The guy started out simple enough; he had seen an ad in a magazine for a free business book, and he had read to call our number — had he reached Riverglenn Publications*?

No, we used to be Riverglenn, now we’re Streamfield; sorry, sir. Yes, we’re still located at 412 Winterset, Minneapolis. No, we don’t offer that book anymore. Must’ve been an old magazine!

And that would normally have been that. But the guy went on. He was talking from somewhere noisy; I heard clacking shoes, clanging, conversation in the background.

“OK, right. Well, I saw the ad, and I was interested because I’m going to start a mail-order business out of my home, and I was interested in how somebody sets one of those up.”

Uh-huh. I don’t really need to know this, do I? But he seemed nice enough.

“We pretty much only publish Airline Weekly, now,” I said, “so I don’t think we’d be able to help.”

“Right, I understand,” he said. The conversation in the background echoed over my end of the phone. “Well, I’m incarcerated right now, but I’ll be out in six months. I should be out in six months, if everything happens OK.”

Holy shit! No wonder he didn’t want to get off the phone. This was like his one phone call for the whole damn week.

“Oh, yeah?” I said. I wanted to say, “What’re you in for?” but that would have been just wrong.

“You just have to take each thing as it comes and try to work it out for the best, you know?,” he said. “So I have a plan, I have a couple of ideas, and I’m just taking it as it comes, you know.”

“That sounds like a good attitude to have.”

“Well, thanks for talking to me.”

“Good luck.” What do you say? “Hope you get out soon”? Sure, unless you’re a murderer or something — then I hope you don’t.

But I do hope he’s the kindly-type convict, maybe wrongfully accused by a one-armed man, and not a Hannibal Lecter-type, because he has my work address, which I confirmed for him.

* the names, addresses, and magazine titles have been changed to protect the innocent

The pilot of Northwest Flight 42 . . . turned back about 20 minutes into the flight . . . after several passengers were observed passing cell phones back and forth and unfastening their seat belts.

Well, was the fasten seat belt light still on?!? If a man unfastens his seat belt, or passes a cell phone to another passenger, that’s one thing — but if a man with an unfastened belt whips out a phone . . . run.

OK, so lets cut to the important part: what did they look like? I turned to the Star Tribune:

Passengers described the men as between 25 and 35 years old and speaking Urdu, the language commonly spoken in Pakistan and by many of India’s Muslims.

Uh-huh, uh-huh. My suspicions are aroused . . .

Some had beards, and some wore a shalwar kameez, a long shirt and baggy pants commonly worn by South Asian Muslims.

Ah-ha! Beards, huh? You’d think those terrorists would learn to shave every once and a while, to sort of lower their profile, but you can’t teach a terrorist new tricks, apparently.

Anything else? You had me at beards, but wait:

Nitin Patel of Boston, who sat behind the men, told the paper: “I don’t know how close we were, but my gut tells me these people wanted to hijack the airplane.”

Thank God Nitin Patel failed the Air Marshall written exam, or bearded, seat-belt-less passengers on flights around the world would be paying the price.

But even with all that evidence, it turned out to be a false alarm:

Prosecutors said Thursday they found no evidence of a terrorist threat . . . and they are releasing all 12 passengers arrested after the emergency landing.

There is nothing funny about terrorism and there is nothing funny about racism or religious prejudice (yet, somehow, this “incident” is funny . . .)

Dick Cheney recently said that “the terrorists” (or, “Al-Qaeda-types,” as he called them) saw a victory in the Connecticut Democratic primary defeat of Joe Lieberman; Bush, on Tuesday, said that withdrawing troops form Iraq “will send the wrong message to the enemy.”

How about panic (terror, even!) aboard airplanes? Fear and suspicion and anger? Travel disruptions? Could these things possibly be seen as “a victory” by terrorist organizations who have specifically targeted air travel?

Finally:

On Tuesday, a flight to New York from Atlanta was diverted to Charlotte, N.C., after a flight attendant found a bottle of water and then smelled something suspicious on the plane. Officials found nothing hazardous.

Now that sends a message.

The FBI said Monday that it had no indication that the men had any ties to known terrorist groups. Local prosecutors, however, were standing by the charges.

My advice to the Tuscola County Michigan local authorities: let it go. If the FBI says they aren’t terrorists, then they aren’t terrorists. They know. And they have the illegally wiretapped phone records to prove it.