I know.  I’ve been silent.  But I’ve been busy and too cranky to write.  Rather than unleashing any number of vitriolic rants here, I’ve instead spent my precious free time being, well, uncharacteristically domestic.  I’ve gotten back into cooking—baked an apple pie, sliced strawberries for freezing, among other tasks—and puttered around my house organizing things (it’s no coincidence that I’d say The Container Store is my favorite store on the planet).  And I’ve been spending time with friends and family.  So, yeah, I don’t feel guilty about neglecting the blog.

Okay… maybe a little guilty.  But not guilty enough to do anything differently.

I had to share this, though.  Jeffry Goldberg, with help from security expert Bruce Schneier, has been testing the TSA security theater by using fake boarding passes and all manner of contraband.  An excerpt:

And because I have a fair amount of experience reporting on terrorists, and because terrorist groups produce large quantities of branded knickknacks, I’ve amassed an inspiring collection of al-Qaeda T-shirts, Islamic Jihad flags, Hezbollah videotapes, and inflatable Yasir Arafat dolls (really). All these things I’ve carried with me through airports across the country. I’ve also carried, at various times: pocketknives, matches from hotels in Beirut and Peshawar, dust masks, lengths of rope, cigarette lighters, nail clippers, eight-ounce tubes of toothpaste (in my front pocket), bottles of Fiji Water (which is foreign), and, of course, box cutters. I was selected for secondary screening four times—out of dozens of passages through security checkpoints—during this extended experiment. At one screening, I was relieved of a pair of nail clippers; during another, a can of shaving cream….

On another occasion, at LaGuardia, in New York, the transportation-security officer in charge of my secondary screening emptied my carry-on bag of nearly everything it contained, including a yellow, three-foot-by-four-foot Hezbollah flag, purchased at a Hezbollah gift shop in south Lebanon. The flag features, as its charming main image, an upraised fist clutching an AK-47 automatic rifle. Atop the rifle is a line of Arabic writing that reads: THEN SURELY THE PARTY OF GOD ARE THEY WHO WILL BE TRIUMPHANT. The officer took the flag and spread it out on the inspection table. She finished her inspection, gave me back my flag, and told me I could go. I said, “That’s a Hezbollah flag.” She said, “Uh-huh.” Not “Uh-huh, I’ve been trained to recognize the symbols of anti-American terror groups, but after careful inspection of your physical person, your behavior, and your last name, I’ve come to the conclusion that you are not a Bekaa Valley–trained threat to the United States commercial aviation system,” but “Uh-huh, I’m going on break, why are you talking to me?”

Read the whole thing.  It’s worth it.  (Hat tip to Brian N.)

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.