XPost: alt.flame.airlines, alt.politics.immigration, alt.airline   
   XPost: rec.travel.air, alt.travel.uk.air   
   From: drmayr@btinternet.com   
      
   Getting back to the original, not the allegorical,  subject which has not   
   been debated.   
      
   The USA has belated introduced airport security which is generally carried   
   out by members of staff who have absolutely no sense of public duty and seem   
   to take pleasure in their small part of the ritual humiliation of passengers   
   travelling through airports.  With the worst of bully boy mentality they   
   apply the rules with no sense or sensibility.   
      
   Allied to the new limitations and costs associated with VISAs and passports   
   demanded, the US will see a steady declined in tourists starting next year.   
      
   Probably just another reason for the American airlines to be bailed out yet   
   again from American public funds.   
      
      
      
   Doug   
      
      
      
      
   "Chutzpah"  wrote in message   
   news:10djgjsi4tttba0@corp.supernews.com...   
   > Scenes From A Sad Airport   
   >   
   > Welcome to America. Please give us the finger. Smile for the camera. Now   
   get   
   > the hell out   
   >   
   > - By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist   
   >   
   >   
   > Look at those eyes. Perturbed and bemused and just a little furious.   
   >   
   > Look at those eyes as the baffled woman from east Texas stares down at the   
   > table as the security agent rifles through her luggage and pulls out the   
   > contents for all to see.   
   >   
   > And out pops the skimpy latex thong and the anal beads and the Astroglide   
   > and the smallish travel dildo that isn't really a dildo at all but is   
   really   
   > a "sexual-education device," because, as everyone knows, dildos are   
   > completely illegal in Texas. But not guns. Guns are mandatory.   
   >   
   > Note how she notes the irony. Note how she considers suing for   
   embarrassment   
   > and humiliation and for the sheer idiocy of it all. Note how the security   
   > agent mumbles something snide and derogatory.   
   >   
   > Note how we, as a paranoid nation, are just confused and sad and how our   
   > airports have become these comical circus sideshows, invasive and racist   
   and   
   > draconian and pornographic all in the name of, what was it again?   
   > Protection? For our own good? Is that it?   
   >   
   > And look there, look how that conservative Christian U.S. congressman is   
   > just so red faced and enraged when they search through his manly black   
   > Samsonite carry-on and find, well, not just a nice new Bible and clean   
   white   
   > Jockey underwear and assorted envelopes of cash from the director of   
   Destroy   
   > Gay Marriage Now! of Colorado Springs, Colo.   
   >   
   > Look there, just under the argyle sweaters and the signed head shot from   
   Pat   
   > Robertson, at the stash of sticky Honcho magazines and some Hello Kitty   
   > Speedos and, lo and behold, the metal in the congressman's boots induces   
   an   
   > unfortunate backroom strip search, where what do we see but the assorted   
   > bright red welts of spankdom as incurred from Mistress Carlita's Pleasure   
   > Bunker in downtown Phoenix, from the night before. Oh, Congressman.   
   >   
   > Do you hear that? That screaming? Of course you do. Just another outraged   
   > mother of three, her appalled shouts echoing all the way to the food court   
   > as LAX security gropes the living hell out of her stunned 2-year-old   
   > daughter after the tot's teddy bear appeared to have some odd-looking   
   wiring   
   > in its cute fuzzy little arms.   
   >   
   > And the mother up and slaps the scowling groping security agent and alarms   
   > are sounded and guns are drawn and children are screaming and Spongebob   
   > backpacks tumble to the ground and spill their bright happy contents all   
   > over the stained tiles in terrible slow motion, like a bad Tarantino   
   > outtake.   
   >   
   > And thus were lines held up and 16 flights from Dulles and O'Hare and JFK   
   > delayed for nine hours, causing a domino-effect 27-hour backup systemwide   
   > and thusly pumping yet another enormous and savage dose of frustrated rage   
   > and angst and sighing ennui into another artery of the cultural   
   bloodstream.   
   >   
   > Look. Look there. See the hobbled, 86-year-old man forced to put down his   
   > cane and remove his threadbare belt to pass through the metal detector.   
   > Terrorists are everywhere! Bush said so! We can't be too sure! Do you have   
   > metal pins in your hip, sir? Can you please remove them or something?   
   >   
   > Let us watch in humiliated shame as he struggles to keep his pants from   
   > falling down as it looks, to all appearances, like he's being led though a   
   > scanner to some horrific prison cell where he will be fed old oatmeal and   
   > dangerous drugs in harsh fluorescent concrete rooms, when all he's trying   
   to   
   > do is fly to Poughkeepsie for his granddaughter's third wedding.   
   >   
   > Because God knows you just can't tell who might be a terrorist these days,   
   > and you can't be too careful, because they could indeed be anyone at all   
   > from anywhere at all, including but not at all limited to white Lutheran   
   > octogenarians from the Shady Pines retirement-condo complex in Butte,   
   Mont.   
   > Not to mention them dang furriners.   
   >   
   > Let us now welcome the overwhelmed visitor from China, or Latvia, or   
   > Johannesburg, or Brazil, or India, or (heaven forefend) Turkey. It's OK,   
   > come on out of that plane. Ignore the stun guns and the growling dogs.   
   > America loves you.   
   >   
   > Let us now note how our fair visitor walks into the American security   
   miasma   
   > feeling like she is entering one big draconian maze of weird overlit   
   > American racism and paranoia, as all visitors from all "suspicious"   
   > countries have their photos taken and their fingers imprinted and their   
   > self-respect jolted and their identities filed for 20 years by the FBI,   
   just   
   > in case.   
   >   
   > Welcome to America, foreign traveler. Please hold still and place your   
   > finger here and smile for the camera and enjoy your first taste of our   
   > trademark, wickedly ironic and hypocritical joke about America being the   
   > land of the free. Is that weird necklace a religious symbol or something?   
   > Are those beads filled with white-hot hate for our glorious freedoms and   
   our   
   > 24-hour Safeways and our love of low-rise jeans on teenage girls? Are you   
   in   
   > some sort of cult?   
   >   
   > Repeat after us: Bring us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses   
   > yearning to have their spirits snapped like chicken bones and be made to   
   > feel as if they are all, by default, criminals and thieves and Bush's   
   > "gol-dang guilty durty heathen furriners." Thank you. Please proceed like   
   > mad cow-infested cattle to the next airport screening agent.   
   >   
   > Just a couple questions at this point. Do you have any nasty homemade   
   bombs   
   > or lethal biotoxic intentions or rampant simmering hatreds of George W.   
   Bush   
   > on your person at this time? Damn right you don't. Now please proceed to   
   the   
   > painful urine-sample room to have your dignity forcibly removed. Souvenir?   
   >   
   > Look closer. Look domestic. See how so many Americans standing in all the   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)