What to Wear, What to Wear: Part VI

Autumn is passing rather quickly for me. Such is the advantage of a research leave. I have taken full advantage of it by traveling, traveling, traveling. The only downside is that my gym schedule has been thrown totally out of whack. Erratic time at the gym brings on the ever present threat of an expanding waistline. I just hope by the end of my leave I'm not going to need a crane and Richard Simmons to get me out of my house.

For the time being, I have temporarily returned to MFT (before leaving again next week for Midwestern Metropolis). With an upcoming party on my social calendar, I must face my age-old question of what costume to wear for Halloween. As you all known, I often aim for great ideas, but end up appearing in a disappointing result:

What I aim for:
Robin Hood --


He stands as a classic symbol for the fight for economic justice by stealing from the rich to give to the poor.

What I end up with:
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner --


He stands as a classic symbol of incompetence and greed by stealing from the poor to give to multinational corporations. I suppose Obama thinks that he is doing a "heck of a job."

***
What I aim for:
Father Charles Coughlin --


For some people, the mere sight of any Catholic priest is enough to send them running to hide in the basement. Father Coughlin took it to a whole other level by finding new ways to abuse his access to the media. Coughlin started his famed radio program in Royal Oak, Michigan by appealing to working people during the Great Depression. He soon learned that he could play upon their real concerns and fears to promote his unhinged, conspiratorial racist beliefs. By the end of the decade he would be known for his antisemitic tirades and valorization of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Few other costumes could capture "evil" quite so well.

What I end up with:
Glenn Beck --


For some people, the mere sight of any white, conservative, overweight, straight man is enough to send them running to hide in the basement.Beck frightens small children to be sure, but we’ve seen it all before. Beck’s radio and television program exploits the fears of working people during this economic crisis to foster his unhinged conspiracy theories and accusations that President Obama has “a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture"(Yes, he actually said that). In the end, though, his buffoonery will result in him slipping into historical obscurity having been shamed and discredited.

***

What I aim for:
Nichelle Nichols --


Lt. Uhura might not have had much to do on the bridge of the Enterprise back in the 1960s, but Nichols gave the role class and dignity. That was no small task given that her basic function involved mastering the use of an intergalactic hold button. She broke both gender and racial boundaries by portraying a bridge officer with real command credit.

What I end up with:
Zoë Saldaña --


Lt. Uhura might not have had much to do on the bridge of the Enterprise back in 2008, but Saldaña managed to make the role totally retrograde by going along with the idea that Uhura’s chief function should be to either cheer up or make out with Mr. Spock (or making out with Mr. Spock to cheer him up).

***

What I aim for:
Gordon Bethune --


I’m not one to celebrate CEO’s, trust me. Nonetheless, even the most ardent critic has to give credit to Bethune for dramatically changing the fortunes and service on Continental Airlines during the 1990s. When he assumed control of the airline in 1994, it had already filed for bankruptcy twice and looked to be heading there again. He had an astounding philosophy that customer satisfaction and employee contentment were critical to the success of any business (Basically heresy today).

What I end up with:
Jeff Smisek --


We can credit the demise of Continental Airline’s quality with Smisek's (or, as I think of him, Sleazek's) decision to merge with United Airlines, the airline that most often finishes dead last in every measure of customer satisfaction and employee contentment. Sleazek also brought the philosophy of nickle-and-dimeing his customers to death for everything from food to baggage fees. But, hey, why do you need happy customers when you are part of a greedy new airline monopoly? Of course, special thanks should go to the Obama administration for catering once again to the interests of corporations over the needs of consumers.

***
What I aim for:
Cylon --


In the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, the lumbering metal cylons existed as muscular killing machines. Not since the adventures of Odysseus had the lack of depth perception seemed so terrifying. From the ever-satisfying “voom, voom” sound that they made to their rotating swiss-army-knife arms, these were some richly satisfying robots.

What I end up with:
Twiki --


As a youngster, I adored all robots in popular film (B-9 from Lost in Space, R2-D2, V.I.N.Cent., C-3PO (especially C-3PO)). Yet, Twiki almost always got on my nerves. And that’s funny, because his head was shaped exactly like a penis. That usually appeals to me.

