TSA 'Pornoscanners' Gone from Airports Soon

Always thought The TSA was an overreaction to 9/11. Normal precautions would have been sufficient had there been diligent scanners. Creating another bureaucracy only added more people to bloated government. Some airports have so many screeners, they stumble against each other. So many are obese, and watching porcine slobs push people around validates George Orwell's definition of police. Pigs!

Rapiscan has made their money. At least the places that will be getting rid of these things will be able to go back to metal detectors.

But now the reality has set in that TSA's going to be left with an alternative (L-3's millimeter wave scanner) so easily defeated that people (usually women) often do it by accident with merely their clothing (sometimes resulting in a pat-down -- or worse). And these things also allow people to bypass metal detectors. Both were bad ideas to start with, but that was never the point.

We should applaud the TSA, which did its part to help the economy by hiring people who are not qualified for any other job in America. Jim talks about "the lack of professionalism at the TSA". Nothing could be further from the truth. Despite their lack of qualifications and competence, these agents are paid for their work... like true professionals!

I have to be careful -- TSA-employed friend (which I never let him forget). But I'll confess that they seem to have improved - slightly - over the years. The armed, jack-booted, black-shirts yelling in English at a plane load of frightened Japanese tourists have been replaced with grunting, overweight security guards. And most of the people who actually look at passports can now speak at least a few words in civil English (to which I've learned it's best to respond with a grunt).

The other thing that puzzles me at US airports is Customs. Entering Japan, Thailand, South Korea, Canada... they always ask something like, "Are you carrying any weapons, ammunition, drugs...?" Whereas in the US it's, "Are you carrying any ramen, beef or chicken flavored products, or fake Rolex watches?" For whatever reason, they don't seem to care about heroin or hand-grenades here.

I think that after a decade of negative replies, they have realized that if a drug smuggler, terrorist or other lowlife is carrying drugs, weapons, baby animal porn, or the like -- anything which might be considered contraband -- having managed to get it out of his native country, on to a plane, and into a U.S. airport, the aforesaid lowlife is probably not going to say "Weapons? Yes, I have this Glock 9mm, -- oh, I almost forgot, l've got a 5 kiloton tactical nuke in my laptop, too." Weapons Smuggler's Remorse usually waits until you're actually in the rental car lot, whereas anyone smuggling ramen will realize that he is committing an act so heinous that he'd better 'fess up before he hits the down escalator to the shuttle area.

When I returned from Scotland in 2001 (a month before 9/11) I was pleasantly surprised that the Customs Inspectors ignored the fact that I had one too many bottles of distilled fermented barley juice in my baggage, and that my son had two liters of water from Loch Ness (in Evian bottles) which he was attempting to smuggle into the U.S. despite the undoubted presence of Nessie DNA therein, but seemed concerned only with the mud on my shoes as possibly bearing Type O Pan-Asia Aphthovirus (hoof-and-mouth disease). In gratitude to these stalwart sentinels, I have not yet drunk the last half-finger of cask-strength Glenmorangie, but when I do, I will raise my favorite toast to the dearly departed U.S. Customs Service: "Here's tae us! Who's like us? Damned few, and they're all dead."

Unfortunately, I never realized the ramen thing, and was duly embarrassed/humiliated/traumatized a few years back by the sudden redirection into the the Public Enemies Zone to have my luggage summarily dismantled. And that said, it's also worth noting when entering Japan that Imodium is an "opiate," and Vick's is a "stimulant." And don't say I didn't warn you when they're hosing you down at Kosuge "Detention House."

Ah... whether Samsonite or Louis Vuitton, luggage is merely another aspect of the material world, and as such its treatment and ultimate disposition should be ignored. Scotch, however, is a spirit.

Maybe it had to do with the faux Louis Vuitton. Actually, I've been known to travel into japan carrying cardboard-box-&-duct-tape luggage with the words "This is luggage!!!" Sharpied on the sides. (TSA dislikes duct tape immensely.)

Scotch -- Tonight I'm settling for some seasoned pine in the wood stove while I lament my lost youth to a love song and some Sailor Jerry.

It's not exactly Lizzie Higgins singing Lovely Molly, but it has that infectious too-many-puppies-in-a-cardboard-box feel that a lot of Japanese rock does. Sailor Jerry is fine, but I must get you a bottle of Rhum Barbancourt Reserve du Domaine (15 years old) Haitian rum.

"What was I discussing? My youth, my squandered youth! At one time I worked for Tellur Transit, investigating the contents of lost suitcases. Here, perhaps, I gained my deepest insight into the structure of the human soul ..."
Navarth, the Mad Poet, in The Palace of Love, by Jack Vance