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Monday, November 17, 2008

Security and Sudafed

Dear Transportation Security Administration,

I understand that your job is very important.  Why, back in 2002 I even wrote a whimsical little essay in the New York Times Magazine defending the new post-9/11 regulations for airport security.  Of course, that was before things got really baroque—before the personal-care-products industry had persuaded you to confiscate everyone’s toothpaste, aftershave, body lotion, moisturizer, shampoo, conditioner, hand cream, and saline solution.  But on the whole, I’m in favor of everything that prevents crazy people from blowing up airplanes.  So did I complain when you went through my checked bags in 2004 as I was coming back from San Francisco?  No.  And that was the time you left a zipper open—the zipper to the very pocket in which I had stashed all my keys.  I decided that one was my own dang fault for not wanting to sit through a five-hour flight with my keys in my pocket, so I just went ahead and got new keys, even though the electronic key to the Passat was well over a hundred bucks.

Nor did I complain last year when you searched my checked bag, went through my toiletries kit, and opened my electric razor, strewing thousands of tiny facial hairs all over everything else in the kit, from my Vanceril inhaler to my toothpaste.  You know how sometimes there’s a teeny bit of toothpaste right around the cap?  Well, it turns out that that little white spot of fugitive, extratubal toothpaste is a lot easier to see when it’s covered with minuscule beard shavings.  But, again, I didn’t complain.  I am a patriotic American, and I know full well that if you can’t open my electric razor and spill its contents into my toiletries kit, the terrorists will have won.  So I didn’t trouble you the first time it happened—or the second.

Even now, I don’t flinch every time I see that piece of paper that tells me you’ve selected my checked bag to be opened and searched.  Usually, you put things back in good order.  But this time I really think you’ve gone too far. 

I checked one small bag on my recent journey from Harrisburg to Omaha.  I did so not only because I wanted to bring shaving cream and aftershave and a Fusion razor in place of the electric one (see above), but also because my son, Jamie, has a nasty runny nose and needed to travel with Triaminic and Sudafed.  And again, I understand that you need to go through my toiletries bag for national security purposes.  Freedom isn’t free.

But when we arrived in Omaha and I unpacked, I found that the plastic zip-lock bag into which Janet had carefully placed Jamie’s meds (and into which I had re-placed them after giving him a dose of the Sudafed prior to checking in for our flight) was very messy.  Apparently, a member of your staff had gone through my toiletries kit, opened the medicine bag, and even opened the Sudafed itself, replacing the child-proof cap in a strangely haphazard manner that allowed a couple of teaspoons of Children’s Sudafed to spill into the bag.  Thankfully, this employee of yours then sealed the plastic zip-lock bag properly, or I would have had an entire toiletries kit soggy with Sudafed, and no Sudafed.

Amazingly enough, on the way back from Omaha to Harrisburg, another of your employees (I’m really hoping it wasn’t the same one) did it all again, opening my checked bag, my toiletries bag, my plastic zip-lock medicine bag, and the Sudafed bottle, replacing the cap badly yet again, leaving me once more with a plastic bag with a sticky purple liquid lining.  And much less Sudafed.  Oh, and that piece of paper informing me that my bag had been opened and inspected in the interests of safety.

So hey, hey, TSA, what’s going on with your staff these days?  Are some of them addicted to Children’s Sudafed?  Is someone poaching travelers’ Children’s Sudafed supplies and boiling ‘em up into Children’s Crystal Meth?  Or do they simply have nagging cold symptoms for which they need a bracing hit of my son’s over-the-counter medicine?

Like I say, I’m not given to idle complaints.  I don’t even mind cleaning up messes in my toiletries kit.  But, you know, Jamie really did need that Sudafed.  You should probably apologize to him for spilling so much of it.  And if you ever feel like replacing the bottle, that would be a nice gesture too.  In the meantime, I’ll send a version of this letter to your Got Feedback? page, referencing both the Harrisburg and Omaha airports.  Thanks for your attention.

Sincerely,
Michael

Posted by Michael on 11/17 at 08:36 AM
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Friday, November 14, 2008

Postcard from Omaha

Jamie and I are off to watch a team of Mavericks.  So much for all you Palinophobes who said there couldn’t be such a thing.

