Over the weekend, a video was posted to YouTube featuring a woman on a plane from Nicaragua to Miami lighting up a cigarette on the plan to the complete dismay of her fellow travelers. She then began ranting to her captive audience about US relations with Venezuela.
The woman has turned out to be Dr. Karen Halnon, a professor at Penn State Abington. She was arrested for disorderly conduct after deplaning. Philadelphia Magazine interviewed her about her actions and it is everything you’d imagine it would be based on the above videos. For starters she echoes the conspiracy theory that the US assassinated Hugo Chavez with cancer (“and Fidel agrees with me”) and it escalates from there. Here’s her response to the question “What about the cigarette?”
Why did I have a lighter if there is such great national security? It was right in the top of my book bag.
Listen, the point is, I am a sociologist, and I live in an intellectual world. A sociologist always thinks in terms of symbols. And every revolutionary I know smokes. It was identifying with the revolutionary cause. And then, beyond that, it is a symbol that the United States is a smoking gun. The action was necessary. They are going to kill many more people.
When asked if she has a substance abuse issue, she denied it, saying, “I had a little bottle of wine on the plane that I mixed with apple and cranberry juice over three drinks. A spritzer, if you will. But I wasn’t drunk. I don’t need alcohol to protest. This is my life.”
If Penn State does not fire her, someone sign up for her class and report back weekly, please. Thank you.
Source: Philadelphia Magazine