Damn, I’m beating the dead horse of Elan to death here, but I got around to reading his triumphant post-flight post about what a great job he did of teaching people to be nice and I just couldn’t not say anything. So here’s Elan Gale on teaching everyone to be nice:

A lot of people have been really nice to me and called me a hero today. It’s really fun to hear but it’s not true.

Our troops are heroes. Fire fighters and policemen are heroes. Doctors and teachers are heroes. Flight attendants and pilots and waiters and baristas… These are the people that make things work in this crazy world.

What I did today was just point out something

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

More Elan-commentary.

Ken White at Popehat:

Mr. Gale serves to teach us two lessons about social media and the internet — and more broadly, about life.

Lesson One:  Douchebaggery Is Not A Zero-Sum Game

The first lesson is that boorish behavior is not binary.  People are complex, life is complex, and despite our hunger to see the world in simple terms of white hats versus black hats, sometimes all participants in a social media melee are assholes.

In this instance, it’s perfectly possible to recognize that (1) that “Diane” — if she exists — was contemptibly rude and entitled towards airline staff who have no control over when a plane leaves and who are simply doing their jobs under

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)