Cultures Clash In Cabs - Page 2

erik_kosberg · #41 10-10-2006, 01:31 PM

For business travelers who come to the cities, cabs may be the main way to get to hotels and motels on the 494 strip near the airport or over to St. Paul (I think a few of the bigger ones might have shuttle service?) but for those heading to downtown Mpls for the hotels there, light rail is a real option. It serves the airport, it's cheap and it's brand-spankin' new.

poseidon · #42 10-10-2006, 01:34 PM

Quote:

erik_kosberg said

For business travelers who come to the cities, cabs may be the main way to get to hotels and motels on the 494 strip near the airport or over to St. Paul (I think a few of the bigger ones might have shuttle service?) but for those heading to downtown Mpls for the hotels there, light rail is a real option. It serves the airport, it's cheap and it's brand-spankin' new.

Actually I love the tram that runs at your airport. It has saved us several times trying to make the connection in another terminal.

erik_kosberg · #43 10-10-2006, 01:38 PM

One airport -- two terminals. Whose bright idea was that?

**conradd** · #44 10-10-2006, 01:40 PM

This is getting ridiculous. How would a cabdriver know that someone was transporting alcohol unless the bottle is clearly visible? Are they searching bags? And, how can they tell a person is transgendered? Are they doing a genitalia check? Honestly. It's not always obvious.

poseidon · #45 10-10-2006, 01:44 PM

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erik_kosberg said

One airport -- two terminals. Whose bright idea was that?

Come to Denver.

One airport. THREE terminals. No way except the train to go from one terminal to another. Sometimes the trains break down. Planes leave anyway.

You can thank Wellington Webb on that one -- he's the doofus who approved the design.

erik_kosberg · #46 10-10-2006, 01:44 PM

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How would a cabdriver know that someone was transporting alcohol unless the bottle is clearly visible?

They wouldn't. Unless the passenger says Be careful, there's two bottles of Jim Beam in that black bag.

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Are they searching bags?

No.

Don't ask, don't tell????

poseidon · #47 10-10-2006, 01:45 PM

Quote:

conradd said

This is getting ridiculous. How would a cabdriver know that someone was transporting alcohol unless the bottle is clearly visible? Are they searching bags? And, how can they tell a person is transgendered? Are they doing a genitalia check? Honestly. It's not always obvious.

See, that's part of the beauty of it. If I take my duty-free liquor and put it in my suitcase or carry-on and I keep my mouth shut, who is the wiser?

I suppose it is my civic duty to simply respect the cabbie's rights and abide by his/her rules.

But, then again, I've never been accused of keeping my mouth shut at inappropriate times.

**drmomentum**[$] · #48 10-10-2006, 02:55 PM

Put the Muslim cab drivers in charge of the TSA. If they can detect alcohol in the cab, they ought tp be able to stop terrorists from bringing hand sanitizer on a plane.

Have the current TSA people driving the cabs.

This seems like a win-win.

poseidon · #49 10-10-2006, 03:56 PM

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drmomentum said

Put the Muslim cab drivers in charge of the TSA. If they can detect alcohol in the cab, they ought tp be able to stop terrorists from bringing hand sanitizer on a plane.

Have the current TSA people driving the cabs.

This seems like a win-win.

LOL.

realtraveller · #50 10-10-2006, 03:59 PM

I was going to say that the cabbies sniff out alcohol by using the same methods the Dept. of Agriculture uses to make sure passengers aren't bringing in contraband products from overseas.

Trouble is the Dept. of Agriculture uses beagles.

Funny. When dogs are used to find people buried under rubble in the earthquakes in Pakistan or Turkey, I don't recall any complaining about the unclean beasts.

poseidon · #51 10-10-2006, 04:06 PM

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realtraveller said

Funny. When dogs are used to find people buried under rubble in the earthquakes in Pakistan or Turkey, I don't recall any complaining about the unclean beasts.

Hey, that's a good point. Where's the uproar of using dogs to search out Muslims who are buried alive?

erik_kosberg · #52 10-10-2006, 04:32 PM

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Where's the uproar of using dogs to search out Muslims who are buried alive?

Just a guess, but saving a life may trump the religious prohibition. Much like Shabbos prohibitions against doing work fall by the wayside if that work is needed to save a life?

poseidon · #53 10-10-2006, 04:43 PM

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erik_kosberg said

Just a guess, but saving a life may trump the religious prohibition. Much like Shabbos prohibitions against doing work fall by the wayside if that work is needed to save a life?

