Letters to the Editor
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Re: Kurth is a liar
Quoting:
"Kurth is a liar. He describes his extremely insulting, abusive and perhaps frightening behaviour towards a flight attendant as nothing but "loudmouth pigheadedness". And the flight attendant is "humorless" because she did not tolerate his drunk and abusive attack on her."
Um ... gee ... I don't remember that you were on the plane. If you were, please say so, and then we can talk about "lying," and the "humorless" flight attendant (who in fact was more than "humorless" -- she ought to be working in a concentration camp somewhere).
I did not "attack" her, and I was not drunk (prove to me that I was -- go ahead: look up the case, and you will find that there is no confirmation of such a thing, no tests, no determination of this at all). In fact, I left the "flight attendant" right out of it, right away, knowing that she was not only hateful, but powerless, and that the thing needed to be referred to what we call "higher-ups" -- which is where I went, all of them laughing and giggling and sitting around on the "bustle" that got me into so much trouble (so much for security!). But the flight attendant herself went right on her un-merry way ... I would be very careful, even on a forum like this, before I called someone a "liar." It is a libel & cannot be supported by any evidence collected then or later.
I owe this "flight attendant" no apology -- neither one to you, whoever you are. Far be it from me to criticize the good editors at Salon, who had to take a mass of "diary" and turn it into something that could be published in a day, but I *can* tell you, as someone who has written for Salon since its inception, that all accounts of anything need condensing, and that we had to work for a while on the "introduction" to this piece, because I was in no mood to excuse British Airways for its sadistic determination to see me "punished" for insulting one of its crew; while Salon -- rightly, I think -- wanted to remove as much "whining" as we could from the story. Evidently, we didn't succeed. But I would warn you again -- the word "liar" is actionable, and while I am quite sure that the events I experienced will NOT be repeated, I wonder if we couldn't throw someone like you into a prison, rape you a lot, deny you all the rights you are supposed to have in any civilized country, and see how willing you are to "apologize."
Just askin' is all. The word "asshole" is NOT actionable (except in Britain), so I will use it, asshole. At no point in the piece as published did I "minimize my bad behavior." pk