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Isn't this getting ridiculious?

  • Thread starter Thread starter surv1
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surv1

Active member
Joined
Dec 24, 2001
Posts
31
COLRAIN - An innocent inquiry to a Staples store clerk about a computer software program that teaches how to fly an airplane by instrumentation brought a surprise visit this holiday season to a local family from the state police.

"At first, I felt a little angry and violated" about someone telling authorities about her inquiry, said Julie Olearcek, a 15-year Air Force Reserve pilot. "But now that time has gone by, I realize it may take someone like that, who's a little nervous, who may save the day." Olearcek's husband, Henry, is also a flier, currently on active duty, and frequently away from home these days.

About a week before Christmas, Olearcek said the couple's 10-year-old son, who has flight simulation software and is keenly interested in learning to fly like his parents, commented that he'd have to wait until his dad retired to learn to fly by instruments. She went to Staples soon after and took her son to the office supply store, where he looked through the available software.

"He was disappointed because there was military stuff, but it was all fighting stuff, so I asked the clerk, and he was alarmed by us asking how to fly airplanes and said that was against the law," Olearcek said. "I said I couldn't imagine that, but, because (the clerk) was a little on edge ... I left." But "what saves us, is people are paying attention," she said.

Olearcek said she and her husband both were well aware that the Office of Homeland Security had raised the threat level during the holiday and of the generally increased terrorism alert following the Sept. 11 plane attacks.

"And rightly so, this puts people on edge," she said.

But she was taken aback by what happened next.

"By 8 p.m., a state trooper was at my house," she said. "At first, it was a little unnerving because it was pouring rain and my husband had just left ... My son said he heard someone walking around outside and it startled him. We had put our Christmas tree in front of a sliding glass door and the trooper ended up tapping on the glass of that door and putting a flashlight in and it scared us."

But Olearcek said she doesn't believe the trooper was intentionally trying to frighten her family. Nor does she blame the clerk for erring on the side of caution.

"We all have to be aware," she said, not really even wanting to speak of the incident on the record, but wanting to keep the record straight. "It's not just the people in uniform who have to be looking after this country. So when people see something out the ordinary, they pay attention. Maybe by the way we worded the question - who knows? - it triggered the individual. Still, if they had done their homework (at Staples) they would see I home school my children and am a frequent customer and have a teacher's ID on file."

Olearcek said the trooper asked her if she had inquired about the software, and she said she had and showed him her military identification.

"He was totally understanding, but protocol means he has to follow through," Olearcek said. "I immediately gave him my military ID and I had no problem giving it to him. At first I felt like, 'Wait a minute, this is America.' But we also have to understand it takes everybody to pay attention. At first I was a little frazzled with someone knocking on my window at 8:30 at night, but the bottom line is this is a civilian who has tried to do his best."

Sgt. Donald Charpentier of the Shelburne Falls State Police barracks said police received a telephone call from the Staples manager "that a person had been looking for instructional videos regarding flying planes."

"Those programs are quite common for entertainment and training, but he felt it was suspicious enough to warrant a call," Charpentier said. "We responded, and it turned out to be innocent enough; a person looking to buy a Christmas gift."

Staples' spokesperson Sharyn Frankel said the employees were doing what they have been told to do.

"After 9/11, our store associates were instructed that if they see something suspicious or out of the ordinary, they're to contact their managers and local authorities," Frankel said. "It's all about keeping our associates and customers safe and this was out of the ordinary and kind of raised a red flag and they did what they thought was right."

"Bottom line is we've all got to look out for each other, and I wasn't harmed," summed up Olearcek. "And what if it were the other way around? It's going to take everyone in each town to look after one another."
 
Its unfortunate that the public cannot distinguish a 10 year old kid and his schoolteacher mother from a crazed lunatic.

We all know that terrorist bombers are gonna go to staples for Microsoft Flight Simulator to plan their next attack.

How ridiculous.

:(
 
It's Bush and his lackeys that have started all this paranoia. I want him out in November.
 
