Letters to the Editor
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@ Lefty re luggage screening
But after reading your post, I guess you feel the answer is to just get rid of all airport security altogether. No screening, no X-rays or metal detectors, nothing. After all, if security isn't 100% flawless and perfect and airtight, then by definition it's 100% worthless and unnecessary, right?
When 100% of checked luggage is screened, then you might begin to have a point.
The screening process that I experienced at Logan this summer: a woman who didn't speak any English looking at me and looking at my passport photo -- which was taken eight years ago -- and demanding to know why my hair was different (I had it up in a bun that day, it was down -- and nearly 10 inches longer -- in the photo). MY HAIR!!! They are *supposed* to be identifying facial features, and instead they are confused by the notion that someone could have gotten a haircut sometime over a span of 10 years. That was it.
That, my friend, is what they mean by "security theatre". That and the absurdity of having to put all my small belongings into a quart ziploc bag. Go over to the "Ask the Pilot" letters sections to read about the insane levels of idiocy and incompetence regarding security requirements. A couple of my favorites wer the person who was told to get rid of the *empty* plastic bottle, and the other person who was kicked out of of the security line for putting his stuff into a *gallon* sized ziploc bag.
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I'm with kitchengirl
I don’t have extreme discomfort with male gynecologists at all. Hell, I’ve been through fertility treatments and have had all kinds of strange men looking up my hoo ha. That said, I prefer women gynecologists and I’m not going to apologize for it. Maybe it’s because I have a lot of brothers and one husband who would freak out at any mention of “a woman’s monthlies”. I became very self conscious about it and it’s just easier to discuss those issues with another woman.
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"MY HAIR!!! They are *supposed* to be identifying facial features, and instead they are confused by the notion that someone could have gotten a haircut sometime over a span of 10 years."
What are they actually paying these people anyway? Just think would happen if you looked anorexic, got a nose job, botox on your forehead, collegen your in lips, and colored your hair. Oh wait. That would make you a movie star. You could fly first class. Are first class people treated differently?
Oh nevermind. Of course they are.
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Back in the USSR
Chris, you are sounding less and less lefty all the time.
As for security, I have traveled a good deal, including in the Middle East at the peak of the hijacking craze, and been under very very tight security. Which was a good deal more pleasant that what we are subjected to now. And indeed, almost certainly more effective. I don't think El Al, the gold standard in security if there ever was one, ever fussed much about liquids or underwire bras before DHS made them do it. They are more into things like talking to you politely, and doing some checking.
Me, I don't want to suck it up when abused by the authorities, especially in petty and humiliating ways. I think I have more worth and dignity than that. I think everyone does. And I worry about where it leads. It reminds me of traveling in the Eastern Bloc back in the 70s & 80s.
And it is simply ridiculous to upbraid women for not being comfortable with male medical personnel in intimate situations. Though I do admit, I for one wonder if orientation might be more to the point: how would KitchenGirl feel about a stone dyke vs a totally swish queen (unlikely in an OB/GYN I know) digging around in her yaya?
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@Canuckistan Bob
It's completely consistent for leftychris to hold those views and still be left wing. You mentioned traveling the eastern block during the communist times. Those communists exemplified the far far left.
The far far right is exemplified by facists and nazis.
Ain't it funny that the far far right and the far far left look the same from the outside. I think the label "statist" might apply to both the left and right flavors.
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re: Max Mendelbaum & leftychris
Maybe it’s because I have a lot of brothers and one husband who would freak out at any mention of “a woman’s monthlies”.
Exactly! For me, it's not so much the modesty issue (my massage therapist is male). It's that for some aspects of women's health care (the ones I care about), another woman is going to have personal experience with the issues at hand. She will be able to describe a "too heavy" period in terms that make sense, rather than, "Are you losing more than 5 oz. of blood?" (Well, gee, let me wring out all of my tampons into my handy Pyrex measuring cup and see.) Hell, she will actually have USED a tampon.
I also went to see an orthopedist who runs when I had a running injury. (Her specialty was "knee and shoulder injuries of female athletes"--I had a knee problem. And yes, it does matter for a knee injury--women are more prone to some types of injuries, men more prone to others.)
Both of the optometrists I've gone to as an adult also wear contact lenses, as I do.
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Silly, inflammatory fiction by Carol Lloyd.....
Hey there.....
Perhaps I'm wrong in assuming that Broadsheet is a source for news&facts.
I was interested to read "..Plato's experience of being humiliated before a gang of smirking security guards..."
So, it was a "gang"? goodness....not a "group"? Oh wait....they're the Bad Guys...of course they're a "gang."
Do you have a photograph of this incident? How do you know they (and presumably ALL of them, given what you've written) were "smirking"?
It seems to me, Ms. Lloyd, that you could make your point without also making up stuff.
You do know this sort of writing wouldn't fly in a 9th grade journalism course, don't you?
Unsurprisedly,
David Terry
www.davidterryart.com
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@ Canuckistan, sexual orientation isn't the issue
Though I do admit, I for one wonder if orientation might be more to the point: how would KitchenGirl feel about a stone dyke vs a totally swish queen (unlikely in an OB/GYN I know) digging around in her yaya?
Interesting question. Sexual orientation isn't actually the issue. My very first GYN visit was with a lesbian doctor. No problems there, except for the part where she told me that a chronic pain problem I have is all in my head. Other than her total failure to take my comments at face value and think that maybe it was something worth investigating, the visit was fine.
It's not a fear of being assaulted, it's more of a notion that these are things that are intimate to women, and I need to have a woman doctor to deal with them.
"Yaya" is a good one.