***
What I aim for:
Feminist Activist


Having recently perused the Halloween offerings for women (Drag is always an option...), I am struck by how much this holiday has suddenly demanded that women dress like prostitutes – both literally and figuratively. When manufactures are pushing costumes labeled “Sexy Ghostbuster” or “Army Seductress,” you know we need a feminist intervention.

What I end up with:
Sarah Palin


Alas, I would end up looking like a woman who has reaped all the benefits of feminist activism (such as access to politics, being able to manage both a career and a family, media interest), but who nonetheless supports a party and politics that seeks to undermine women in multiple ways.

***

What I aim for:
Lady GaGa --


Being somewhat contrarian, I have been slow to jump aboard the GaGa train. Still, I give the woman credit for capturing the nation’s imagination. Not since Elton John has a musical artist said so much with eyewear.

What I end up with:
Toni Basil --


Don’t get me wrong, the song and video for “Hey Mickey” probably shaped my sense of gender and sexuality in ways that only years of therapy will uncover. Still, if you know this reference you are probably too old to be parading around town in any costume.

***

What I aim for:
A wet mop --


Say what you will, but we all need a mop from time to time. They serve a much needed service to keep our households clean and fresh.

What I end up with:
Tea-Party Senate Candidate Joe Miller --


I might be willing to degrade myself, but turning out looking like Miller would just make me cry. Let’s not forget that this is the man who said the United States should draw a page from East Germany when thinking about its border with Mexico (Yes, he really said that). I can’t help but think that the wet mop would likely be a more informed and thoughtful candidate.

***
What I aim for:
Wonder Woman --


Could there be a better ideal for me to aspire to attain? She is smart, strong, bold, and brave. Granted, her costume might require a corset and enough spirit gum to build a space shuttle, but isn’t it worth it?

What I end up with:
A Hot-Topic Refugee --


Alas, not only are her clothes dreadfully uninspired, she ended up being poorly written and juggling more continuity problems than the last season of Lost. If that wouldn't make her a disappointing choice for a costume, I also wouldn't be able to get the epic boob job required to reach that 42 DD.

All Aboard?

There seems to be some type of law that requires bloggers to comment on the recent bombing attempt on the Northwest/Delta flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. Who am I to buck the trend? Hey, I don’t want to end up in bloggy jail.

My first reactions to the bomb attempt were threefold. First, given the abysmal level of service since Northwest and Delta merged, I wondered if maybe it had been a simple misunderstanding. After all, this is an airline that has the audacity to consider a single cookie a “snack” and to charge $3 for a handful of Pringles. You can also forget about that drink cart making a second trip down the aisle. Perhaps, I thought, the passenger in question was just so hungry that he desperately tried to heat a HotPocket at his seat.

As it turned out, it was another lunatic who is willing to sacrifice the lives of innocent people. This time around, the would-be-terrorist apparently stitched the explosives into his underwear. I was relieved that the plot had been thwarted with nobody suffering unjustly. I was also glad to hear that the terrorist burned the shit out of his legs and genitals.



Then I wondered, “Why target poor Detroit? Haven’t those people suffered enough?”

Terrorists clearly aren’t very good at information gathering. If they did a better job, they would realize that the rest of the United States stopped caring about the people of Detroit in 1967. Indeed, it is the only major city in the nation with a 30 percent unemployment rate; the highest levels of poverty; absurd levels of political corruption; and failing schools. Oh, and did I mention the severe racial segregation and resource-sucking suburbs? Detroit already looks like a war zone due to most Americans’ indifference to its future.



My last thought was, “Oh, man, now we will never be able to get rid of those ridiculous liquid and shoe rules! Ugh.” We are set for the inevitable round of finger pointing, paranoia, and jingoism that such events always inspire. Thank the goddess that the Republicans are no longer in control of our government. We would have likely invaded the Netherlands or, at the least, declared Queen Beatrix part of the axis of evil.

Still, like many other people in the nation, I see the recent event as evidence that airport security is ineffective. Take that color coded “Homeland” security silliness. Did you know that we have been at “Code Orange” since 2006? Yes, that’s right – For the past three years, our government has apparently seen no variation in our security risk levels at all. Maybe they forgot that this system has four other dazzling colors to choose from? Geez, even Captain Kirk occasionally went to “Yellow Alert.” And he was dealing with Klingons and Romulans and all.

