The Raven

Monday, November 18, 2002

Running the Gantlet

We're back from our adventures in West Palm Beach and have amassed a wealth of pointless information, but a few items did seem worth mention, such as our experiences with the Transportation Security Agency (TSA). We got a good look at these people who are in today's news, and they certainly got a look at us. Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.) is a frequent flyer and serves on the House Transportation Committee, so he's one of the people responsible for the new regime that just went online this weekend. Let's see what he says:

"I am very impressed with the consistency and the thoroughness of the TSA screeners. They are doing a much better job than the lackadaisical screeners of the past."

Well that accords with our observations too, to an extent. At our local airport, and at West Palm International, the TSA folks were wearing white shirts, sported good hygiene, and carried themselves like white-collar professionals. This is a huge leap upward from the former gang of thugs and illegal aliens who were wont to chew gum and guffaw at one another while pawing through your belongings. However, the folks at Hartsfield International at Atlanta seem to be the same bunch of abusive power-tripping clowns—but with snappy new outfits.

Getting through the checkpoints without a humiliating strip-down, pat-down, and shake-down is going to be a trick. I tried to divest myself of all metallic objects and carried little, and sailed through my local airport screen with as little hassle as I'd experienced pre-9/11. At West Palm International, on the other other hand, the sensor gate was turned up so high that it was registering hits on the rivets in peoples' jeans. Metallic buttons or zippers on clothing were a sure ticket to the "special holding area" where you get the opportunity to stand motionless with outstretched arms for a few minutes.

Other elements of the security system that still are under development include a computerized profiling system for passengers, a trusted traveler program for those who agree to background checks, and the training of pilots to carry firearms for cockpit defense.

The "Trusted Traveler" deal sounds like the way to go. It's almost surreal to see security agents crawling with their SM paddles all over a white-haired grandmother, barking imperatives and dumping the contents of her purse over a table in plain view of a hundred bemused passengers. Let's hope for some sanity here ASAP.

Palmy Days

If you find yourself with a day or two at West Palm Beach, avoid City Place if at all possible. City Place is a gentrified district of shops and restaurants with a unified architecture and paint scheme. It's a mall, without the roof. The complete absence of soul and character grated on my nerves and made me feel as if I were a component in a large machine; namely, the raw meat in a sausage grinder. A half-mile away, however, is the Clematis Street historical district that's refreshingly funky, a little dangerous, and a lot of fun. Less "Sunglass Hut" and more "Rooney's Irish Pub." Florida is a state filled with transplanted people who've left questionable lives to run headlong toward an uncertain future, making them an odd lot to interact with. Think Las Vegas with beaches.

Stripping for Iraq

Always happy to do their part for world harmony, "50 determined women" divested themselves of their clothing to lay down in a field near Pt. Reyes in Marin County last Tuesday, and arranged their bodies to spell out the word "peace." They did this, according to organizers, to "show solidarity with the people of Iraq." Yes, we thought the same thing, too: Try a stunt like this over there and you're gonna do some serious jail time—after a severe public flogging.

"They wanted to unveil the truth about the horrors of war, to commune in their nudity with the vulnerability of Iraqi innocents, and to shock a seemingly indifferent Bush Administration into paying attention."

This sort of thing does have the positive effect of getting these people off the street, keeping them busy and out of the way. It makes a "statement" to be sure, but arguably not the one that the conceptualizer, artist Donna Sheehan, had in mind.

"By the time we'd stripped, with a lot of squealing and giggling and whooping and hollering, it was really raining," she said. "But we had fun. It was very empowering."

We perceive the statement as being "bored wealthy women can be talked into a lot of goofy stuff," as Aristophanes noted in Lysistrata.

11:40:57 AM