JetBlue CEO David Neeleman is very sorry indeed about the recent inconveniences. And to show you how much he cares, he’s offered a personal video message and a “Customer Bill of Rights”. Never mind that he’s also collecting your personal information.

But let’s give this guy the benefit of the doubt and take a look at this so-called “Bill of Rights.” Neeleman values your time so much that he’s willing to pay you about as much as an assistant manager at Taco Bell: a little more than $10 an hour for any flight delay. You’ll get a $25 voucher if your flight is delayed 1-2 hours. You’ll get a $50 voucher if your flight is delayed for 2-4 hours. And if your flight gets delayed 4-6 hours, you’ll be entitled to a voucher for a one-way airfare.

Of course, the delay must be subject to a “Controllable Irregularity.” What the hell is a “Controllable Irregularity?” Conveniently, JetBlue offers no definition. It isn’t in its Bill of Rights, nor in its Contract of Carriage. It could be anything really. A snowstorm. A slight change of the lights. A gremlin tearing out one of the engines. A passenger resembling William Shatner.

Meanwhile, the customer is stuck for hours on the tarmac with nothing but blue chips and soda for dinner.

But let’s say that the customer’s flight is delayed and the customer can’t find hotel accommodations, as the many people who were recently stranded discovered to their horror. (Consider the case of Marcia Makley, who was given a voucher for a hotel that had no vacancy and spent $175 on a cab ride. She was also unable to retrieve her luggage.) Well, there’s nothing in JetBlue’s “Customer’s Bill of Rights” that informs the customer that she’ll get a room for the night, nor is there anything about securing the luggage. Meanwhile, if we examine American Airlines’ current conditions of carriage, we find this:

If the delay or cancellation was caused by events within our control and we do not get you to your final destination on the expected arrival day, we will provide reasonable overnight accommodations, subject to availability.

Of course, American gives itself an out clause with “subject to availability,” but it’s an infinitely better promise than JetBlue.

And here’s a section from United’s Contract of Carriage. Not only does the contract contain a clearer definition for an “irregularity,” but we have these remedies for a flight exceeding two hours:

(A) UA will transport the passenger without stopover on its next flight on which space is available in the same class of service as the passenger’s original outbound flight at no additional cost to the passenger.

(B) If UA is unable to provide onward transportation acceptable to the passenger, UA, with concurrence of the passenger, will arrange for the transportation of another carrier or combination of carriers with whom UA has agreements for such transportation. The passenger will be transported without stopover on its (their) next flight(s), in the same class of service as the passenger’s original outbound flight at no additional cost to the passenger.

(C) If space is only available and used on a UA flight(s) of a lower class of service acceptable to the passenger, UA will provide a refund of the difference in fares pursuant to Rule 260 (refunds — involuntary).

(D) If UA is unable to arrange alternate air transportation acceptable to the passenger, UA shall refund the flight coupon(s) for the unflown portion(s) in accordance with Rule 260 (refunds — involuntary).

So with United, after two hours of delay, there’s no pussy-footing around. You’ll get on the next flight and, if not on United, then on another carrier. By contrast, JetBlue gives you a mere $25.

In other words, JetBlue is trying to repackage customer service that is inferior to its competition and pass it off as philanthropic. (And, by the way, there’s nothing in JetBlue’s current Contract of Carriage that specifies anything for delays.)

“I like that too,” said Christopher Robin, “but what I like doing best is Nothing.”

“How do you do Nothing?” asked Pooh, after he had wondered for a long time.

“Well, it’s when people call out at you just as you’re going of to do it, What are you going to do, Christopher Robin, and you say, Oh nothing, and then you go and do it.”

“Oh, I see,” said Pooh.

“This is the sort of thing that we’re doing right now.”…

This excerpt is from Chapter X of A.A. Milne’s The House at Pooh Corner and, if you ask me, this is utterly disgusting agitprop, designed to infect legions of children with the powers of sexual self-awareness. Should we as a nation be responsible for leading today’s youth astray? I ask all of you as dutiful Christians to consider the 800-pound gorilla you have introduced into the room in your casual acceptance of seemingly innocuous prose.