We don’t ever move in the other direction, either. Apparently not even the recent bomb attempt was enough to nudge us on up to “Code Red.” It begs the question, what does it take to make it to Red? A nuclear attack? Total Armageddon? A multi city Celine Dion tour?



Can we admit that the Sesame-Street approach to informing the pubic is a total failure? What is the purpose of an alert system permanently frozen in time? If we are going to be stuck at Orange, at least break out the 64-color box and give us some variety of Orange colors. How about a day of “Burnt Sienna?” Or maybe “Neon Carrot?”

Another revelation to come out of this incident is that airlines and airports are uncertain about how to respond to terrorist threats. They are sure, though, that they want to look like they are doing something. Lufthansa snatched away passengers’ blankets during the last hour of flight out of concern that a terrorist could be igniting something out of view. This action lead Delta passengers to ask the question, “Lufthansa still provides blankets?”



Toronto airports decided to do full patdowns of all travelers. Though that might have just been an excuse by the Mounties to keep their hands warm in these bitter winter months.

JetBlue (an airline I normally like) decided to cancel all of its on-board entertainment the weekend after the attack. It’s really open to debate whether eliminating screenings of Aliens in the Attic is a victory or a loss for the terrorists.

Now they are telling us that we must install the full-body scan equipment to be really safe. It will help reveal tailors gone bad.

Privacy advocates, though, are concerned that lecherous TSA officers are going to be drooling at the site of all those naked passengers. Eh – Have they ever seen Xtube? It turns out most people really aren’t that interesting without their clothes. We’ll be lucky if the TSA agents don’t all join a celibate religious order after a couple of years of grueling service.



Personally, I have no problem with the full-body scan per se. I am not particularly shy about my body. After all, I am naked in my gym locker room almost daily.

Still, the expense of these machines seems a wee bit suspicious. Before committing to buying all of that equipment, I would like to make sure that their advocates are not in some way tied to the corporations producing them.

The makers of the machine already admit that these scans don’t reveal everything. Full-body scans, for instance, can’t detect items that might be hidden under rolls of fat. Well, isn’t that horrible news? If obesity becomes the key to thwarting airport security, will the terrorists start to recruit in Houston, Texas?



It seems to me that in the 1990s, there were all sorts of swabs that the airport used to do on bags and people for bomb residue. Now I never see them take those swabs anymore. Did that equipment not work? Did they lend it all to that CSI show?

The awful truth is that most security measures are really just dog and pony shows to make the public feel safer. That’s why I drink heavily when I fly.

An Academic Affair

Over the past few days GayProf returned to his equivalent of Paradise Island, known in Patriarch’s World as the Land of Enchantment. By good fortune, an academic conference happened to be in my birth city, giving the perfect excuse for my return. Such visits always makes me feel a little wistful. Why did I think leaving such a great place was a good idea? It seems like so long ago that I was chosen to bring our philosophy of peace, love, and better living through turquoise to the rest of the world.

Since I don’t own an invisible jet – yet – I depend upon the nation’s crooked and corrupt airlines to transport me around. Why, as consumers, have we allowed mismanagement to be rewarded in the nation's highly overpaid airline CEOs? As we seem to be historical witnesses to the collapse of capitalism as we knew it, why not demand a revolution in air travel? Every person reading this blog should write their governmental representatives now to oppose the merger of Northwest and Delta. Remember that their explanation for wanting to do so was that they hoped to reduce competition. In other words, they want to screw consumers by limiting our options.

Before I could get home, my airline stranded me overnight in the dreaded state of Texas. For a complicated set of reasons, not a single hotel room was nearby. There wasn’t even an accommodating manger. Thus, to get even a few hours of sleep, I had to spend the night trying to arrange myself in between gobs of gum stuck in the carpet. Twenty-four hours after my original arrival time, I actually made it to ABQ.

While at the conference, I did have an official duty to speak on a panel. For those of you who have never seen me serve on an academic panel in real life, here is a pretty accurate image of what that looks like:



Okay, maybe that's not totally accurate. Nobody on my panel wore a silver jumpsuit.

Outside of the panel, being on home turf didn’t change my feeling that academic conferences are always a mixed bag. I enjoy the opportunity of meeting new people, especially given that I was able to meet some scholars whose work I have long admired. It also gave me a chance to see some fellow bloggers!