And your the same one who blamed him for not protecting us from 9/11 also.

jacka$$ never happy....


3 years ago everyone was willing to give up a little privacy and freedom because they felt SO violated...now that everyone has forgotten 9/11 and seen thier 401Ks improve again.....its back to complaining....
 
surv1 said:
My son said he heard someone walking around outside and it startled him. We had put our Christmas tree in front of a sliding glass door and the trooper ended up tapping on the glass of that door and putting a flashlight in and it scared us."

But Olearcek said she doesn't believe the trooper was intentionally trying to frighten her family.
It's BEYOND ridiculous.

And the Trooper, while perhaps not INTENDING to frighten (I don't believe that for a second) certainly was not trying to protect the family. What, was he trying to sneak up on the boy using the software?!?!?

If the clerks can't handle selling flight simulator software, then they should take the stuff off the shelves for cryin' out loud.

It reminds me of the sick feeling I had just 2 days ago when I took my high school daughter to Barnes & Noble to purchase a book. As I browsed the aisles, I noticed a clerk stocking a stack of Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Almanacs, and the thought ran through my mind that this paperback edition was a far cry from the series of Leatherbound volumes I have on the shelves in my home. And then as I reached to pick one up, I suddenly recalled the recent warning to be suspicious of people with Almanacs. I stopped, recoiled, and a chill went up my spine to think I might be suspected of terrorism for showing interest in a book of knowledge.

Freedom? Here, in America?

How long before we become suspects for accessing aviation weather websites?
 
Q200_FO said:
It's Bush and his lackeys that have started all this paranoia. I want him out in November.

I agree...yes terrorism is a real threat, just as it has been in the U.S. since 1993 when the WTC was almost blown up. If you would like to read a good book about what the Bush administration is doing, read "Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance" by Noam Chomsky.

It discusses in great detail events since WWII that have lead to the current situation with terrorism and how Washington creates many of its own problems by being one of the biggest terrorist states itself while maintaining its own interests abroad.
 
wil said:
Chomsky is a commie-

Please explain how Chomsky is a commie, I'm sure MIT wants communist professors teaching linguistics.

Chomsky simply writes about documented history that is usually left out of mainstream media. This makes him a commie?
 
"He was disappointed because there was military stuff, but it was all fighting stuff, so I asked the clerk, and he was alarmed by us asking how to fly airplanes and said that was against the law,"

Want to purchase a computer simulation to blast, burn, shoot, knife, or otherwise create simulated mass mayhem? That's perfectly OK, not suspicious at all. Great "entertainment".

Want to buy a computer simulation to learn the basics of instrument flying in a Skylane? And the clerk at Staples thinks it's dangerous, suspicious, and against the law!?!? :mad: :eek: :mad:


I have an idea. AOPA should offer both the clerk and store manager a Dicovery flight at the local airport. Afterwards, the clerk and manager are forced to play Warcraft III for an hour, and the looser is taken behind the store and kneecapped. ABC can film the whole thing for their new "reality" series, "REVENGE OF THE NORMAL AMERICANS WITH AN IQ OF 90 OR BETTER"
 
I pity the person who innocently goes to Barnes & Noble to buy an Almanac and a Student Pilot Flight Manual. They'll probably end up in Cuba for a year.
 
There are a couple of connections I'd like to make with this madness of Homeland Security.

First of all is a reminder that harkens back to the aftermath of our own Revolutionary War. In the debate that ensued afterward, one of the contentious issues was a standing Army. The colonials had had a terrible experience with the British Army and were all too ready to be done with the reminder of war altogether. In the Federalist Paper No. 8, Alexander Hamilton nailed human nature down to a T when he said:

The violent destruction of life and property incident to war--the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty, to resort for repose and security, to institutions, which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe they, at length, become willing to run the risk of being less free.

While he was talking about the frontier wars against the French to the north and various Indian tribes to the west, this applies just as aptly to our situation here in the 21st century. While in the 18th century they finally decided that the States needed an army to protect them from attack, and so formed what we have today in the military, this present day threat to our repose and security, read peace and safety -two words which President Bush used extensively in his 2003 State of the Union address- is internal and so we are forming a new institution, the Homeland Security Department with broad powers assembled from its many parts.