A.A. Milne’s innuendo is more disgusting than Susan Patron’s filthy contributions to literature (also uncovered by Julie Bosman). If A.A. Milne were still alive, I would be the first to demand his immediate induction into the Megan’s Law database. I would be the first to expose him for his mendacious nuances — his clear affinity for deviance by suggesting “doing,” as if life were a veritable all-you-can-eat buffet without parental safeguards. I would not be surprised in the slightest if NAMBLA has not used Milne’s nascent pederasty for despicable intentions. (And when we consider that the above description occurs between a bear and a boy, perhaps the sexual implications here are worse!)

Much ado about nothing? Concerned parents might want to contemplate the following:

What does Christopher Robin “like” exactly? It is this lack of clarity that leaves much to the imagination. Patron, as horrid a Communist children book’s author as they come, may have stopped at a literal scrotum, but Milne is a far greater blackguard in his penetration into ambiguous territory. As a middle-aged PTA member still struggling to find a female who will assist him in populating this great American nation with decent 4-H Club-attending centrists, I can tell you with some authority that “doing Nothing” is a euphemism for what some call “choking the chicken” and what I call masturbation, a sin against God and all that Jesus Christ stands for! Urban Dictionary may have no decisive entry on this matter. But when I tell you that “doing Nothing” is street speak for something else, you must believe me. You didn’t listen to me when the slackers had babies and became grups. But perhaps you’ll listen to me now that this liberal claptrap has been propagated for many years among the last five generations of children!

If Christopher Robin and Pooh are “doing Nothing,” then why do they insist that they are doing something later? Why does Christopher Robin need a bear to justify his filthy masturbation habits? Christopher Robin’s throbbing penis (and his scrotum!) may not be explicitly referenced. But there can be no other reading.

And for this, I call upon you to remove the Winnie the Pooh books from your bookshelves, to put this filthy content into your paper shredders and then photograph these remnants and send your pictures to David Goldenberg at Gelf Magazine and Julie Bosman at the New York Times! If you do not want to shred your Winnie the Pooh books, then I ask you, in the name of all the ethical forces of America, to photograph a scrotum and send your photos to Mr. Goldenberg and Ms. Bosman, so they might better understand the Great Scrotum Threat that perils our children.

I have known David Goldenberg and Julie Bosman for many years and, while they have both avoided my requests for consensual copulation, I can attest that they are both individuals well-deserving of your shredded books and your JPEGs of scrotums.

Our great conquest against the evils committed upon children’s literature must begin in earnest today. So I urge you to send Goldenberg and Bosman your scrotum pics before you go to sleep, just after you finish masturbating, and just before you get those scrotum-based goosebumps while standing in the freezing cold.

And if my requests seem comparatively crude, please remember. This is not about you. This is not about me. This is all about the children.

God bless America!

From Anne (and, goodness, Anne, you haven’t read Hitchhiker’s?):

Look at the list of books below. Bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you want to read, cross out the ones you won’t touch with a 10 foot pole, put a cross (+) in front of the ones on your book shelf, and asterisk (*) the ones you’ve never heard of.

(Now I should note that my italicized choices involve those books that strike my fancy at the current instance — in other words, books that could have me dropping everything with enough internal persuasion.)

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. +Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. +To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. +Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. +Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees(Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. +The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling)
20. +Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. +The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. +The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. +Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. +The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. +Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie(Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. +Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. +1984 (Orwell)
35. +The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. *The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True(Wally Lamb)
39. +The Red Tent (Anita Diamant) (Why I haven’t rid myself of this lackluster book is a mystery.)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. +Bible
46. +Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. +The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. +Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. +The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. +A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. +Great Expectations (Dickens) (This, along with Bleak House, is a Dickens volumes I have been deliberately saving for a time in which I will need it.)
55. +The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. *The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. +The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. +The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. +Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. +War and Peace (Tolstoy) (Again, I’m saving this for a special time, presumably one involving a motel room and bloody sheets.)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares) (Thief!)
68. +Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. +Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. +Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. *The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. +The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. *Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. +Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. +Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. +Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. +Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. +The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. +Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth(Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. *A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. +Ulysses (James Joyce)

Lydia Millet: “Yes, there’s a whimsical colon use, certainly. I will check as you suggest. Society has moved, I feel, too far away from both the colon and the semi-colon. I do what I can to correct the trend. I did not use to feel this way. Writing culture teaches avoidance of both these days.”