Attending the conference allowed me to briefly catch sight of StinkyLulu. For the first time, I also met Tenured Radical and had a much needed drinkie. We spent some time comparing notes over blogging, the academic world, and the possibilities of a queer future. Why, you might even say that we spent the time “paling around together.” I wonder who is more implicated by that association? Only time will tell which of our political ambitions will be endangered.

Another good element of the conference was the chance to reconnect with a good friend from my former Texas university. Early this semester I was delighted to learn that he had also escaped found liberation run screaming into the night departed Texas for a much happier location in the urban west.

We both agreed that a) leaving Texas (Yes, including Austin) was one the best things that any gay man could do for himself and b) when people at our new institutions use the phrase “hostile work environment," they have no idea what they are talking about. That is not to say that those institutions don’t have problems, because they do. Still, in seeing him again, I had the uncanny feeling that we were like the survivors of a ship wreck or maybe a zeppelin explosion. Sure, other people can recognize those things as terrible calamities; but until you spend twelve hours clinging to a headboard in icy waters or jump out a window twenty-feet high to escape a hydrogen fire, you can't truly understand the horrors of those circumstances.



Me being me, the conference also had some moments of gravitas. Given that my non-GayProf persona is mild-mannered, I often find academic gatherings a wee bit awkward. Let’s face it: professors are not renowned for their great social skills and sparkling repartee. While I am much better than I used to be, my own natural shyness makes me less than ideal for “networking” situations.

My self-doubts and insecurities can lead to some serious over-analyzing of situations. For instance, I briefly ran into a senior scholar who has always been really nice to me. In this instance, he was still friendly, but clearly in a rush. Despite a history of goodwill, I nonetheless spent considerable time agonizing over the significance of his relatively short conversation with me. Was it a sign that he didn’t like my work? Had I annoyed him in some way? Was he disappointed in NERPoD? Did my star-spangled short-shorts make him uncomfortable?

It took me a moment to snap myself out of such thinking. Just what did I expect him to do? Lavish me with praise? Say that my work had changed his life forever? Reach into his pocket and give me c-note? Pick me up and carry me around the convention center on his shoulders? While I would have appreciated any of those gestures, it’s a wee bit silly to expect them -- at least not all the time.



Given that conferences present me with a certain level of social anxiety, I am always surprised by the number of conventioneers who knock-boots. I have a hard enough time keeping up chit-chat in between sessions, how would I possibly survive anything more intimate? Mastering the protocol of conference-shagging would elude me completely. Do you exchange business cards before or after you have fully showered? Or do you simply slink away hoping that the rumors haven’t already started that you are a “conference ho?” More importantly, how do you claim condoms and lube on your expense report?

I don't think balling at a conference would be so bad if the sex was good. But what if you ended up having a lousy time in the sack? I suppose you would have no option but to "friend them" on Facebook. That means that you are going to have to look at their "status updates" on your own Facebook page as a constant reminder of the crummy sex that you had that night. "Oh great," you'll think to yourself, "He can take time to inform Facebook that he just scooped out the cat litter, but he couldn't take an extra minute in the shower to clean around his foreskin? He sure as hell better not write on my wall."

Of course, the real thing that would bother me about a conference hook-up would be that you have to see him for the next several days, if not the rest of your life. This is a pretty serious commitment for some casual spunking.



Some guy that you pick up at a bar or on-line is gone by the next morning’s coffee at the latest. In the case of hooking-up at an annual conference, you will potentially see that same trick year after year for the rest of your career. You will both get older and older. Each of you will notice how your bodies change, including your receding hairlines and expanding waistlines. It will make you both feel strange. You will quickly wonder how (or why) you ever had sex in the first place. If your night was less than mind-blowing (or anything blowing), it might ruin that conference forever. I hear some people have decided to leave academia all together rather than having to face a bum lay at the MLA.

If that sounds like too much hyperbole, you are at least guaranteed to see him over and over for the next forty-eight hours. How much obligation do you have to sit next to him if you both attend the same panel the next day? I mean, it’s one thing to get naked and sweaty together for a quick tumble; but having to sit through a ninety-minute academic discussion together? That's starting to sound like a relationship.

Call Her Back

For the past several days I have been in Pennsylvania and New Jersey for a family reunion. This involved my mother’s side of the family, the Irish-American side. My relationship with this family always felt more distant because they seemed so far away. They probably seemed that way because they were far away.

