As half the populace gears up to travel cross-country and the other half prepares for their visits, many thanks to commentor Republic of Stupidity for news of the latest snark against security theatre:
(Available from Skreened.)
I think it would coordinate nicely with a bold, manly kilt… ABC News reports that “Some women may be asked to remove their skirts in a private screening area, and they will be given a towel or gown to put on”, but they don’t specify whether this also applies to lads wi’oot trews.
And for your late-night listening pleasure, an upbeat little ditty for “faint-hearted [or ‘unwary’] travellers”:
Crusty Dem
My dysfunctional nightmare after 9/11 was that no bags would be allowed on planes (replaced by FedEx) and security would consist of passengers separating into mens/womens security areas, fully disrobing, and flying wearing only hospital gowns. 9 years and no repeat cataclysmic episodes later, we’ve almost reached my dystopian nightmare. Paying a pile of unnecessary fees to pay for genital pat downs isjust an added bonus. Thank you, TSA!
JenJen
SNL’s skit about TSA killed last night:
http://tv.gawker.com/5695349/snl-imagines-tsa-agents-as-sex-workers
Anna Granfors
LOVE Twin Spica. Miyazaki it’s not (what is?), but what a charmer…feminist in a Japanese way, and funny when it needs to be…a long, long way from Sailor Moon. Thanks for the video…hadn’t heard the theme song in a while. :)
jon
Somehow this video seems appropriate.
And I never would have thought it was ever going to be appropriate. Never ever.
cmorenc
No airline trips for me/us this Thanksgiving. We’re all going to our house at the beach, to be joined by some very old friends originally from Scotland, and stuff ourselves silly, drink coffee, beer, wine, and pina coladas and Ian and I will play our traditional round of very, very, bad golf, the women will do their traditional round of unnecessary guilt-free shopping, and we’ll all take long walks on the beach. The kitchen at our house at the beach has become, over the years, better-equipped than our regular house in Raleigh, precisely because of this Thanksgiving-at-the-beach tradition.
Oh, and this might be the year I get bold and purchase a wetsuit so I can go surfing in the chilly waters of late autumn, winter, and spring. Well, it sounds wonderfully adventurous to think about, but actually getting around to doing it might prove a bit less attractive.
jon
@cmorenc: If the cold water is what’s keeping you from enjoying the ocean, then a wetsuit is an incredible thing to have. Just remember to get some ear protection as well, as the cold water can really mess with your hearing.
Phyllis
No traveling here, either. Just the two of us for dinner, to celebrate his one month on the new job (created by the ‘failed stimulus’). No black Friday shopping either. Just emailed him my Christmas wish item, a Verilux reading lamp.
As for any other travel, I go to Tampa at the end of January, and plan to drive. It’s a 7-ish hour trip, but I can stop when I damn well please, for as long as I want, and can take anything* that suits me along for the ride.
*As long as it will fit into a 2007 Chevy Cobalt (don’t mock, eight payments to go).
JohnR
Isn’t that the essence of power? The ability to do whatever invasory (is that a word?) thing you want to whomever you want? Of course sometimes you have to feel up someone you ordinarily would rather not, but the rape rush is presumably the same.
Xboxershorts
To paraphrase John Valby….
Oh, Nothing could be finer than to grope on your vagina in New Orleans……
bkny
i really hope this is the tipping point for the american public — and that the tsa is forced to back down from this insulting, degrading idiocy. honestly, what type of person would want to do that type of job day after day …
the very next example from the link:
In Indianapolis, a solider with the Indiana National Guard was questioned because he was carrying a nail clipper. He and the other 100 soldiers with him all had unloaded rifles and pistols, but it was the nail clipper that raised TSA eyebrows.
cognitive dissident
I wonder how many “bold, manly kilts” (sans undies, of course) it would take before the TSA rethought their screening process.
Also, the whole gown thing makes we worry that we’re getting suspiciously close to cavity-search territory…
aimai
This whole thing is getting all too close to the map that is the same size as the terrain–at the rate they are going the suspicions they have of each and every traveller will become so intense and so unassuagable that they will be required to assign a personal TSA screener to each person who will follow them from the door to the plane and possibly sit on their laps as they take off.
I continue to point out that since almost 100 percent of the people screened in this hostile and painful and humiliating manner are definitionally innocent and exactly who they say they are (grandma in a wheelchair, toddler in a diaper, business traveller, teenage girl) any system that routinely treats all of them as criminals evading proper scrutiny is just doing it wrong. I’m not arguing for profiling–it is as counterproductive to treat our imagined enemies as enemies as it is to treat our own citizenry that way. There is no excuse for making the procedure such an adversarial one *even for hypothetical terrorists.* A little consideration and kindness to everyone involved by the TSA makes more sense.
aimai
Wag
Last night on FB a friend posted the following request. Everyone who comments here seems to have good, as well as diverse taste in music, so I thought I would post it here and see what responses there were
Enjoy!
