U.S. Man Hits Brazil Baby With Water

[peterh]

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/breaking_news/7826402.htm

SAO PAULO, Brazil - An American citizen who spilled a cup of water in the face of a crying baby during a flight to Brazil, will be deported, the federal police said on Thursday.
"Ronald Harry Duffy had his visa revoked because of inconvenient behavior and was not allowed into the country," said Federal Police spokesman Wagner Castilho. "He has been ordered deported."
The 35-year-old Duffy, who is from Pennsylvania, was seated next to a Brazilian couple and their baby during a TAM Airline Miami-Sao Paulo flight that landed Wednesday.
"Annoyed with the baby's constant crying, Duffy, who was drunk, threw the contents of a cup of water in the baby's face," Castilho said adding, that flight attendants had to "restrain other passengers who wanted to beat him up."

Duffy was supposed to have left Wednesday night "but all the airlines with flights to the U.S. refused to take him," Castilho said.



Friggin’ ugly American….I hope he has to sit in that airport for a week…

[WildClarySage]

1. And Tucker wants to know

why non-americans have such a low opinion of 'ugly' americans.

[Kellanved]

16. Misdemeanor has nothing to do with nationality

Absolutely nothing. The guy could as well have been German, British, ... - I have yet to see a nation without the occasional drunk idiot.

[Debi]

2. Guy probably doesn't have kids

But has plenty of opinions on how to raise 'em!

[Missy Vixen]

8. That was fast!

>But has plenty of opinions on how to raise 'em!<

Wow! Did that feel good?

I don't agree with the water flinger, and don't problem-solve in that method, but it's always interesting to me when yet another parent on DU feels the need to take shots at those of us who are not parents.

Do you know that the water flinger does not have children? Some of the nastiest behavior I've ever seen emanates from parents who are determined to show someone else's kid Who's Boss. Then again, they're parents, so it must be okay, right?

Julie

[Debi]

9. Don't defend a thug

>Some of the nastiest behavior I've ever seen emanates from parents who are determined to show someone else's kid Who's Boss. Then again, they're parents, so it must be okay, right?<

No...but AS A PARENT I would NEVER get on a flight DRUNK and THROW WATER IN A CHILDS FACE.

So, if Mr. Rude is a parent, maybe he fits into the above catagory.

[Missy Vixen]

13. Same song, different verse

>"Don't defend a thug"<

I'll defend myself, thanks, and the others on DU who aren't parents, against another broadside slam.

It's too bad that you can't tell the difference between "defending a thug" and generalized attack.

>No...but AS A PARENT I would NEVER get on a flight DRUNK and THROW WATER IN A CHILDS FACE.<

Oh, but as a CHILDFREE, it must be something we're either sympathetic to or do daily? Please.

Julie

[Debi]

15. And I should apologize

for having a child and knowing how to behave?

My husband has never had a child (in that he never gave birth) and yet I can firmly state that he would never get on a plane drunk and throw water in a childs face.

I'm not really sure why you decided to pick a battle with me - or to 'defend' all those who don't have children, but I'm sure they appreciate your concern.

I, on the other hand, find it ....well, childish.

[LisaM]

27. What about mis-behaving parents?

I don't have kids, but worked at a daycare for years, so I know something about them. I was on a flight with a screaming baby once, the poor little thing, it was just sobbing, and clearly miserable. I know that when you blow your nose, it reduces air pressure (which often causes the ear pain that makes babies cry.) After about half an hour of the parents doing absolutely nothing, I suggested very gently that they try blowing its nose. Oh! they gave me a dirty look, but after a few minutes, they tried my suggestion and it worked; the baby stopped crying. The passengers all around me thanked me.

[Debi]

36. Much better aproach

Than throwing water in the childs face!!!

[Lorien]

40. Sucking on a drink can help too

not sipping, but one of those unspillable "sippy cups" that they actually have to suck on helps reduce the pressure.

I fly from Florida to LA fairly frequently, and I'm always amazed at parents who bring NOTHING to keep their kids busy during the trip! I've taken to carrying pocket sized kids books and a portable DVD player with a good selection of kids DVDs (I work in the entertainment industry-it's a write off) with me when I travel. The kids love the books and movies (I always bring two headsets), and the parents are usually grateful. I realize not all parents can afford such luxuries, but a coloring or game book and some crayons can go a long way too!

[Debi]

41. don't forget chewing gum or sucking on candy

That's what I bring for my son...and a book...and video games...

[truthspeaker]

46. I'm a non-parent, and I didn't see it as a slam against us

Just against that one guy. I think your skin is too thin.

[Sandpiper]

19. Speaking of nasty behavior

Some of the nastiest behavior I've ever seen emanates from parents who are determined to show someone else's kid Who's Boss.

If you want to talk about nasty behavior, let's talk about parents and little league sports.