As a contrast, my father’s family were almost entirely in New Mexico when I was growing up. We saw them almost weekly, if not daily. None of my mother’s family, though, were in New Mexico. They were divided between California and the Northeast. At most, we saw them annually and, among other reasons, they always seemed less familiar. Perhaps to remedy this situation, they have worked to build periodic reunions in particular locations now that we are all adults. This time around, it was a return to the communities where that side of the family lived in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

It has been some time since I have traveled. Alas, my fragile economic circumstances (an on-going result from my breakup of two years ago -- sigh) has kept me mostly grounded with the exception of the occasional work travel and holidays in New Mexico.

Maybe because it had been some time since I traveled, but certain things about this nation struck me. First, and most obviously, this is an obscenely obese nation. On my flights, the number of people who were overweight by twenty or thirty pounds easily outnumbered the people who were a healthy weight. I used to only notice this when I flew from Texas. Now, however, it is the case universally (including children). No wonder the airlines are paying so much for fuel. Lugging around our extra poundage has to be costly. Each passenger is now 1.5 of a passenger from twenty years ago.

The other main insight involved cell-phone culture. This technology has seemingly loosened the divisions between public and private space. As a I waited in an unending airline customer-service line (I use the term “service” with irony), the man behind me in the queue became increasingly agitated during a telephone conversation with his wife. Among other things, he accused her of infidelity, grand-theft auto, alcoholism, abandonment, and general dishonesty.

I felt sympathy for the man as things were clearly going badly for him. All the same, the ubiquitousness of cell phones has meant that these types of conversations are no longer restricted to the privacy of office, homes, or even phonebooths. It made me wonder at what point we decided, as a society, that such tings were best discussed while in the middle of a crowded airport? I appreciate the need to multi-task, but do you really want to initiate a divorce at the same time that you are calculating the mileage on your frequent-flyer account? I wondered if he was going to carry on this conversation straight into the jetway.

In another instance, I went into a men's room at a restaurant where a man in his twenties was talking with great animation. "Why?" he pleaded into his cell phone, "Why did you tell my brother that I got drunk and slept with that girl? I am at dinner with him now and he asked me about it. . ." As I emptied my bladder, I learned much more about his familial and romantic relationships than I really needed to know. Call me old fashioned, but I think that men's rooms should only involve two purposes: peeing and creepy, closeted Senators cruising undercover cops. Even then, the latter should only be around to expose the hypocrisy of the Republican party. It's not the place to debate your past judgment or to consider entering AA. Do we imagine that cell-phones generate a cone-of-silence as soon as we dial?

Well, I Talk About It, Talk About it, Talk About Movin'

I am currently in Midwestern Funky Town searching for a place to live and doing an unending amount of paperwork for my new job. If I started work at the Justice Department, there would be fewer forms to fill out. Heck, given the way Alberto Gonzales runs the place, I wouldn’t even need to show that I had a law degree.

So far, I am surprised by the swiftness of Midwestern Funky Town’s tight rental market. Granted, it’s not the out-and-out blood sport that the Boston rental market is, but things don’t seem to last much longer than a few days on Craigslist.

I didn’t help myself much by leaving my checkbook sitting in Boston, either. Alas, I might need to return again. I am not really that picky. I simply want to live indoors.

Regardless, time in Midwestern Funky Town also gives me an opportunity to get a better sense of my soon-to-be locale. I get the feeling that it’s a bit like Cambridge, MA (which is good), only without the rest of Boston surrounding it.

It’s amazing how rapidly I reoriented my sense of distance in this new environment. In Boston, riding the T for fifteen minutes would be construed as a fairly good commute. Even in my short time in Midwestern Funky Town, though, I am now considering a ten minute drive (alas, no rapid transit in Midwestern Funky Town) to my new job as “just too far.”

Something else caught my attention this trip as well. Traveling so closely behind my jaunt to New York reminds me again about the major airlines’ corruption and greed. No, I am not going to go on and on about the stupidity of the liquid limits and one-quart zipper top bag (Which I still think is dumb and doesn't help with safety even a little bit). Instead, I am going to go on and on about airline corruption.

Traveling to New York, I took JetBlue. It was my virgin experience with JetBlue. As we departed Logan, they whispered softly in my ear, “Years from now when you talk about this - and you will - be kind.”

