Shameless Self-Promotion, Rubber Glove Edition
Usually, when I write a piece for National Review, it appears only in the print edition. In other words, it disappears down a magical media hole, never to see the light of day.
Occasionally, though, it ends up in both places: in the pages, and on the web, at NRO.
This is one of those times. Here's the opening lede from my piece this week, about the TSA, rubber gloves, and who really makes us feel safer on airplanes:
There’s probably no context in which rubber gloves are anything less than alarming. These hands, they seem to announce, are tasked with some dirty business. These fingers, say the brightly colored latex digits, are crossing into unsavory terrain. You don’t know where those hands have been, and you don’t want to know where they’re going, but wherever it is, they’re going to need protection.
Which is why, I think, the most unsettling part of passing through airport security — more disquieting than the quasi-police TSA uniforms, which always seem at least two sizes too snug; more heart-racing than the body-imaging equipment, which looks exactly like what a brain-tumor-inducing machine would look like if you tried to build one — is the sight of a slightly bored TSA agent, bursting out of her uniform like a baked potato out of the foil, waiting on the other side of the machines with a pair of rubber gloves and a dead-eyed expression.
Because whatever it is she’s wearing those gloves for, it ain’t to do the dishes.
I noticed -- because I'm an egomaniac and check these things obsessively -- that the post on NRO has 8 comments. As Ricochet members know, comments are sort of our business, so I thought: Hey! Let's not give away the product!
I wrap it up this way:
Be honest now: When you stumble through the security line, personal belongings every which way, clutching your shoes and belt to your chest the way a ravished maiden clutches her dress in a Victorian melodrama, do you feel safer? On the other hand, as you board the plane and struggle down the aisle with your (face it: too large) carry-on and bump along the rows, check out your stolid, irritated, loaded-for-bear fellow passengers. Now imagine that the guy in 22C starts to light his underpants, or mix his tiny shampoo into his tiny conditioner. Do you have any doubt that the lady in 22D, or the fat guy in 22A, or the wiry old guy in 22B, or the hipster plugged in to the iPod in 22H will hesitate, for a moment, to kick his
...and right here I violate the Ricochet Code of Conduct, but you get the idea.
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Comments:
Aug '10
Re: Shameless Self-Promotion, Rubber Glove Edition
As a portly man rest assured I would take up my belt extender and go Luca Brasi on his
... you get the idea
Nov '10
Re: Shameless Self-Promotion, Rubber Glove Edition
I never thought I would long for the days when all they wanted to do was be flown to that imagined hero's welcome in Cuba. And while I'm on the subject of heroes, has President Obama ever invited Jasper Schuringa to the White House for a beer?
Sep '10
Re: Shameless Self-Promotion, Rubber Glove Edition
All I've ever thought about in these situations is, how many FBI agents could we hire for the cost of this nonsense. I suppose we'll never know how many plots have been foiled by TSA agents taking away the nail clippers of dasterdly, nail-clipper, wielding terrorists but I'm pretty sure the reason we'll never know is because the number is zero.
Oct '10
Re: Shameless Self-Promotion, Rubber Glove Edition
Have we heard anything about a potential attack being stopped in its tracks at airport security since 9/11? It seems to me that all the foiled attacks are either a) stopped by law enforcement when still in the planning stages, before they ever get to the airport (24 arrested in London, 2006, for planning to use liquid explosives to blow up airliners or b) they go through airport security and are stopped on the plane by John Q Public (shoe bomber, "pantybomber," Flight 93 on 9/11).
Am I missing anything? Or am I correct in saying that the TSA and its foreign counterparts have never stopped an attack at the security gates?
Re: Shameless Self-Promotion, Rubber Glove Edition
Rob, congrats on the NRO placement! And thanks for creating the perfect excuse for me to vent about my experience yesterday with the rubber-gloved brigade at Reagan National. Being a regular albeit reluctant flier, I keep in my carry-on a supply of travel-sized personal products in a clear plastic zipper pouch. I don't use a zip lock bag because they break. I know this from hard, shampoo slathered, annoyed, messy experience. My clear plastic zipper pouch is sturdier and offers the same transparency for the sake of security. Literally.
Yesterday, my clear plastic zipper pouch was stopped mid-xray and referred for inspection.
Prepare yourself for insanity. An agent, while extracting a clear plastic quart-sized zip lock bag from a drawer, said: "Your liquids must fit in a zip lock bag. That is the Federal Regulation." Naturally, all my stuff did fit into the stupid zip lock bag. So you know what the guy did next? He put the zip lock into my clear plastic zippered pouch, handed it back to me and said, "Have a nice flight."
This makes me safer from terrorists HOW?
May '10
Re: Shameless Self-Promotion, Rubber Glove Edition
Well said, Rob. I'm not sure if the TSA says more about the unchecked power of our politicians or a willingness of citizens to indulge fantasies for the sake of comfort.
Jul '10
Re: Shameless Self-Promotion, Rubber Glove Edition
By this point, the humorless allahakbar bonehead who has plotted with the criminal masterminds of the religion of submission to carry a C-4 suppository behind you is writhing on the floor rendered helpless by the gales of uncontrollable laughter.
Please proceed briskly to the tarmac.
Jul '10
Re: Shameless Self-Promotion, Rubber Glove Edition
The TSA "saves" lives like Obama "saves" jobs.
Re: Shameless Self-Promotion, Rubber Glove Edition
Radio host and attorney Mark Levin pithily points out that the government's solution for systemic failure--like airport security--is always "more systems."
May '10
Re: Shameless Self-Promotion, Rubber Glove Edition
There's a heckova lotta airports outside the USA where you can board a flight to the USA and there's no TSA check.
Re: Shameless Self-Promotion, Rubber Glove Edition
Yes, just as their solution to problems caused by government intervention, e.g., health care, is greater government intervention = socialism.
Aug '10
Re: Shameless Self-Promotion, Rubber Glove Edition
Robert McKay
Have we heard anything about a potential attack being stopped in its tracks at airport security since 9/11? It seems to me that all the foiled attacks are either a) stopped by law enforcement when still in the planning stages, before they ever get to the airport... or b) they go through airport security and are stopped on the plane by John Q Public.
Am I missing anything? Or am I correct in saying that the TSA and its foreign counterparts have never stopped an attack at the security gates?
Excellent point.
Duane, for example, keeps using the fact that no recent attacks have been successful as evidence that the TSA is necessary. But lack of successful attacks isn't evidence that it's the TSA who's done the foiling.
I think the burden of proof is on the TSA to demonstrate that it is in fact a reason our airlines have remained safe. As TSA screening procedures are already public, what has the TSA has to lose by publicizing any attacks it's prevented?
True, the TSA may be mostly effective as a deterrent. But don't effective deterrents occasionally snag a bad guy?
Aug '10
Re: Shameless Self-Promotion, Rubber Glove Edition
Good point.