[Missy Vixen]

44. Amen, preach it

>If you want to talk about nasty behavior, let's talk about parents and little league sports.<

DH is a former Little League ump. He lasted one season; he'll never, ever do it again.

The verbal abuse heaped on kids whose parents evidently couldn't get a grip on their competitiveness, let alone the grief officials got over any call that didn't go the exact way parents in the stands felt it should, was unbelievable.

One of the prominent talk radio wingnuts in the area is a coach of his daughter's basketball team and has mentioned on several occasions having to ask parents in the stands to leave the game because their shouted comments (to their kids and others' children,) were so out of line that parents would start fighting in the stands. If I recall correctly, he also mentioned that parents in that league now have to sign a "code of conduct" for spectators, or the child is not allowed to play.

I'm grateful that the local kids' soccer leagues make sportsmanship and fun as their focus.

Julie

[iverglas]

26. uh, yup

To quote, with emphasis: "No...but AS A PARENT I would NEVER get on a flight DRUNK and THROW WATER IN A CHILDS FACE."

Well ... as a decent human being, *I* would never get on a flight drunk and throw water in a child's face.

Oh look -- am I a parent? I'm not tellin'. 'Cause it just doesn't have a whole lot to do with anything on the table here, as far as I can tell.

Now ... if we assume I am a parent, and I'm travelling with children ... then as a decent human being I will also do everything humanly possible to ensure that my children do not drive other people, particularly people who have paid large amounts of money to be trapped in a tiny space with me and my children, for reasons I know nothing about (perhaps they are travelling to attend a parent's funeral?), to distraction with their noise or other behaviour.

I'll also expect people who don't know anything about me (perhaps *I* would prefer not to drag a screaming baby onto a plane, but *I* am travelling to visit a dying parent) to recognize that some children's behaviours just can't be controlled -- like the reaction of babies to the sometimes agonizing ear pain caused by changes in air pressure (it makes me a tad peevish myself).

Of course, if my children are just plain obnoxious and I obviously haven't made any attempt to civilize them, if only for the brief time they are on an airplane, then I might well have to expect to get a cup of water thrown in *my* face.

Parent or not, I can sure say I've been tempted to do that more than once.

.

[Violet_Crumble]

31. Yeah, it's got nothing to do with being a parent or not...

Decent human beings don't throw cups of water in babies faces, end of story. Would never have done it before I had a kid, and I'd never do it now I've got one, and having a morbid fear of flying, the temptation of drinking myself into oblivion on flights is tempting, but something I've never succumbed to...

The moron deserved to be turned around and sent back where he came from, as far as I'm concerned, but I hope the Brazilians put him through the US standard of photographing, fingerprinting and handcuffing first :)

Violet...

[Debi]

39. I stand corrected

[Fleshdancer]

3. he's lucky that wasn't my baby

I would have beaten the living sh*t out of him.

I hate it when ugly Americans travel to other countries. It just makes it that much harder for the rest of us.

It's like the time a drunk American was in a McDonalds in Rippongi (Tokyo area) yelling and screaming because the food chain wouldn't accept his American dollars. His whole drunk stupid point was that because McDonalds was an American company, he should be able to use American money. riiiiight. And tomorrow I'll go to the local Honda dealership here in TX and try to pay in Yen. :grr:

[Debi]

5. Agreed!

Sounds like several people tried to teach him a lesson!

Maybe it should be against the law to fly drunk...

[mmm]

6. and I would have helped you!

we could have double-teamed him!

[mike1963]

22. I can't even begin to recall all the times I've been in another country

and seen some idiot Murkin insulting some indigenous person...usually because their English wasn't very good. :grr:

[SemperEadem]

4. child abuse

sucks to be him...

[tom_paine]

7. Sounds like a Bushevik, all right!

[ret5hd]

10. Notice how the AP writer phrased the first sentence...

"An American citizen who spilled a cup of water in the face of a crying baby"

and then later in the story the truth comes out:
"Duffy, who was drunk, threw the contents of a cup of water in the baby's face"

Big diff between spilled and threw, right? Why the wordplay? Maybe to play into peoples anger at brazils (legitimate) actions in retaliation to the U.S.'s restrictions? In the past I have read that only a small percentage of people read more than the first paragraph of a story like this.

[el_gato]

11. probably CIA headed down for some covert destabilization

[Debi]

12. So who

Did he destabilize? }(

[Westegg]

14. I love the description...

...of how his visa was revoked due to "inconvenient behavior." Ha! Being drunk isn't an excuse, of course, but how could he have thought that soaking down the crying babe was going to make it stop crying? That's the same logic, I guess, that's employed by those who beat their own kids for crying."You wanna cry? I'll give you a reason to cry!" SLAP! I'm all for teaching kids manners and the like, but a baby's a baby, and babies cry.