Kind, I am! JetBlue reveals the emptiness of other airlines’ claims that they have to cut basic comfort in order to be profitable. JetBlue also contrasts sharply from other “bargain” airlines like Southwest, which clearly conceive of their passengers as cattle. For the short forty minute flight between Boston and New York, JetBlue managed to serve sodas and a bag of chips (Yes, JetBlue is literally all that and a bag of chips).

Meanwhile, for my trip here, Northwest Airlines showed that the allegedly full-service airlines are anything but full-service. Maybe I was just more sensitive because I didn’t have my usual pre-flight cocktails, knowing that I was going to be driving in Midwestern Funky Town. Still, the seats were so tightly squeezed together that my snack-table almost literally touched my chest when the person in front of me reclined her seat.

Of course, there was little reason to even lower the snack table given that Northwest has the audacity (AUDACITY, I say) to charge five bucks for a bag of M&M’s on board. I haven’t seen that type of price gouging for candy since I was forced pimped-out volunteered to sell sugary snacks as a fund-raising tactic for my High School Student Government.

At this rate, it’s only a matter of time before the emergency oxygen masks become coin-operated. “Damn,” I will say as the plane hurdles towards the ground, “I knew I shouldn’t have spent all those quarters on laundry.”

Things aren’t going much better in Business/First Class, either. Before this year, I flew often enough that I earned “elite” status in a frequent flyer program. As part of that status, I was periodically upgraded to Business/First class. Over time, the only advantage to being in the first class cabin became the extra space and a semi-private lavatory. Yet, JetBlue’s all-economy seats were almost as comfortable as many of the first-class seats.

Instead of charging outrageous prices for snack items, I think that the major airlines should be more creative in collecting revenue. For instance, I would be willing to pay $10-$20 more per ticket if the airline could guarantee that nobody under the age of 18 was on-board. I have always been confused about why children don’t ride in the cargo hold anyway. Hey, don’t get bent out shape. I am not a monster – I am talking about the pressurized section of the cargo hold.

Or they could institute a “dumbass” fee. Are you trying to claim a chandelier as a “carry-on” item (Yes, I have actually seen somebody try this)? Well, that will cost $20 just for asking.

Are you knowingly traveling with a drug-resistant strain of TB? Well, you will be paying for free flights for everybody onboard for the next ten years.

I grant that comparing the relative merits of different airlines is not the most scintillating of blog topics. This is probably especially true given my recent pledge to increase the discussion of gay porn on CoG. Still, I am annoyed by how much the federal government subsidizes airlines like Northwest while we are getting less and less in service (but the CEO’s are getting bigger and bigger paychecks). The number of people traveling by airplane today is higher than it was before September 11. Yet, they claim they can’t figure out how to make it work. JetBlue seems to be doing just fine.

I Earn Frequent-Flyer Miles

I have returned to Boston again. Traveling so much in a short period leaves me tired. Of course, it doesn't help that I think that the airlines are basically evil.

Now, I am not one of those people who romanticizes air-travel in the past. You know the folk who remember when “flying was fun.” When was that? You mean when Orville and Wilbur were your pilots? Flying has always been stressful. I think mostly because humans aren’t supposed to be in the sky.

That aside, the airline companies and the FAA are both way out of control. I simply don’t believe that airlines can’t be profitable. Air traffic today is greater than pre 9-11, so they can’t hide behind that anymore.

If they are really so financially strapped, it is time to nationalize them and get rid of private business all together. No more corporate welfare for these corrupt companies. The CEO’s of these allegedly failing businesses make more money than Puerto Rico’s annual budget. I never obtained an MBA, but if a company is losing money, that might be the first place to cut some corners.

Instead, though, they cut services left and right. On all of my flights, I had the option to buy a “snack” (stale cookies or staler pretzels) for $2. These weren’t bargain-basement airlines, either. If you fly Jet-Blue or Ryan Air, you expect such things because you paid $18 for your ticket. A “full-service” airline, though? Exactly what is the “full” part of that service? Does not burning us with lye now count as “full service?”

Northwest had the even more astounding policy of charging an additional fee for certain seats in the plane, like the exit rows. Being an “elite” member of the frequent-flyer program (soon to expire – gasp), I could opt for these seats as well. So, basically the airlines are creating a class-hierarchy within the coach cabin. Passengers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your roller-bags.