Here’s my list. What’s on yours?
1). Computer World- Kraftwerk
2). Pale Blue Eyes- REM
3). Guinnevere- Crosby Stills and Nash
4). Look Sharp- Joe Jackson.
5). Lost in the Flood- Bruce Springsteen
6). I Feel My Stuff- David Byrna & Brian Eno
7) Down in Flames- Semisonic
8). Space Oddity- David Bowie
9). Velvet Sugar (a mashup of the Velvet underground’s “I’m Waiting For My Man (possibly the best song ever about waiting got your heroin dealer) and Sugar, Sugar by The Archies)- Go Home Productions
10). Cloudbursting- Kate Bush
11). Teach Me About Love- Lyle Lovett
12). Walking and Falling- Laurie Anderson
13). Casa Abondanata- Julietta Vengas
14). I Ran- Flock of Seagulls
15). Halleluja- Leonard Cohen
SiubhanDuinne
@wag #13:
Your number 6 selection is eerily appropriate to the thread.
Woodrowfan
Is there a good example online of what the bodyscan pics REALLY look like?? I’ve seen lots of examples, but I don’t trust the RW and “libertarian” sites to show a true example. Americablog had an example but it also went into a frenzy about radiation apparently confusing the scanner with an x-ray machine.
Violet
@Woodrowfan: __
Check out the photos at the top of this page: http://www.optoutday.com/. They’re pretty graphic. Keep in mind that they are also at a lower resolution that what is available currently.
Xboxershorts
@Woodrowfan:
The scanner IS an X-Ray machine. With the associated ionizing radiation exposure.
JimF
This sounds like fun, here is my list.
1. Return to love (Jazz version)-Gela Zilkha
2. Uta no Tsubasa ni – Sofia Symphonic Orchestra
3. Never – Asia
4. Saya’s Love – Mark Mancina
5. Summertime – Paul McCartney
6. Never the End – Hashimoto Maiko
7. Pretty Rose – Joel Stein
8. Cyber-Slum – Yuki Kajiura
9. Nonbiri na Mainichi – Unknown
10. Shadow of a Doubt – Roxette
11. Half-Life 2 Song 26 – Valve
12. Hard Memory – Oomori Toshiyuki
13. Dynasty (Theme Song) – Bill Conti
14. Kids in Amercia – Kim Wilde
15. Sex Dwarf – Soft Cell
Jay in Oregon
Hmmm. I have one of these; I wonder if it still fits?
Jay in Oregon
And here’s my 15 tracks, although what this really tells me is that I need to clean out some stuff that I never listen to…
1) Spitting Out the Demons – Gorillaz
2) Fly Me Away – Goldfrapp
3) I Have A Dream – ABBA
4) How Can I Keep From Singing? – Enya
5) O Holy Night – Musiq Soulchild
6) Fumbling Towards Ecstasy (Junior Boys Mix) – Sarah McLachlan
7) The Rainbow Connection – Sarah McLachlan
8) By the Time I Get to Arizona – Public Enemy
9) Far Far – Yael Naïm
10) Black is the Colour – The Browne Sisters and George Cavanaugh
11) The Richest Man In Babylon – Thievery Corporation
12) Wild Sex (In the Working Class) (1988 Boingo Alive Version) – Oingo Boingo
13) Baby, It’s Cold Outside – Lady Antebellum
14) Far From The Home I Love – Hodel, Tevye And Orchestra (Fiddler On the Roof)
15) Inertia Creeps – Massive Attack
JimF
Random is the spice of life! I never delete anything off of my music drive.
Jay in Oregon
@JimF:
This is one of my favorite iTunes smart playlists:
Rating is greater than 2 stars (meaning I’ve actually listened to it once and rated it)
Last Played is not in the last 30 days
Last Skipped is not in the last 7 days
Media Kind is Music (to filter out audiobooks and videos)
If you don’t use ratings, you could omit the first rule. I put in the Last Skipped to “banish” something I’m not in the mood for off of the playlist for a week.
4jkb4ia
@Wag:
I cannot do this. My husband has all the music on the PC and his musical tastes have not changed since 1985. Bowling for Soup is not on the PC.
4jkb4ia
George Vecsey pays tribute to Stan Musial getting the Medal of Freedom It must be said that Kit Bond wrote an extremely good letter in this cause despite the several times I have felt compelled to apologize for him to the American people.
jon
@cmorenc: Be sure you never wear two wetsuits. That’s so important it entirely slipped my mind for a while. No matter what happens, one wetsuit is enough.