You know, they banned smoking on airplanes for the sake of other passengers' health. Now they should probably ban drinking for the same reason. If you can't go 2, 4, or 8 hours without a drink, honey, YOU got a problem. On the other hand, I'm sure the sale of liquor on airplanes accounts for big, big bux, so I doubt we'll see that happening any time soon.

[Debi]

17. Be careful...

>If you can't go 2, 4, or 8 hours without a drink, honey, YOU got a problem.<


Or defenders of active alcoholics will be on your case for having an opinion...... (see above posts ;) )

[daleo]

18. Lots of people are afraid to fly

But find that they have to, for one reason or another. Many people drink alcohol on or before flights for just this reason. Throw in the air pressure changes, etc. and I can see how a normally well behaved person could have an 'anomalous episode'. Not that I am excusing this particular person's behavior.

[Westegg]

20. I used to be unable to go...

2, 4, or 8 hours without a drink. I'm much better now. People being on my case about it, or about my opinions, just doesn't bother me anymore.

[Debi]

21. I need whatever it is you have found

Regarding the opinions...not the drinking.

[Westegg]

24. It's simple, but it's not...

I woke up one day and realized how much time I had spent (and wasted) worrying about what others thought of me. And how I put their opinions about me ahead of my own belief in myself. I realized that this kind of thought-process was based on fear and was ultimately self-defeating. And so I resolved to henceforth "be myself," and not live in fear of how others might perceive me.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that this kind of thinking is dangerous if you happen to be a sociopath, manifestly selfish, or otherwise a danger to those around you. But in my case, well, even in the deepest darkness of my own self-loathing, I recognized that I was a basically good, kind and caring person. And I recognized that I would be able to realize my dreams and goals if only I believed in myself and stopped worrying about what other might think of me. The fact is, once you realize that the "others" of this world aren't particularly concerned with you---because they have their own lives to live---the anxiety fades away.

[iverglas]

29. I really do think

... that if you are going to say things like "(see above posts)" -- which I take to be a reference to your suggestion that the offending individual must have been a non-parent and the comments on that suggestion -- you need to demonstrate where ANYONE "defended" the offending individual in question as you suggest that someone would defend active alcoholics.


.

[Debi]

37. What?

[Bertha Venation]

23. "his visa revoked because of inconvenient behavior"

"Inconvenient behavior?"

Does anyone know how the word "inconvenient" translates into Portuguese? Strange thing....

I wish the flight attendants hadn't restrained the asshole.

[GinaMaria]

25. Good question.

kind of like the verb molestar in spanish meaning to bother?

[iverglas]

32. other way around, actually

Does anyone know how the word "inconvenient" translates into Portuguese? Strange thing.

It was the Portuguese-speaker translating into English, badly.
(edit: or whoever wrote the report translating, badly, what had been said in Portuguese)

My Portuguese ain't good enough, but I'll take a shot based on French.

Inconvenant is an adjective meaning "improper, indecorous". Saying that someone is vraiment inconvenant amounts to saying he's an uncouth lout with no manners.


Mistaking a similar-sounding word in another language for a word with the same meaning as one in one's own language is a common problem.

It caused Gérard Depardieu long-lasting damage when a magazine, I believe Time, reported that he had said he had taken part in a rape when he was very young. Even in reports of his denial that he had said this, he sounds like he is protesting too much:

http://www.canoe.ca/JamMoviesArtistsD/depardieu_gerard.html

According to Time magazine, Depardieu admitted participating in a gang rape when he was a youngster.

Depardieu has always maintained that he was misquoted and he still insists the furor which the article caused cost him the Oscar that year.

I understand that what Depardieu said was "j'ai assisté à un viol" -- "I was present at a rape".

I had the same problem one time, to somewhat less harmful effect. At a meeting with a roomful of mainly older people whom I was representing in a rent review case, the government employee present was asked by one of them what they could do about the matter in question. "You can assist at the hearing", she said. "Oh good," the questioner said; "what can we do?" "You can assist at the hearing," she said. After another round of this, I said "psst -- do you mean assister at the meeting -- attend the meeting?"

Translation ... sometimes funny when it's bad, sometimes disastrous; always a job for a professional. ;)

.

[SoCalDem]

28. He was a dolt, but does rudeness warrant deportation??

The flight crew was somewhat responsible.. That was a LONG flight, and the family should have been moved to a more isolated area.. Passengers would probably have willingly moved to accomodate them..(unless the flight was totally full)..

The drunk could have been isolated too..

The man overreacted, but I doubt that it was grounds for deportation.. Perhaps a fine and maybe a lawsuit from the family at a later date..

The overreative behavior is getting ridiculous.. Soon there will be signs everywhere..

"Be nice , or we will deport you..or lock you up"..

