The Dutch tourist who helped stop the alleged terrorist plot is profiting off his heroism, according to the media outlet Gawker. Filthy lucre, is it? Why, damn the man! I'll bet he'd have profited out of it if he'd been killed, too.
Jasper Schuringa, who burned his hands while taking down Flight 253's would-be terrorist, has taken in at least $18,000 for two cell phone pictures and interviews with CNN and the New York Post, according to Foster Kamer of Gawker.
$18,000? That's big money. That's like ten minutes of a Bill Clinton talk.
Schuringa, who sought the help of an Israeli handler to arrange the media appearances, according to the Web site, said Saturday he heard a pop, saw smoke and climbed over seats to stop a man from trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight in Detroit. "I didn't think. I just went over there to try to save the plane," Schuringa said on CNN.
And what was everyone else doing at the time?
As passengers on Flight 253 screamed "fire, fire" on Friday, Schuringa said he figured the suspect was "trying to blow up the plane."
So if he'd kept his seat and hollered "fire!" he wouldn't have made $18,000.
"When you hear a pop on a plane, you're awake," Schuringa said.
... and looking for the source.
The Detroit News tried to reach Schuringa, starting on Saturday, but he has not responded to Facebook requests for an interview.
There's no law saying he has to.
Mike Bernacchi, a marketing professor at the University of Detroit-Mercy, said Schuringa's move is a byproduct of "his whole reality mechanism. Reality sells."
So does fantasy, for that matter. And I'm guessing you make more money off good reality than off bad reality, and better money off fantasy of any but the worst sort.
"There's a price tag on everything and I guess while that is not the motivation and not the initiation of the action, the opportunity is there," Bernacchi said. "More and more folks are seizing it. Twenty years ago, a parade through main street and receiving a key would have been it and delightful. The price tag is out there. No good deed goes without remuneration."
I heard it as "no good deed goes unpunished." I guess he's getting off lightly, just being criticized for picking up a few bucks.