Posted by Michael on 11/14 at 06:28 PM
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Thursday, November 13, 2008

The whole world’s only source

If I were a better blogger—nay, if I were a better person—I would have seen the Fafblog interview with John McCain when it was published ‘way back on the 2 of November.  Had I only known that McCain promised Fafblog that he would “rescue America and, and take her for my demon bride,” I would have reconsidered my infatuation with Barack Hussein “The One” al-Obama.  And that would probably have tipped the gates of Hell rural Pennsylvania decisively to McCain, not to mention Indiana, Virginia, North Carolina, Iowa, Ohio, and Florida.  And also New York, because I grew up there and my blog is hugely influential in the outer boroughs.  Trust me on this one.

I apologize to Fafblog, and to history.

But by the time you read this, Jamie and I will be off on our Latest Adventure:  a trip to Nebraska and South Dakota.  Why do we keep going west, you ask?  Why else?  To undermine Western Civilization!  In the meantime, we leave you with the immortal words of, um, Fafblog:  Oh no! Not Western Civilization! That’s where all my friends live!

Posted by Michael on 11/13 at 09:29 AM
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Wednesday, November 12, 2008

On birth certificates and Bill Ayers

Some people think that Camille Paglia has a column at Salon because Paglia has some deeply incriminating photos of David Talbot.  But I think that Camille Paglia has a column at Salon because (a) back in the 1990s, guys like Talbot were charmed by her contrarian contrarianicity and (b) now, everyone else in the English-speaking world truly enjoys watching her make an abject fool of herself.  It’s kind of cruel in a way, and yet I doubt that anyone can say she doesn’t deserve it.

I hear that Slate and Salon might team up to create a whole entire Special Edition Extra Deranged Internet, with Gregg Easterbrook as chief science reporter and Camille Paglia as senior political analyst.  Sort of like Pajamas Media, only without the pajamas.

Posted by Michael on 11/12 at 12:49 PM
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Tuesday, November 11, 2008

MeTubes

Now that this blog has singlehandedly swung the election to Barack Hussein al-Obama,* it is time for me to move into my Stealth Agendaâ„¢ phase.  Following the plan Obama and I hatched almost thirty years ago when I recruited him to come to Columbia from Occidental College and meet Bill Ayers on my twentieth birthday, I am going to begin to form the Campus Cadres that will introduce students to Islamic Socialism and smash U.S. global hegemony once and for all, while President-Elect Obama does an incredibly elaborate head-fake by suggesting that he wants to keep Joe Lieberman in the Democratic caucus.

I just have to add, on a note of profound exhaustion and relief, that it has not always been easy for Obama’s backers to clear the way for his ascendancy to the Presidency.  That egomaniac and former Black Panther Bobby Rush refused to get with the program back when we were trying to implement “Project New Panther” in 2000, and George Soros had a devil of a time finding someone willing to convince Jack Ryan to take his then-wife Jeri to those Paris sex clubs in the 1990s so that Ryan would eventually drop from the Senate race in 2004 to be replaced by professional lunatic Alan Keyes.  If I recall correctly, George used to call that one “Project Completely Unexpected Turn of Events.” Yes, it sounds funny now.  But dear readers, do you have any idea how much it costs to bribe court officials into opening a sealed divorce file?  Of course you don’t.  Ah, what a long strange trip it’s been, eh, George?

Anyway, this means, among other things, that this humble (but hardworking) blog is going to move to a more relaxed, leisurely posting schedule.  I invite my readers to take a cue from the stuffy, aggrieved older gentleman in the opening train scene of A Hard Day’s Night, and announce to all and sundry, “I read this blog regularly!  Twice a week!  So I suppose I have some rights!†(That’s at the 6:45 mark, for those of you in a hurry.)

And you know, there’s so much to life besides blogging!  There’s also vlogging and clogging and plodding!  Last week I made my Bloggingheads debut, talking with Will Wilkinson about the election and the Campus Cadres and such things, and yesterday I learned that the plodcast of my talk at the conference on Cognitive Disability as a Challenge to Moral Philosophy is now up and available for viewing on a computer near you.  These clips are of great historical interest, since they represent the long-awaited unveiling of my 1.0 reading glasses (the Walgreen’s pair at the conference, the Target pair for Bloggingheads).  I will add only that I actually shaved for the Bloggingheads segment, and Mr. Wilkinson apparently did not.  Then again, he looks kind of charming and devil-may-care, whereas until I shaved I looked merely slovenly.  I take some solace, however, in the fact that my ghostly looming head is as creepy and ginormous as it ever was.