[iverglas]

34. in technical terms

The man overreacted, but I doubt that it was grounds for deportation.

He likely wasn't deported -- he was likely denied legal admission to the country. "Deportation" is a kind of layperson short-hand in such cases.

And basically, a country can deny legal admission to whomever it pleases. On the grounds of rudeness in the case of Brazil (well, actually, the commission of a criminal offence on an airliner under its jurisdiction, something many countries take a rather dim view of) ... or skin colour/ethnicity in the case of, oh, the US ...

Perhaps a fine and maybe a lawsuit from the family at a later date.

Hmm. The family is Brazilian and the drunk is USAmerican ... the logistics of that might get just a wee bit expensive. And really, many people do think that throwing things at babies is a matter of some public interest, of the kind that the criminal law reflects, not just bad manners that can be made up for with money.

"Be nice , or we will deport you..or lock you up".

Whew. I'm a traveller who has been driven just short of distraction by other people's completely uncivilized and uncontrolled children, and in fact left a first-class train car and demanded a refund on the extra charge because I refused to sit down in my assigned seat when I observed the two-year-old standing in the seat in front of it facing backward and screaming, and I have even spoken sharply to more than one of said children when they were old enough to be susceptible to behaviour modification through intimidation and their parents didn't take the initiative ... but I really do think that throwing anything in a baby's face crosses the line from "not nice" into a rather different territory.


Heh, just remembered my favourite screaming-baby story. As I wandered the local (Canadian city) IKEA, a very yuppyish woman with two ambulatory children and a toddler in a stroller dogged my footsteps, always one aisle away -- with the toddler screeching non-stop at the top of its lungs and the woman simply ignoring it completely. Eventually, I stopped to contemplate the rack of curtain rings I'd been gradually heading toward, and to try to figure out why it apparently had every imaginable kind but the one I wanted. Woman with screaming baby stopped directly behind me in the next aisle, and stayed there.

Finally, I doubled back and asked, really quite reasonably, whether she couldn't please do something about the screaming. She launched into a tirade about how her baby was teething and what a horrible person I was. (Hey, I don't care. Trips to IKEA are optional, and should not be made with babies who are screaming, whatever the bloody reason.) I gave up and walked off. Woman's hubby then showed up, and I could hear her telling him all about my appalling offence against her and his family. HE then approached me, uttering abusive remarks and adopting a physically very threatening posture, i.e. large man yelling at older smaller woman, with fist clenched.

But the crowning touch was when she shouted over his shoulder, "We're American, you know."

I trust that everyone (and especially anyone who's heard this tale before, I just do love it so) will forgive me for my last word to them, driven to distraction as I was and impossible as it was to resist -- "Well, as if *that* wasn't obvious."

But hey, I can tell you stories about French schoolchildren in England too, and I'm sure Floridians have stories about belligerent Canadians ...

.

[my cuppa tea]

43. Rudeness?

Depending on the size of the child it could've choked or been drowned. It was crying and therefore sucking in air very quickly. It doesn't take much to compromise an infant's airway. Under the circumstances it could've been seen as more assaultive than rude.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

30. I once was road manager for musicians who hit a baby with a paper wad.

These musicians loved to act like outta control six-year olds on planes and watch people get upset. But then one of them threw a ball of paper a few rows to hit his buddy in the head but instead hit someone's baby in the face. Even they were embarassed at their own behaviour since they were all fathers of small children and suddenly realized that they should have their own asses kicked. They behaved better after that incident. Ah, musicians...

[Karenina]

33. WHY is it

that we are so insensitive to each other... :cry:

[Skittles]

35. Nice going there, Ronald, you f***wad

what an asshole

[Debi]

38. I take offense at the use of the word

Asshole...

As an asshole myself I'm here to defend all the other assholes on DU.

Please don't associate us with the JERK on that flight.

[uhhuh]

42. can we please move on?

Every post since your first seems to be an attempt to get back at those who found the idea that parental experience equates to a higher level of civility than those who don't have that experience. Whether that is what you intended to portray or not, or if that was in fact the objection in the above case, has devolved into what seems to an attempt to assuage your hurt feelings and anger by lashing out at them.
It would give one the impression that being a parent offers nothing to improve the behavior of an individual.
You could go to GD and start a discussion about this rather than taking swipes at people who bothered you.

[Skittles]

49. I dunno, Debi

I'd say assholes are part of a very large tent, ya know?

[NeoConsSuck]

45. Isn't this the same country...

that's fingerprinting and photographing upon arrival?

There's only one thing can be done by our administration. Pre-emptive strike! Donald, quick, rev up the B1-mobile </sarcasm>

[chimpy the poopthrower]

47. "Brazil Baby"?

The headline writer couldn't have squeezed in a few more letters and said "Brazilian Baby"?

[Gman]

48. No doubt a freeper

typical freeper behavior.