After making headlines for all the wrong reasons, SeaTac Airport has already released its plans for the upcoming holiday season: They're nothin' but secular. Seems a little early to announce the plans, until you remember last year's dust up.
Upon seeing a bunch of Christmas trees last December, a rabbi asked that a menorah be included in the display. Rather than face legal wrangling or deal with requests to add nods to other religions, SeaTac scrapped its whole "holiday tree" display. Everyone chimed in on the debate, which continued over a long weekend before the airport decided it would bring the trees back.
This time around, it should be pretty hard for anyone to get offended. Plans call for artificial birch trees, synthetic snow, images of Mount Rainier and the San Juan Islands. Actually, that kind of offends us, but not because it's without religious iconography. The whole thing just sounds so boring and ugly--spice it up SeaTac!
We won't bother you with our laundry list of resolutions, but there is one we'll share: this year we'll be taking a closer look at which airports are with us in oh-seven and which ones are still stuck in the seven-years-ago '90s when it comes to WiFi access. Today's contestant is SeaTac, the full-of-espresso gem that's the bane of our trips to the northwest. If the airport's parking situation and Christmas celebrations are reasonable, it must be a breeze to get online, right?
Well, you would think. AT&T has the contract to provide service to the airport--and as we're beginning to learn--private deals don't usually mean free. At SeaTac, 24 hours of access goes for $7.95, but you'll be able to get on the Interwebs just about anywhere in the airport. There's also a "Laptop Lane" (read: business center) inconveniently located in the North Satellite building. Forgot your laptop or out of juice? Some self-contained Internet terminals are scattered around--be ready for criminally high per-minute access charges.
The circus was too good to be true and only lasted for a long weekend. "Holiday" trees returned to Sea-Tac Airport last night. The rabbi who inspired the whole tense situation has said he won't file a lawsuit over the airport's mono-religious display. No menorah will be put up this year, but Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky will be working with Port of Seattle officials on next year's decorations. He says he never wanted the trees to be taken down, only for a menorah to be added.
Emails on the subject have been flying in every direction since late last week. The Seattle Times reports that Port of Seattle Commisioner John Creighton received a flood of support, while several local Jewish organizations received hate mail. It's likely that the airport will follow in the footsteps of Seattle City Hall, and make next year's display a Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa spectacular.
You can view a recent CNN report on the debacle, including comments from Bogomilsky, here.
Big news today is that over the weekend, Sea-Tac Airport took down its Christmas trees amid legal threats from a rabbi who wanted them to include menorahs in their holiday displays. The trees disappeared over Friday night. This is the first time the airport has received a complaint about its displays--it wouldn't even call them "Christmas trees," but instead referred to the decorations in question as "holiday trees."
Basically, the airport took their stuff down because they didn't want to open the floodgates for more lawsuits, though they're not quite wording it that way. The Port of Seattle also says that sufficient time and funds are not available for a "culturally sensitive and inclusive holiday display." Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky is now furious that the Port chose to scrap the entire project rather than expand it.
Steer clear of television news today if you don't want to hear about this story 57 more times.
Here's a little "concert clip" in honor of the Amazing Racers, and their brief (yet exciting) time in Seattle's airport. In our video, two young men prove that despite the new carry-on regulations (no liquids, musical instruments, or fun) they can still have a good time with their "band" in the terminal of the SeaTac airport. Sadly, no one had the forethought to yell out "Freebird!" during the performance.
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