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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
How are you allowed to take knitting needles? I have friends who knit and they aren't allowed to take them.
Re: caringtoo - You scare me. Sheeples like you have made this country what it is today. The only problem is that the rest of us are stuck in the country you deserve.
Patrick - what would happen if you simply refused to give up your stuff and allowed your flight to be grounded because the pilot wasn't allowed on the plane? Okay, probably they would find another pilot and punish you, but what if you organized several pilots to do the same thing on the same day?
"Take this seriously!" bellowed the overweight TSA stormtrooper as I smiled mildly at nothing in particular, my mind far away as she brandished her metal detector at my crotch.
"I'm sorry, that's not my job," I responded.
"WHAT DID YOU SAY?!" she bellowed in that way that only the underpaid and over-uniformed do when the charade that maintains their "authority" threatens to come crashing down.
"I said it isn't my job, taking it seriously. Taking it seriously is YOUR job. My job is simply to stand here and try to forget that this gratuitous waste of my time and my money is happening. My blood pressure. You understand." I delivered all of this in a calm, soft voice that she had to lean closer to hear.
"You're JOKING!" she said. "Joking is not allowed!"
"No, sadly, I'm neither joking," I responded, "nor have I threatened you, wasted your time, or otherwise interfered with your duties. I merely smiled." I smiled again.
"Now, you certainly have it in your power to waste more of my time," I continued, "you can make me miss my flight. You can physically and mentally degrade me further than you already have. But if you do any of that because I smiled at nothing what does that make you? I think that kind of deliberate evil goes a long way beyond doing your job, don't you?"
She stood silently enraged for several seconds, replaying what I'd said in her mind. Then she nodded, and then jerked her head, indicating that I should leave.
I left.
Once upon a time a man suggested that people stop a war by "walking in, singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out". He was right, in a way.
Maybe we can end this madness by smiling.
As someone who hasn't flown since before 9/11, I'm finding the experiences of the posters here to be alternately amusing and frightening. While a small degree of security makes sense, most of what, apparently, passes for "security" makes NO sense whatsoever.
However, it (rude TSA personnel) does dovetail with what I have found personally with "law enforcement" in general lately: a move to the extreme right, with SWAT-style black uniforms, overall rudeness and a sense of a "they're-all-perps" mentality. I'd have more respect for cops in general if they'd have any respect for us.
After reading the horror stories here and other places, I've just re-booked my flight to Europe in Augusr through Canada, by the way. Hopefully, that more-enlightened country still treats its citizens and visitors with a modicum of respect.
Welcome to the mediocracy, where individual judgment is a character flaw, and mindless obedience to vague and random rules the penultimate mark of the model citizen. Add this tale to the other anecdotal signs of cultural entropy, children expelled from school for drawing army men, causing the teacher to feel threatened. Or the girl expelled & faced with prosecution for wearing a candy necklace to school & violating the zero tolerance drug policy. We are not the first society to venture down this road. Too bad we don't seem able to learn from the fate of the others. Patrick Henry & the founders would be so proud of what their bold experiment has become. :p
The "Clear" pass being offered at many busy airports strikes me as an interesting example of capitalizing off the nonsensical nature of our security state. For $125 or so, you submit to eye and fingerprint scans and a background check, and in return, you get a sophisticated-looking little card that enables you to skip to the head of the security line.
Do you get to avoid a security screening? Not at all-- you just get to avoid the line to get to the screening. So what's the point? It provides a way for frequent fliers to skip one (but not all) of the hassles of airport security. This sense that one can take some concrete step to ameliorate the indignity of flying today just buys TSA a bit of peace: Clear purchasers are less likely to complain about security if they've skipped the line to get there, and non-purchasers either can think that their plight would be better if they had just purchased Clear, or can be told that expressly.
The simple reality of the situation with TSA employees is that it is easier to train them to enforce simple rules with no exceptions than it is to have them use their judgment. In this regard, the TSA is no different from any other large bureaucracy that is forced to employ low paid employees to administer complicated programs. Expecting them to use judgment in the myriad of situations that they have to deal with everyday as thousands of passengers file past them is probably asking to much.
Welcome To America! Welcome to Republican led, strain at a gnat and swallow a camel America! What do I mean? Well, the commercial cargo that accompanies all your luggage and passengers receives hardly any checking. And the cargo that comes into the ports via ships gets very little checking. This is all part of the plan to LOOK good, while filling positions with mindless people who trip over rules as absurd as shampoo, lotions, and butter knives issued on the airplanes themselves.
Don't you get it? The one stowed in your suitcase is far more dangerous than the one we can hand you on the flight. Anybody knows that. Besides, TSA just follows the rules(except in Phoenix), they don't make them.
Mr. Smith, I believe and know your frustration. But what's broken with TSA as well as the government isn't the agencies, or the rules. It's the people. And it's not the people just from DC. It's the amazingly stunted character of people from all 50 states that arrive in Washington that lose their moral character(indicating a lack of depth) or make inane rules(indicating a lack of reason and logic) and pretend there are no consequences.
The fix isn't going to be Barack Obama, or any other politician. The fix will only come when we as a people decide that our in-forming system is antiquated and not working. In-forming includes both the educational rigors of school and the in-forming of character. As we have seen in the current administratioon, even those law students(Monica Goodling) from uber-Christian universities(Pat Robertson's Regency University) are lacking the moral depth that would prevent them from breaking the law. It is obviously time to reconsider our entire in-formation system and change it.
In the mean time, have a nice flight.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