This brings up a second point which points to the future. One of the prophetic utterances from Paul on end-time eschatology was that in the time of the end they will be saying, "peace and safety." The foolishness of thinking that you can clamp down and through technology and have an omnipresent control over threats so as to prevent them is misguided. However, the lawful subjects of government, ordinary citizens that intend no harm, like this child in this story and his mother, are all to willing to go along with the draconian intrusions upon their life. Still, they are not made any safer when the unlawful have so many avenues of attack that it is impossible for government to ever insure peace and safety. We used to have the example of the little boy putting his finger in the dike as an example of the futility of stemming a broad onslaught, but no longer is that lesson remembered.

Furthermore, this entire war on terror sets the stage for global confrontation. The West's intelligence agencies bridged the Cold War gap recently and worked together to capture an arms dealer wishing to ship missiles to the USA out of St. Petersburg, Russia. The US CIA, the UK M5 and what was the KGB acted in a cooperative effort for the first time and established a precedence uniting the diverse parts of the European world. This puts old enemies into a common alliance in the war on terror. Spanning the Northern Hemisphere, these countries all based on the Roman model for organizing their nations, are at war against the radical elements of Islam.

Meanwhile, Islam is at war with modernism. They can ill afford the materialism and liberalism that the West represents with its politics (political correctness) and technology. However, they may be railing against the inevitable. As the nations that have become Islamic, predominantly along the equator and south of it, are threatened at their very core as to how their society is founded, especially with the subjugation of women, the hierarchy of power, and the aversion to commercialism, they will resist any further intrusion into their affairs because the united North persists in tracking down elements of the terrorists within their countries. This sets the stage for a conflict between North and South in my opinion.

Prognosis: not good. Peace and safety are illusionary and quickly fading while events will become more dire. Time will tell as things wind up to see what monster this whole endeavor becomes in order to reach its climax.
 
Last edited:
I did a Google news search for the story, hoping to find out a bit more. Not much luck, but the story was picked up by the London Register. Note their comment at the end of the story:


At one time it was rare to find US citizens, in the safest and most prosperous country in the world, jumping at their own shadows. Now we only note how high.

How very true....
 
Huh?

Q200_FO said:
It's Bush and his lackeys that have started all this paranoia. I want him out in November.

Paranoia? While I agree this story is over the top, I believe our eyes need to remain open and ever vigilant as to what is happening around us so we will not have a repeat of what happened in NYC.

Bush did nothing to create paranoia, he set forth a plan to keep terrorists from succeeding in carrying out more terrible acts against the citizens of this country, how would you have handled it (homeland security)? I'm really interested to know.

Remember, a little paranoia in the back of your mind is a good thing, especially when the enemy has brought the fight into your backyard.
 
I didn't know Staples hired the mentally retarded.

Great point by Vector4fun. You can rape and pillage in "Grand Theft Auto", but can't lean an ILS.

Makes sense.
 
Teach'em ALL how-to-fly and let God sort it out.
Who's God? Ours or theirs?

:D

Minhbutt
 
Q200 says ... It's Bush and his lackeys that have started all this paranoia. I want him out in November....

PU - LEEZ ... give it a rest. You would recommend someone who will negotiate with terrorists or promise that if they are nice then we wo'nt go after them ???

The media creates the paranoia..."they want the paranoia, they need the paranoia." Media is totally irresponsible.
 
kevdog said:
Please explain how Chomsky is a commie...
C'mon, Kevdog, haven't you heard? Anyone who doesn't agree with W is a Commie...except for Dean. He's the anit-Christ.
 
Typhoon1244 said:
C'mon, Kevdog, haven't you heard? Anyone who doesn't agree with W is a Commie...except for Dean. He's the anit-Christ.

Thanks for clearing that up for me. BTW, what's an anit-christ? Is that a Muslim term?
 

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