So I am reading Jim Henley’s take on the whole Klein/Krauthammer flare-up of the past week, and I guess what I don’t understand is that I was completely unaware paralyzed people could not fly? Is that really the case? I could have sworn I have seen wheelchairs on planes before.
Am I just missing something? Is it impossible for paralyzed people to make transatlantic flights? And I’m not trying to be a smart-ass, but I can’t figure out what Klein’s point is, because I was under the impression paralyzed people could in fact fly.
WyldPirate
Krauthammer needs to fly, that’s for sure.
He could take a motorized leap from a high man-made or natural object to test the flight hypothesis. The world would be a better place and be rid of an evil person with a shit-load of blood on his hands.
Punchy
Well, since you cant roll a chair onto a plane (where would you put it?), and you cant just lump them onto a seat (they couldn’t escape in an emergency without assistance), I’m guessin the handi-capable aren’t capable of enjoying the greatest application of Bernoulli’s (sp?) equation.
Unless you put “insane stupid” in the “handicapped” catagory. I’ve seen PLENTY of these fuckers aloft.
evap
I have a friend who’s a quad, he uses a wheelchair but has some use of his arms and hands. He drives a specially equipped van, can cook and feed himself, etc. I’m pretty sure he’s flown on an airplane. Maybe you have to be able to transfer from the chair to a normal airplane seat?
InflatableCommenter
This?
Rosali
Here’s a video with a paraplegic travelling on a plane. So it’s possible. Quads would need more help, of course. It’s required by the ADA.
rachel
“As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”
Seriously, though, the airlines just tell him that because they don’t want propeller-heads inside their planes.
sgwhiteinfla
John Cole
Joe Klein’s point wasn’t that Krauthammer can’t fly, its that he doesn’t fly to the places over seas like Afghanistan or Iraq that he offers up opinions on all the time. And that because he doesn’t travel to those places, more than likely because even if you can fly while paralyzed flying that far would be way too uncomfortable, then you miss something in your writing on the subject. Joe Klein already apologized by the way so I don’t know why people are still flogging this. Here is the apology he put up on the Swampland blog.
swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/05/20/krauthammer/
mantis
The airlines have narrow wheelchairs that will bring disabled folks down the aisles to their seat, which people can help them into if necessary. The passenger’s own wheelchair is put with the luggage for the flight.
Now if you’re especially overweight, and in a wheelchair, you might have some trouble.
I only read a bit of the KrautKleiner Kerfuffle, but it seemed to me that Klein wasn’t saying Krauthammer wasn’t able to fly, but rather that he wasn’t able to get down in the dirt and see the war’s effect on real people in the warzone. This much is probably true. I doubt any of Iraq is ADA compliant. Then again, I also doubt Jokeline has really seen what the wars are about for people living there, either, or if he has I doubt it influenced how he thinks in any way.
4tehlulz
>>I was under the impression paralyzed people could in fact fly.
They can! They just need to take magic mushrooms.
linda
uh, unless regulations have changed, there’s nothing preventing disabled from flying. i’ve flown with a friend who is paralyzed and uses a wheelchair — and he flies everywhere (including internationally) without issue.
Michael
I thought Krauthammer was only paralyzed from the neck up.
LD50
My wife’s best friend is in a wheelchair with CP & she flies fairly often. It’s a huge pain in the ass, you have to notify the airline beforehand, you have to use a manual chair, and they board you first, but it’s done all the time.
Jim Henley
@7: You call that an apology? Srsly?
dlw32
Obviously people in wheelchairs can fly, I mean at least before they crash on the Island and regain the ability to walk.
Mnemosyne
John Hockenberry wrote a whole book about his experiences reporting from the Middle East. I’m pretty sure he flew there.
I think Klein has a good point about people who claim they’re making definitive observations about countries they’ve never been to, but bringing the wheelchair into it was a cheap shot.
AhabTRuler
What a bunch of nonsense. The biggest problem with Krauthammer is that he was respect for being a big smarty-pants brainiac, at the same time he constantly (and disingenuously) criticizes his opposition for being foolish, naive, uneducated, etc.
That, and the fact that slime-mold has a better developed sense of morality and empathy (how’d you like to have him for a pshrink?).
Steve H.
6/Rachel
Always have to give props for WKRP references.
sgwhiteinfla
@13
To answer your question yes, AND its more of an apology than Krauthammer deserved IMHO.
Cat G
Disabled travel is very difficult. I had polio as an infant, and spent most of my life on crutches and a full leg brace, which is how I toured the USA, Canada, Hong Kong and China. In my forties I started traveling with a manual chair, to lessen the stress on my body. Travel was hard but reasonably doable if you traveled with people who could help. But guess what… the world does not have curb cuts. But because I didn’t have to use my chair, I could climb stairs, walk over uneven terrain, get into helicopters, cars, boats, etc. In my fifties I had to start using a power chair…too much wear and tear on my body and frequent falls. Distant travel now is really difficult. A power chair weighs about 250 lbs. It is very difficult/impossible to transport once you get to your destination. It is stopped by a 3 inch curb. And the airlines routinely break your chair. They have damaged my chair half of the times I have traveled with it. And by damaged I mean made it unusable. My mobility, dependency issues are minor compared to persons with para/quad injuries. Their lives are very complicated. And if they do travel, they are of necessity in a bubble.
Klein’s observation on travel and nuance is half-right, but I don’t think that nuance is the best word. Understanding is a better choice. Nuance is one manifestation of understanding. Understanding comes from some mystical combination of information and empathy (the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.) We would be fools to take policy advice about Native American issues from someone who hadn’t spent some significant time actually on reservations.
Where Klein is half-right is that travel is necessary, but it is not sufficient.
Bill Kristol presumably travels, and he is clueless.
benjoya
Krauthammer’s body is like a 20-year-old Michael Jordan compared to his brain. is that cruel? inaccurate?
Arachnae
DLW32 – let’s chip in for a round trip ticket for Krauthammer – LA to Sydney and back. maybe he’ll find his Purpose.
Jim Henley
@18: Thanks for quoting the text, which makes it clear what a grudging and mealy-mouthed, classic non-apology apology Klein offered. ‘ “Some” COULD construe my remarks wrongly [it’s not my remarks, it’s their construction] and IF that happened, well I’m sorry.’
Contrast with, “Wow, that really came out wrong. I can totally see why it upset people and I’m really sorry.”
APS
I am a mid-level quadriplegic (C5-6) and I fly extensively. Two airport/airline employees help me transfer from my wheelchair to an aisle chair (a narrow chair that fits in the cabin aisle) and then into the plane seat. I usually sit in the bulkhead – there is more room so people do not have to climb over me to get into or out of their seats. My wheelchair goes in with the baggage (and is frequently broken in various minor/major ways in the process).
Cat G, what in the world do you mean by saying that a para or quad that travels is of necessity in a bubble?!?
Hedley Lamarr
The point is that Herr Docktor though he could fly when he jumped into that empty swimming pool.