For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for July 05, 2012

Give a peon a LITTLE bit of authority…

John, you are an idiot, what were you thinking? Oh that’s right, you weren’t!

Kids and guns, always a good combination!

I thought that this kind of thing wasn’t enforced nearly as much when Michael & Elizabeth were that age….

Back then, this would be funny. Today, unfortunately, it is the norm!

AgProv – those airline jobsworths you refer to are all that stand between between you and the several thousand or so feet gap that would instantly appear between you and the earth, if some terrorists’ bomb blew the aircraft out of the sky. Next time you feel the urge to self-rub your ego, try not do so at the expense of some poor underpaid chump who has to put up with your sadly deluded, aggressive, dismissive arrogance while he or she does their best to ensure you have a smooth journey AND reach your destination intact.

@darrenmparrThe importance of their task is exactly the reason why TSA gate inspectors should get paid more than a convenience store clerk!

When I was in high school in the 70s we had a band exchange trip to Toronto. On the bus going into Canada, the border guy got on and asked if everyone was born in the United States. We all answered yes and on we went. On the way back, the guy got on and asked the same question. Everyone said yes except some wiseguy in the back said “Si Señor”. The guy went down the aisle asking each person where they were born and a couple of other questions, and it took 45 minutes to get through. Those guys don’t like jokes.

A similar thing happened to me at a theme park. My long metal whistle was confiscated from my purse as I was entering the park. But I was able to purchase a “fish whacker” (a lead core baseball bat) in one of the shops in the park. Go figure.

I don’t fly. Just the flag. It’s a longggggg wayyyy DOWN!!!!

True story: In 1992 I was attending a sales meeting where we were given sample products of various “plastic” items, one them was a two gallon gasoline can. I was in Dallas, Texas and was flying to Lubbock that afternoon. My associates told me I would never get it on the plane. I removed everything from it that would detach (spout, lids, etc.) and put those items in my luggage. So, here I am, in line at Dallas Love Field with a gas can. The sign said “All Jokes Will Be Taken Seriously”. The person checking baggage was a large woman with a frown permanently emblazoned on her face. She grabbed the can, stuck her nose in it, and asked “What is this all about????” I told her it was a urinal…….with a straight face……she gave it back and I got on the plane…with my urinal.

trimguy: Of course, back in the "good’ old days, airlines provided pillows and blankets for free. Passengers could wrap them around the arm as a vambrace and overpower any highjacker armed only with a box cutter. A pencil is deadlier. But they rather sacrifice safety and comfort for a few lousy bucks.

Prophetic. And still annoying.

Anybody realize that TSA has spent billions, disrupted millions, and caught not one terrorist? Who’s laughing now?

Between 2 and 5 years back there was a news story about some of the local reserves heading for the Mid-East. They are getting ready to go through security to get on the plane. All are in full combat kit. Rifles, bayonets, Grenades etc. the T.S.A man demanded their fingernail clippers and nail files before they got on the plane. You can’t imagine how stupid he looked.

As a Canadian, I’ve always had a good experience with the TSA, sometimes in a humorous way. One guy gave us a Canadian geography quiz to let us pass We had a good laugh. In fact, a land borders, I’ve found I’ve had more hassles coming back into my own country than coming into the U.S. Maybe the reason why they haven’t caught terrorists is because it’s a big deterrent so they are not trying as hard????

I rarely fly. Once a year at most. Though my annual pilgrimage from the Pacific NW to the family in the Midwest is next week.

I’ve always had good experiences. I pack carefully, I get there in plenty of time to check in and get through security, I’m a short female with glasses, so I look relatively unthreatening. In the days when I had a nose ring, I took it out to fly. (A frequent international traveler told me — pre-9/11 BTW — that people with facial piercings going through airport security were suspected drug smugglers until proven otherwise. That obviously doesn’t work at SeaTac, because those of us under 40 without facial piercings are in the minority ‘round here.) I’ve always been nice to the TSA people, and their moods have always ranged from nice to completely indifferent — the perfect range of moods to keep things going smoothly.

However, I know that so much of that comes down to luck. I’ve never been delayed getting to the airport, so I’ve never gone through security in a near-panic thinking I might miss my flight. I’ve never caught anyone in a bad mood that can’t be diffused with a little friendliness. I’ve never been singled out for additional screening or a pat-down/feel-up style groping. I’ve never had to leave a secure area during a layover. I’ve never had anything stolen from checked baggage. I’ve never had cause to get upset at something I thought was unnecessary or intrusive, so some random jerk TSA person has never had an “excuse” to escalate from jerk to arseh__-on-a-power-trip-who-needs-to-teach-me-a-lesson.

