I was looking through the awesome (and probably NSFW) Street Carnage site today and in particular this article called ‘My Unintentionally (Hilarious!) Fascist Tattoo‘ about a guy that spent his senior year of high school studying in Spain. Obviously he really enjoyed his time there and fell in love with the country, so much so in fact that when he went back home to the US and was old enough to get a tattoo, he immortalised his love for the country by having the word España tattooed on his arm in red ink.

What he didn’t realise in his naivety of Spanish culture however is that the word España to 90% of Spaniards and a tattoo of it especially is a fascist symbol. Essentially he has unwittingly made most of the country he loves hate him back. If he took a visit back to Spain now he would find it hard to do some very normal tourist things such as getting car rental or sunbathe topless on a beach because most people would think he is either a member of the Ultras Sur, a violent football hooligan group who use the fascist symbols of nationalist Spain or any other kind of fascist.

The whole interview he had with a Spaniard who explained his unfortunate tattoo is in the link at the top and it’s well worth a read and explains the Spanish political backgrounds quite well. Still though I feel pretty sorry for the guy, it was meant to be a nice gesture that spectacularly backfired on him so now he can’t even holiday, get car hire in Spain or sunbathe.

This is a great story and really shows how stupid the world is at the moment, US officials are investigating Air Traffic control at JFK airport in New York after a controller allowed his son to direct some planes preparing for take off. It’s the kind of thing everyone does when they have their kids with them at work and the kid was clearly just repeating instructions his dad was giving him, yet it seems somebody found out about it and its kicked up a lot of fuss with an investigation now under way.

According to the BBC news report it was all quite humorous to the pilots who the kid was giving instructions to and nobody was overly concerned.

In one exchange, the boy is heard saying: “JetBlue 171 contact departure.” The pilot responds: “Over to departure JetBlue 171, awesome job.”
The boy was apparently with his father – a certified air traffic controller.
The adult is later heard saying with a laugh: “That’s what you get, guys, when the kids are out of school.”
In another exchange, the child says: “MS 4-0-3, contact departure,” and then adds: “Adios, amigo.”
The pilot responds: “Adios, amigo.”
The pilots on the tape appear to be not concerned that a child is giving them instructions.

I honestly don’t understand what the fuss is all about, the people there at the time and the pilots flying the planes didn’t seem to mind the kid giving them some instructions, yet someone who probably wasn’t even involved has managed to make it into a big thing where this traffic controller is a bad person who will kill everyone blah blah blah!

I suggest everyone needs to just chill out a bit and if you hear a little kid coming over the intercom when you are on your flight to India or somewhere, just smile and think isn’t that a nice thing to let your kid do!