Peter:

1. If you are taking meds as a long-term AIDS survivor, surely you would have known they "act like alcohol", and you would have refrained from further drinking at the airport. You admit this, but make it sound like a complete after-the-fact surprise.

2. No one (forget about 9/11 for a moment if you can) should be subjected to an obnoxious, loudmouth fellow passenger. Where do you get off making the flight miserable for a couple of hundred other people who are virtually imprisoned with you for six hours, or so? It was frightening even before 9/11.

3. You didn't have "blare out" that you had AIDS. Other people have leg/circulation problems. You could have said just that. Oh, and you could have seen to your seating in advance. That's what I do.

4. It's not the airline's fault you couldn't keep track of your laptop. If you weren't drunk, demanding the crew radio the airport in search of it is absurd beyond comment.

5. Being the urbane world traveler and writer (with a third eye, even) you should have known better than to get on a plane within days of your passport expiring. And being so urbane, why was the expiration a surprise?

6. "Passively" accepting the unwanted violation of even the most hardened criminals is a criminal act of your own for not informing them that you had AIDS. Ten to one, if you had, they would have picked a different partner. If your response was "passive", you left off the second part "aggressive". To those who hope they "got what they deserved", I would ask...what about their next innocent rape victim on the outside? Or their wife. Or the next guy, who, like Peter, is in prison simply for being a jerk.

7. There is a tone and content to your tale of prison that suggests that you are a bigot...as in "some of my best friends are muslim". I know you didn't say that...but I suspect you might.

Now for a little travel story of my own....I used to travel world-wide extensively for my job. One time I got on a plane in LA, and as it was landing in Hong Kong (where I had flown many times) I started to fill out the immigration form and realized that my passport was actually already EXPIRED! They hadn't asked me for it when I boarded. And I hadn't made an overseas trip in six months, so I didn't notice the date creeping up.

This was just after China accepted the transfer of Hong Kong back from British colonial rule. I have also traveled to mainland China, and I knew the Chinese in this capacity have absolutely NO sense of humor. I was meeting with business associates, and feared I would be put directly on a return flight, or worse, detained.

In fact, I am a nice, friendly, non-agressive person (most of the time). I behaved myself, provided the information they needed to reach the people I was meeting and verify my contacts and hotel arrangements. And I was sufficiently apologetic and imortified at my own lack of foresight. They treated me with respect and released me. The next day, the manufacturer I was visiting ran me around at warp speed to get a new passport issued...because we were going into mainland China the next day and I also needed a visa. (Where they stopped us at a dozen checkpoints and made us get out of the car, searched it, and scowled over my passport for show. Standard procedure.)

Net ending...my current passport was issued in Hong Kong. I concluded my business without a hitch, and my kids love to make me look like an idiot sometimes by telling the story of when Mom landed in Hong Kong without a passport.

By the way, as I sat in the immigration office with uniformed officers, one of them was leading a man past me toward a back room and snapping on a pair of latex gloves. When he saw my jaw drop, he laughed and gave me a smile that reassured me that I had behaved in a civilized manner, and I would be given the same treatment in return. And I was. In my situation, Peter Kurth would have been the one being marched off to the back room. And then straight to the slammer.

Just asking.

I'll just bet all those kids in Iraq are really upset that Congress is trying to wrestle their fate out of the clutching claws of a draft-dodging dimwit who has fired all the generals who ever had a reasonable idea based on the reality of war in Iraq. Who cut funding and twisted bureaucratic arms to see that their benefits would be undermined and their treatment for the aftermath of war would be compromised. Who hasn't lost one night's sleep over their suffering. Who uses them for photo ops but doesn't go to their funerals. Who sent them into battle without proper equipment, but made sure Halliburton could pay six figures to the guy who slaps the hash onto their trays.

Yeah...I'm sure they are quaking in their desert boots at the prospect that maybe finally someone will try to do something intelligent for a change.

Bush and the military? Most of them now think he's as much of a fraud and an incompetent as we do. Mission accomplished, shrub.

Anyone who really doubts how bad it is....check out the article on Lt. Col Yingling in the Washington Post. He has published a blistering criticism of Bush's lock-step generals, (the ones who survived the purges before the surges) and the damage they have done, not just to the war in Iraq, but to the foundations of the military, itself. Nothing like a loyal Bushie in uniform to muck things up.