A dog is either unclean or it isn't. The command to not do work on the Sabbath is to honor the Sabbath and take a day of rest. If a life is in need, you don't ignore the life in need because you're commanded not to do work that day.

The fact that someone is dying does not make the dog a clean animal, anymore than it would make a pig a clean animal. When we did food drops in Afghanistan, we were chewed out for including pork products in the MREs.

If people are starving, then they shouldn't care if there is pork in the MREs, after all, you're eating it to save a life, right?

erik_kosberg · #54 10-10-2006, 04:56 PM

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When we did food drops in Afghanistan, we were chewed out for including pork products in the MREs.

Did we really do something that stupid

or is that just an urban legend?

Since I'm not an Islamic scholar, I'm just guessing about why it might be considered okay to have dogs search for people in rubble.

BTW, being very very hungry and literally starving to death aren't quite the same thing. Might observant Muslims or Jews be able to eat pork if it were to save life????

poseidon · #55 10-10-2006, 04:59 PM

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erik_kosberg said

Did we really do something that stupid

or is that just an urban legend?

I'm about 99% sure you're the one who posted the story here, if you're not, forgive me. I've not bothered to follow the story. I'll go see if there's anything on Snopes.

**AuntieEmma**[$] · #56 10-10-2006, 05:14 PM

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erik_kosberg said

Since I'm not an Islamic scholar, I'm just guessing about why it might be considered okay to have dogs search for people in rubble.

I'm no Islamic scholar either, but your guess/analogy seemed quite plausible to me.

Though it did clash with the "Let's giggle at the whacky Muslims!" tone of the thread.

Refusing to eat perfectly good pork! Whoever heard of such a thing!

< /snark >

poseidon · #57 10-10-2006, 05:17 PM

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poseidon said

I'm about 99% sure you're the one who posted the story here, if you're not, forgive me. I've not bothered to follow the story. I'll go see if there's anything on Snopes.

I've not seen anything on Snopes, but perhaps I'm not looking using the correct key words.

**AuntieEmma**[$] · #58 10-10-2006, 05:24 PM

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erik_kosberg said

Might observant Muslims or Jews be able to eat pork if it were to save life????

I don't know the answer to that, but it seems to me it's not a situation that is likely to ever come up, because it assumes that pork would be the only food available. It's hard to imagine a situation where that would happen, unless someone who had control over their access to food was deliberately toying with them. Maybe the MRE story, if true, would be the closest thing to it. Jewish writings tend to cover, in exhaustive detail, all sorts of hypothetical situations that might come up, and Muslim writings (AFAIK) do the same. But this seems pretty fanciful, so maybe nobody ever thought about it before?

Editing to add -->

I have to take that back. Everything that can be thought of has been thought of!

This is from Aish.com, which AFAIK is a pretty good guide to religious Judaism:

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We can break Shabbat to drive to the hospital; we can eat pork if we are starving in the desert.

Organ Donation

realtraveller · #59 10-10-2006, 06:45 PM

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AuntieEmma said

I'm no Islamic scholar either, but your guess/analogy seemed quite plausible to me.

Though it did clash with the "Let's giggle at the whacky Muslims!" tone of the thread.

Refusing to eat perfectly good pork! Whoever heard of such a thing!

< /snark >

Just a question: Why is it okay to giggle at wacky ideas unless they're religious?

And it's okay to giggle at some wacky religious ideas (remember the people who committed suicide believing that the comet was coming to get them and the Scientologists space alien ideas) but not at other wacky religious ideas?

No offense being made. Just something I think about sometimes.

erik_kosberg · #60 10-11-2006, 10:26 AM

Two developments:

Airport drops liquor-in-cabs proposal

and (Wow!) Hailing, howling follow new cab rules

realtraveller · #61 10-11-2006, 12:31 PM

So the airport is continuing to allow cab drivers to refuse to transport people carrying liquor?

You can't carry liquor in your carry-ons, but people who visit Napa buy cases of wine (clearly labeled as wine) and bring them home as checked baggage. I guess they'll just have to stand outside in the cold.

erik_kosberg · #62 10-11-2006, 12:45 PM

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clearly labeled as wine

Maybe some entrepreneur needs to sell easily affixable Halal Products stickers at a kiosk in the airport.