Keep in mind that airline fares are peculiar as a service because you and the person next to you might have paid radically different prices for the exact same ticket. Can you imagine going to a barber and paying $10 more than the person who came before you for the same haircut? Or being charged a fee for that haircut, but finding out that the barber had “oversold” his time? We accept these policies, however, as necessary for airlines.



I remember, in the mid-nineties, Congress and President Clinton threatened legislation (dubbed the “Passenger Bill of Rights”) that would have required airlines to treat their passengers as slightly more than cattle. Oh, how the airlines protested! While under that threat, however, somehow they managed to improve! Once that fear went away, the airlines went right back to business as usual.

Of course, nationalizing the airlines would just put them in the same hands as the people who are already bungling security. Yes, we all want a safe and secure air-transport system. That doesn’t mean, however, that being reactionary makes us safe. Instead of addressing the economic inequalities that fuel terrorism across the globe, our government has decided that they can magically prevent all terrorism. Okay, I am particularly annoyed by the 1-1-3 rules.

For those who haven’t flown recently, you may not know the meaning of 1-1-3. If you have flown, then you have heard the same announcement over and over every ten minutes. Every (1) passenger is allowed a one(1)-quart zipper-topped bag of liquids or gels no greater than three (3) ounces. This rule emerged as a compromise from the briefly enacted 1-0-0 policy. Some law enforcement agencies in Britain uncovered a potential plot to destroy an aircraft by mixing an explosive cocktail on-board. As a result, they panicked and made an impossible policy.

Now, I am no explosives expert, but it seems to me that a clever person determined on bringing down an aircraft would be able to accomplish his goals with certain materials less than three ounces. Or, potentially, they could have several people bring on-board dangerous liquids, in three ounce sizes, that would amount to the necessary amount.

So, it seems to me, that the 1-1-3 rule is all glitter and no glam. We are as unsafe as ever. The airline safety authorities, however, want to look like they are doing something to make us safe. If we feel inconvenienced, they figure, then they must be on top of things.

It’s just like the deal with the shoes. Do we even remember why they started the shoe thing? FOUR years ago, a single (one) loser named Richard Reid unsuccessfully tried to make his shoes into a flaming weapon. Apparently Reid figured he could combine his contempt for human life with all those episodes of Get Smart that he watched in his parents’ basement.

The 29-year-old’s pyromania hardly appeared the most successful or imitated form of terrorism. Yet, domestic flights now require that we all have some stocking-feet time before boarding. That way the technician can ignore images of our shoes as much as they ignore images of our carry-on baggage. Yeah, that solves the terrorism problem.

Oh, and by the way, Richard Reid had a fuse sticking out of his shoes when he went through security. Did security really need him to take them off for the x-ray to figure out his plans? I mean, I haven’t heard of Nike marketing their new cross-trainer with built in fast-burning-flint.



Maybe I am just bitter because I am a nervous flyer. Nothing like being all twitchy to raise a few eyebrows as you head towards the metal detector. Combine that with my goatee and gravitas and I become the perfect target for airport screening. By the time I get through security, all I have left on my body is my strategically placed one-quart zipper-top bag.

One day, it will eventually come to this:

Security Guard: Do you have liquids, aerosols, or gels?

Me: No.

Security Guard: What’s that in your mouth?

Me: Saliva.

Security Guard: It better be less than three ounces. We scanned your brief case and saw a 32 inch flat coil with a metal end.

Me: You mean my belt? You made me take it off before I went through the line. Remember?

Security Guard: A belt? Didn’t Richard Reid wear a belt? Get him!

I have a solution that solves all of these problems. With one simple policy change, I can resolve security concerns, the airlines’ lack of services, and my own flying anxieties.

Instead of harassing us and pretending like they can tell the .0005% terrorists from the rest of the flying public, just drug everybody before boarding. Put us all into a chemical-induced coma before the plane even leaves the ground. We can just sleep through the whole flight. With enough drugs, we won’t even notice the lack of a complimentary beverage service. If a terrorist happened to sneak aboard, he will feel just too darn good to commit any evil acts. It’s win-win.

We can implement this plan immediately. Between the liquor and Xanax I take to fly, I have been single-handedly field testing this program for years.