I’m a low-wage worker, and though I don’t work retail now, I did for a lot of years. Even then, it was at small businesses where there were never vast numbers of customers coming at me all day. When you deal with hundreds, if not thousands, of people every day, like TSA workers do, the small portion who treat you like crap really add up. It’s demoralizing, and sometimes even dehumanizing. I couldn’t do what these folks do, and I definitely couldn’t do it for the wages they do it for. I agree with AgProv, and darrenmparr, and Igor1882.

If my luck holds out, I’ll feel the same way in three weeks, when I’m back from my trip.

Imagine the terror if they had found some safety scissors.

You’ve not met the airport security gestapo I’ve met, then. And what gets me is that you ONLY see this mentality at airports – travel out of Britain by boat (Dover) and they’re great people, they have a job to do, they’re relaxed about it, they don’t get hyper or nasty, everyone knows why they are there and we just get on with it. Similarly at the rail stations like Ashford or St Pancras when you’re travelling out by the Eurostar train. Or at Holyhead docks when going to Ireland. Stranraer to Belfast – which in a previous life I travelled many times, so don’t talk to me about taking security lightly – was surprisingly relaxed with very good security. There was no need for it to be nasty, edgy or sarcastic because security in Northern Ireland had to be GOOD – or people got killed. You Americans only got it once, and that was bad enough – we in Britiain had it for thirty odd years. So I know what i’m talking about. I find that airport security tends to attract low-paid idiots with personal problems. It’s not my imagination and I do nothing to attract that, but there’s always at least one petty Hitler. And you are right – that is not every airport security person by any means. But there are just enough assholes to make treavelling by air unpleasant. Why is it only airports!

I’m glad I have a fear of flying.

“It’s terrible how serious air travel has become, but the blame lies with the bin Ladens, their understudies, and the scum that started the mess with all those hijackings to Cuba back in the 1960s.”

I agree. I don’t want to drag this comments thread down, I really don’t, but in Britain we had an emergency with Irish terrorism for over thirty years. It’s nothing new to us and most of us have transferred the risk we live under from militant Irish to militant Islamics, and we get on with it. And in the British Army I did several tours of duty in that crazy place. Nothing at all compared to the fighting in the Fifth Afghan War, i realise (the British have been there four times previously) but hairy enough at times. But even when the IRA was bombing British cities and there was talk of them getting American-made ground-to-air missiles to shoot down passenger aircraft, security at our airports was never as tight and oppressive as this. A lot of us… well, we do see it as not so much pointless, as unintelligent, as the security people saying “we are donig this because we can, not because it serves any useful purpose.”

We also had a government hell-bent on attacking our civil liberties and imposing national identitiy cards on us – something British people only ever got before in 1940, when things really did justify it. There’s also a suspicion that Blair caved in to pressure from the USA and a lot of this crap was enforced at the insistance of the Bush administration. (ie, we surrendered sovereignty to a foreign government). So there’s a backlash simmering under… right, back to FBFW and I’ll get me coat.

Jokes will be taken seriously!(Besides, we’ve already heard them all)

Gladly. But the problem is the ones who consider themselves ethnically British. Who are still in the majority in the six counties/two-thirds of Ulster.

Before the age of terrorism, the danger was of someone putting an explosive in someone’s luggge to collect insurance.One case was of a wacko putting an explosive in his mother’s suitcase before she left Denver. (1950s)Another nearly forgotten case was Continental Flight 11 that went down near Unionville, Missouri fifty years ago. (It was the basis for the Movie “Airport”)(Unionville is near the Missouri-Iowa line)Not surprisingly, both cases were solved by seeing who hit the insurance vendors before the flights.

I hadn’t been on a plane since 2001 before 9/11. I recently took a trip to Vegas and every thing was strictly no nonsence. I would gladly go through any inconvenience, what ever it takes to be safe at 33,000 ft up.

Probably not, Michael. But I’d be willing to bet on it that there have been plenty of people out there that have came pretty darn close to it!

Embarrassment? Just wait for the strip search, groping and lest not forget the body cavity search.

chinbopper: Very interesting. In the time I lived in Canada, I had constant hassles from US, but very calm and professional from Canadian. Witness an exchange with Canadian officials: Citizen? Landed. How long out of the country? [look at watch] 20 minutes. Buy anything? Yes. What? Ten dozen tortillas. [visible in front passenger seat] Get on through!

So what is this supposed to be, the opening scene of Midnight Express? :P

TSA….The Shitty Assholes!

agreed