Joe Keohane got to Logan this morning just in time to see a little old lady in a wheelchair threatened by some TSA goons, but he reports that what really depressed him was an announcement over the PA welcoming visitors to Boston, New England's largest city, "famous for the Boston Tea Party, Harvard, and Cheers!"

The Cheers stuff especially galls me. I can see some town in the middle of some no-count state in flyover country managing for decades to maintain enthusiasm for having been the setting for a long-gone TV show, just like I can understand why having a huge ball of twine is a big deal when you're in a cultural wasteland. You take what you can get.

But there's no explaining our devotion to this show. Did it capture Boston in some indelible way? No. ...

City considers suit against federal government to reduce the number of planes flying overhead.

You know those "9/11 was an inside job" stickers? Jason Robo, 26, of Eureka, Calif., faces charges for allegedly putting one of them up in the lavatory of an airplane due to fly out of Logan yesterday - then rushing off the plane. The Suffolk County DA's office says he was scheduled for arraignment in East Boston District Court today on charges of interfering with a flight crew and some related offenses; no word if the sticker had LEDs on it.

On his Blogger profile, he describes himself:

HyperActivist/scholarly revolutionary, against the New World Order. @ Humboldt State University majoring in Political Science/Economics & history minor. Corporate minded administrators destroy so-called social and environmental justice institutions, overpaid fat-cats cut classes, fire lecturers & raise class sizes; degrading education while enriching wallets. ...

At Humboldt, he was impeached as a member of the student legislature and wrote an oped piece explaining how the US is run by a secret cabal stretching from the German Illuminati to Barack Obama.

Innocent until proven fnord guilty.

Channel 7 general manager now former Channel 7 general manager: Randi Goldklank resigned and agreed to a plea deal in East Boston District Court that will keep her out of jail if she stays away from booze and drugs for a year. She also apologized to state troopers for her behavior at Logan, which included threatening one trooper's job after she was hauled off a plane - and will pay restitution to the trooper whose glasses she broke during the fray.

Star Simpson, everybody's favorite LED-bedecked MIT student, got pre-trial probation today after Suffolk County prosecutors acknowledged they didn't have enough evidence to actually charge her with a felony.

Gosh, who would have thought the FAA might object to an 80-story tower right across the harbor from Logan?

Ask him if his name is Patrick. Patrick Mannion, an 18-year-old from Lynn, has just started blogging about what it's like to become a transportation security officer at everybody's favorite East Boston airport:

... The other checkpoints had large bottles of hairspray along with shaving cream and the like and some bottles found were actually under the limit. But there was still booze mixed in... plus a broken mercury thermometer.

We also collected the various confiscated weapons.. most of which are pocket knives which are given to collection agencies and state agencies who sell them on eBay. So don't worry folks, the TSA and the feds aren't making a dime off your confiscated materials (the spray cans and such are recycled)...

Today's best sunrise photo, taken toward Logan from Long Wharf.

OK, maybe I'm not cut out to write headlines for Channel 7. Still, will be interesting to see how they play the case of their general manager, whom the Herald reports was arrested at Logan for "unruly behavior." She says a male passenger on her inbound flight tried to fondle her and that she got upset when the flight attendant told her to "calm down." One thing led to another and State Police wound up cuffing her on the ground.

The Globe paints a slightly different picture, one involving an out-of-control angry drunk threatening a trooper's job.

John Daley reports:

While running through Logan airport yesterday, I was chased by a TV reporter who wanted to get my angry response to the delays involved with flying American. Before he could set up the shot I told him that, although I had to fly a day late, my experience was very positive. ...

At which point the reporter began chasing somebody else to find some outrage. John doesn't say which station or reporter (darn polite bloggers!).