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Dangerous weapons: Why airport security is a joke

By karlsie Nov 19, 2008

By Jane Stillwater

In the last eight years, Bush, Cheney and a Republican-dominated Congress appear to have wrecked inestimable havoc on America’s basic economics and laws.

From wiretapping US citizens, torturing foreigners, handing over our treasury to Wall Street insiders and grub-staking war profiteers by lying about WMDs to ruining our school systems, ignoring our roads and turning our judicial system into a good-ole-boys’ club, these top-of-the-line miscreants appear to have systematically weakened almost everything American about America.

In the past eight years, Bush and his colleagues have master-minded, invented, implemented and perpetrated so many different ways to undercut our nation that it has become a stirring tribute to the solidness of America’s basic morality, economy and infrastructure itself that our country has managed to last even as long as it has under this continual rain of blows to its economic, cultural, patriotic and Constitutional solar plexus and heart.

From the “Let it happen” lack of preparedness before 9-11 to the merciless bombing of women and children in foreign lands, the systematic weakening of FEMA prior to Katrina, the theft of millions of American votes, the blatant sell-a-thon of our national parks’ resources and the out-and-out looting of our national treasury, these carpetbaggers have committed so many crimes that it’s a wonder that most of them aren’t already in jail.

“But, Jane,” you might say, “with regards to all the neo-cons’ crimes, you’re just throwing around a load of vague generalizations here — not backed up by proof.  Could you please be more specific?”  Sure.  But then I’d have to clutter up this entire article with millions of pages of back-up documentation and it’s not gonna be any fun having to read all that fine print.  So let’s just
suffice it to say that Bush and them have committed enough crimes against the American people to get themselves noticed bigtime — as evidenced by how Americans voted this November.

Americans are tired of being played for suckers, rubes and stooges and, with the possible exception of some out-of-touch diehards in the Red states who don’t have internet access and are forced to rely on Fox News, most of us have pretty much wised up to most of Bush’s nefarious schemes.

But is yours truly the only one in America today who has spotted the airport security scam?
Hours and hours and hours have been stolen from my life forever while waiting in line at airport security checkpoints.  They’ve taken my bottled water.  They’ve taken my fingernail clippers.  They’ve searched my person.  They’ve irradiated my food.  They’ve x-rayed my shoes.  Since 9-11, billions of taxpayers’ dollars have been spent on making sure that millions of passengers haven’t brought any dangerous weapons onto commercial airplanes.
So.  You spend an hour going through airport security, get onto your plane, find your seat and settle in.  And then what is the very first thing that the stewardess hands you once you have taken your seat?  A sharp metal knife!
I kid you not.
After your plane has been in the air for a while and reached cruising altitude, the freaking stewardess herself proceeds to march up and down the aisles of your plane — and systematically supply every man, woman and child on your flight with a six-inch-long metal blade!
PS:  Is Joe Lieberman still the chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security?  And if so, WHY?
If the good Senator had been taking commercial airline flights in the last few years instead of traveling around on the Straight Talk Express, he would have spotted this glaring weakness in America’s airport security system immediately and rectified it right away, giving airline passengers harmless box-cutters to cut up their rubber chicken with — instead of the more dangerous blades that the airlines are currently arming passengers with.
Wouldn’t he have?

By karlsie

Some great perversity of nature decided to give me a tune completely out of keeping with the general symphony; possibly from the moment of conception. I learned to read and speak almost simultaneously. The blurred and muffled world I heard through my first five years of random nerve loss deafness suddenly came alive with the clarity of how those words sounded on paper. I had been liberated for communications. I decided there was nothing more wonderful than writing. It was easier to write than carefully modulate my speech for correct pronunciation, and it was easier to read than patiently follow the movements of people’s lips to learn what they were saying. It was during that dawning time period, while I slowly made the connection that there weren’t that many other people who heard the way I did, halfway between sound and music, half in deafness, that I began to understand that the tune I was following wasn’t quite the same as that of my classmates. I was just a little different. General education taught me not only was I just a little isolated from my classmates, my home was just a little isolated from the outside world. I was born in Alaska, making me part of one of the smallest, quietest minorities on earth. I decided I could live with this. What I couldn’t live with was discovering a few years later, in the opening up of the pipeline, which coincided with my first year of junior college, that there were entire communities of people; more than I could possibly imagine; living impossibly one on top of another in vast cities. It wasn’t even the magnitude of this vision that inspired me so much as the visitors who came from these populous regions and seemed to possess a knowledge so great and secretive I could never learn it in any book. I became at once, very conscious of how rural I was and how little I knew beyond the scope of my environment. I decided it was time to travel. The rest is history; or at least, the content of my stories. I traveled... often to college campuses, dropping in and out of school until one fine day by chance I’d fashioned a bachelor of arts degree in psychology. I’ve worked a couple of newspapers, had a few poems and stories tossed around in various small presses, never receiving a great deal of money, which I’m assured is the norm for a writer. I spent ten years in Mexico, watching the peso crash. There is some obscure reason why I did this, tightening up my belt and facing hunger, but I believe at the time I said it was for love. Here I am, back home, in my beloved Alaska. I’ve learned somewhat of a worldly viewpoint; at least I like to flatter myself that way. I’ve also learned my rural roots aren’t so bad after all. I work in a small, country store. Every day I greet the same group of local customers, but make no mistake. My store isn’t a scene out of Andy Griffith. The people who enter the establishment, which also includes showers, laundry and movie rentals, are miners, oil workers, truck drivers, construction engineers, dog sled racers and carpenters. Sometimes, on the liquor side, the conversations became adult only in vocabulary. It’s a good thing, on the opposite side of the store is a candy aisle filled with the most astonishing collection, it will keep a kid occupied with just wishing for hours. If you tell your kids they can have just one, you have an instant baby sitter; better than television; as they agonize over their choice while you catch up on the gossip with your neighbor. We also receive a lot of tourists, a lot of foreign visitors. They are usually amazed at this first sign of Alaskan rural life style beyond the insulating hub of the Anchorage bowl. Many of them like to hang around and chat. They gawk at our thieves wanted posters. They laugh at our jokes and camaraderie with our customers. I’ve learned another lesson while working there. You don’t have to go out and find the world. If you wait long enough, it comes to you.

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2 thoughts on “Dangerous weapons: Why airport security is a joke”
  1. Jane, thanks for the contribution. Come to think of it, this does make alot of sense. Airport security has become a bigger nuisance than the perpetrators themselves. I can vouge for that considering the ordeals that I have dealt with prior to reaching the gate. I have also thought of the multitude of weapon-substitute products that can be purchased from stores once a person passes the security zone. Some are even weapons, such as those multi-function all-purpose knives. It’s all a mockery. I just hope you didn’t give anyone ideas with that chicken knife.

  2. Good observations, I’ve got an idea…Why not give us food in little squeezable packages instead? Something not requiring knives and let’s not forget forks! Those could make nasty gashes! Something along the lines of energy bars, squeezable peanut butter or better yet, my favorite food of the future…Soylent Green! I hear they are ramping up a great Soylent Green factory at Gitmo (pure conjecture, please don’t quote me) Anyway, the rules and regs around air flight are punishing us and not addressing the real problems. In addition the whole goal of terrorism is to “terrorize” I’d say we are helping accomplish this mission. Does anybody wonder why we aren’t worried about security on trains and buses? I do, they are more explosive and have the potential to cause more collateral damage both to passengers and localities they are travelling through. Just a thought…

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