Everybody's talking about Steven Slater, the JetBlue flight attendant who slid off a grounded plane in a rage after inflating its emergency evacuation slide. While Slater has earned pop notoriety and "folk hero" status, what he really needs, says Dr. Keith Ablow at Fox News, is a "complete psychiatric evaluation" and a stint in either jail or a mental-health facility. Flight attendants "are supposed to respect the safety equipment that might save lives one day, not deploy it in a narcissistic rant" (reportedly triggered by a confrontation with a passenger over her carry-on bags). With his melodramatic exit, Slater "showed reckless disregard for everything and everyone, except serving his own ego and rage." He should now pay the price for it. Here, an excerpt:
If we want to be a nation of children who act out for the camera — frustrated bank tellers who might decide to throw bags of money in the street, angry waiters who decide to pour water on patrons, bus drivers who abandon their routes and climb to roofs of their buses to enjoy some cold beer and give the finger to anxious parents — then we'd better understand what we are abandoning. It's not the America I know where people have always doubled down in their willingness to work harder, be kinder and find a way to stay aboard, not bail out.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.