In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

Tucker Carlson very belatedly featured the viral "My Day at Work" TikTok video by the egregiously entitled Twitter employee on his show earlier this week, with commentary from Mike Rowe. The thing nobody has pointed out, as far as I can tell, is that this video seems to have reached general notice last year on October 26, which was exactly one day before Elon Musk bought Twitter. In other words, it was almost immediately overtaken by events, and by December, a visitor to the same Twitter headquarters shown in the video characterized that headquarters as looking like a five-star hotel that's been abandoned . In fact, the story as of Tuesday was : Twitter’s landlord, the Columbia Property Trust, is suing the company for neglecting to pay rent for its downtown San Francisco headquarters. The company’s new owner, Elon Musk, has reportedly been attempting to renegotiate the terms of the lease, as the company frantically tries to cut costs. As I've said, Twitt...

In the midst of media reports that Southwest is "back to normal", via Reddit, I learn: Welp! @SouthwestAir ’s entire system for obtaining weather report packets is down — so the whole airline is barred from taking off, per FAA regulations. 🫠 It was only 4 days ago, that Southwest restored normal operations… — Ian Saint (@iansaint_) January 4, 2023 This was updated several hours later to indicate the system had been restored, but nobody was clear on how cancellations would affect downstream operations. A Reddit user reported, Left Little Rock on time, just landed in Dallas. I was just sure that Southwest wouldn’t [bleep] with me and my 3 girls anymore than they already have (cancelled flight on Christmas Eve, no rebooking til after the 30th, spent thousands for other flights, no luggage our ENTIRE TRIP, etc.) Pilot came on just after wheels touched down, and said he’s been working with SWA for 37 years and has never seen this level of incompetence. . . and he’s not...

Yesterday I linked to what amounts to a consensus account of corporate crises and successful vs unsuccessful responses. So far, what we're seeing is an unsuccessful response from Southwest. All reports are that, whatever specifically happened in Denver, the meltdown started there and quickly spread to other major Southwest airports. But as of this morning, Denver still isn't fixed. According to the New York Post, Travel issues continued to snowball at Denver International Airport on Monday after over 600 flights were canceled or delayed because icy conditions and poor visibility plagued the runway, according to reports. The Denver Post reported roughly 650 flights were affected, which could not have come at a worse time. According to CBS News yesterday afternoon, Embattled air carrier Southwest Airlines again canceled dozens of flights after returning to a more regular flying schedule following a winter storm-related meltdown last week. Southwest as of Monday af...

While Southwest has acknowledged that the memo above, leaked via a Twitter post from an insider, is authentic, it has denied that 120 or more Denver ramp agents quit in response. Southwest Airlines says rumors that as many as 150 ramp agents in Denver walked off the job over the last few days after an internal memo from management told staffers that they would be directed to do mandatory overtime or face the threat of termination are unfounded. Operations in Denver have been under strain as a result of Winter Storm Elliot, and ramp agents have been working outside in treacherous conditions and sub-zero temperatures. A Southwest Airlines spokesperson said a decision to ‘rotate’ ramp crew more often was behind some of the long flight delays and cancellations. Southwest's explanation in effect falls back on the weather as the efficient or proximate cause of its meltdown, but if that were the case, all airlines would have been equally affected. Comments on Twitter and YouT...

As I've said here now and then, I'm an Aristotelian, which means I look for causes. What caused the Southwest meltdown? Legally, the proximate cause in this case is probably also Aristotle's efficient cause, which is what appears to be a badly botched management decision in Denver on December 21. A YouTube aviation commentator, Juan Browne, explains it best: At about 1:40, he begins, . . . but it was an incident at Denver's airport back on 21 . . . from the 21st of December through about the 24th of December that ignited, that started, this meltdown before the IT failed. As we all know, Southwest Airlines is a point-to-point airline system, but it does operate through other airlines' major hubs, and over here at the major hub of Denver, Colorado, as this bomb cyclone storm began to hit, on or about the 21st of December, an operational emergency was declared by management there specifically regarding the ramp agents, as the temperatures plunged and ramp agents w...

It's hard to know where to start with the incident from Christmas Eve at the Nashville airport, in which by this account at The Hill , According to a statement released by [Nashville airport] officials, a Southwest Airlines employee requested for an officer to escort passengers from the C Concourse to the pre-security ticket counter. According to the NBC Today show, A TikTok video shared by passenger and Nashville resident Amani Robinson, 20, shows an officer telling her mother and a fellow group of passengers standing in line on Christmas that they need to leave "or you will be arrested for trespassing." I think it's safe to say that phones with video cameras have transformed policing. The Nashville airport police officer did not come off well in this encounter, although it's worth pointing out that in many jurisdictions, airport police are a separate agency from the main police department, and potentially they have lower standards for hiring and tra...

Let's parse out an article at Red State this morning: What Is a Woman? Elon Shows Pendulum May Be Swinging Back to Reality With Hilarious Babylon Bee Video . Let's just start with some context -- what does the great man himself think of women? As best we can determine, at least some of his numerous offspring were conceived in vitro and sublet out to surrogates, which suggests to me that he himself is a hard Hefnerian who sees women as commodities whose bodily functions can be bought and sold. But at Red State, he's swinging us back to reality. Mister, we could use a man like Hugh Hefner again. Let's look farther down in rhe piece. It discusses the retweet from Musk of a Babylon Bee video below and how it represents Musk's motivation to buy Twitter: Spelling Bee Contestant Asks The Definition of “Woman” pic.twitter.com/gOgDj9Oxsg — The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) December 28, 2022 The article says, The video was from June, but they were suspende...