Airlines. I think the photo does a great job of embodying the energy of the budding movement—clergy and workers from a diversity of backgrounds and faiths. To me, the picture reinforces a key argument of the book: this is a moral fight. For nine months leading up to the rally, organizers had been meeting people at the airport and in the community, coaxing them to take on an…

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With the Pope at Ground Zero

…r of Rochester NY, who lost his daughter Jean, a flight attendant on board American Airlines Flight 11. Mr. Roger said he hoped the pope would say prayers for the place, for the people, and for his daughter Jean. Praying at a unlighted candle next to the prie-dieu Pope Benedict XVI used on his visit, the Pope offered those prayers silently while looking at the south pool of the memorial. The 9/11 site has become not just a memorial or a museum—it…

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