The whole segment is 68:31, a bit long for Bloggingheads but still under the running time of A Hard Day’s Night.  The highlight of the exchange, I think, comes when I say to Will, “and don’t take that tone with me, young man!  I fought the war for your sort,†and he snaps back, “I bet you’re sorry you won.†That’s at 7:30, for those of you in a hurry.

________

* Seriously: if you look at the polling history, you’ll see that according to the highly influential GWU/Battleground poll, McCain was up by 2 points nationally just before I returned to blogging on September 29.  The next GWU/Battleground poll, taken right after the return of Mister Answer Man, shows Obama up by 8.  QED, folks.  The final GWU/Battleground poll has Obama up by 6, and he won by 6.5.  Remember, correlation is closely correlated to causation, and many people in Washington have built entire careers on cherry-picking poll numbers like this.

Posted by Michael on 11/11 at 02:03 PM
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Monday, November 10, 2008

Democratic Concern Trolls Voice Concern About the Future of Democratic Concern Trolling

Falls Church, VA—Citing “clear and present dangers to the party,†a group of leading Democratic concern trolls gathered over the weekend to express their concerns about recent Democratic victories at the polls.  The group, calling itself “Concerned Democrats for America,†announced in a press release that it would hold annual conferences throughout Barack Obama’s presidency in an attempt “to keep the Democratic Party in touch with the concerns of the American people.â€

“Obama’s election is a historic event,†said former Clinton advisor Lanny Davis, co-chair of the newly-formed Fox News Democrat Caucus.  “But I’m concerned that Obama may have raised expectations too high.  What will happen when he has to face down the left-wing Congressional leadership or the Daily Kos brigades, who will undoubtedly try to goad him into adopting a narrowly partisan agenda?  I worry that Obama won’t have the courage to cut those people loose when he needs to.â€

Journalist Amy Sullivan agreed, adding, “I’m hearing a lot of concerns about where the Democratic party goes from here.  Specifically, I’m concerned that fewer Democrats are going to be willing to take seriously the concerns of people who want to reach out across the aisle and establish a bipartisan consensus that abortion is wrong.  What will happen when the party is no longer concerned about these people’s concerns?  Based on what I’m hearing, I have to worry that it will back itself into increasingly radical and unpopular positions on this important issue.â€

Other members of the Concerned Democrats focused more on the 2008 electoral map than on “hot-button†social issues.  Democratic strategist David “Mudcat†Saunders, in a plenary address to the group, noted that Obama had managed to make inroads into traditionally Republican southern states such as Virginia and North Carolina, while sweeping Ohio, Florida, Iowa , and even Indiana, which had not voted for a Democrat since 1864.  “There’s a real problem looming here,†said Saunders, “even if most Democrats don’t want to face it right now.  As the Republican party increasingly becomes the party of old white people living in Appalachia, the Ozarks, and the barren windswept areas of the Louisiana Purchase, Democrats are going to be less and less inclined to listen to advisors who insist that the Democratic Party must choose leaders who are white male Southern Baptists familiar with barbeque, NASCAR, and the music of Lynyrd Skynyrd.  I’m especially concerned about what will happen to the party once those advisors’ concerns are no longer given a prominent hearing.  Will Democrats stop trying to appeal to conservative Southern whites?  Will Democrats become instead a regional party, confined to the northeast, the Middle Atlantic, the Great Lakes and upper midwest, the mountain southwest, and the Pacific states?  All this talk about the Latino vote and the Jewish vote may be obscuring the importance of the Bubba vote, and that concerns me, as it should you.â€

Former Senator and newly-elected CDA president Bob Kerrey summed up the concerns of many participants in his closing remarks, noting that “America is still a center-right country.  Every map confirms this simple fact: when you look at the United States, you see that most people live in the center and on the right side of the map.  That’s why the Democratic Party needs preening, distinguished center-right elder statesmen who model themselves on Daniel Patrick Moynihan—now more than ever.â€

Posted by Michael on 11/10 at 05:25 AM
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