Is the TSA Sexist?

There's been a lot of press this travel-heavy weekend about the extreme and often discomfiting lengths the airport security folks have gone to in searching passengers. Female passengers. Still haven't run across a story about a male passenger feeling violated.

In the story linked above, several women are quoted as having been told to disrobe, having been intimidated in the process, and being afraid to complain because of fear they would be treated worse next time. Also heard a woman on To the Point on public radio today with a similar story: after she was told to strip down to nothing but a thin camisole above the waist (she'd forgone wearing a bra so there would be no underwire problem), revealing to all and sundry passing by exactly what was under her clothing (breasts), she was told, "Now I'm going to feel your breasts." When she balked she was surrounded by shouting security officers and police who told her she and her 3-month-old child would be denied boarding on their flight if she did not submit. In tears, she finally gave in.

Maybe those male passengers who have been comparably humiliated and violated are out there and just haven't received attention. Anyone know of any men who have been told to take off their pants at the security screening, or had a security person fondle their testicles?

If there haven't been such cases, well, maybe the women so treated need to bring charges for sexual assault. Because that's sure what it sounds like is happening.

UPDATE: Found a male victim: Penn Gillette of Penn and Teller. Interestingly, when Penn complained, the security folk backed off, the cop who came said that grabbing a man's crotch was assault and battery, and a public relations person called to make it all better and offer to accompany him through the airport on future trips. Gee,the cops and complaint system weren't that kind of responsive to the women cited above.

Cleaning Out the Cabinet

Wonkette amuses me. Her take on the reshuffling of the Bush cabinet:

Are we the only ones who think that Bush's ideal cabinet would actually be made up of the Iraqi leadership council? You know: hand-picked, obedient, unfamiliar with the U.S. Constitution. . .

She also hits the nail on the head.

So will Alan Keyes get a cabinet job, or at least an undersecretaryship? You know, as part of GWB's policy of full employment for black Republicans. All five of them.

Unsolicited Testimonials

I didn't set out to make this a political blog, but in recent months politics was foremost in my mind.

That hasn't really changed in the aftermath of the election, but I am ruminating on some things which I am not ready to write out. Lots of other folks have cogent things to say about politics right now, if that's what you're in the mood for.

Meantime, I have been meaning to offer some unsolicited testimonials for some stuff I really like:

Gimme! Coffee started out as a little corner coffee joint in Ithaca, New York; the corner happened to be the street I lived on at the time, and I became a Gimme! regular. Today they have several shops in the Ithaca area, one in Brooklyn (which I'm kind of peeved about, because when I left I was all over Kevin about opening up down here, and he said he would prefer to open a store in Prague, but that's another story) . . . and their exceptional coffee can be ordered online. (I'm partial to the Bahiazul for regular coffee, and the Leftist Espresso for lattes.) There are also how-to's on making perfect coffee on the web site. We're going to need plenty of caffeine to get through the revolution, so try this stuff.

I like to ruminate, particularly about fiction in progress, in a spiral notebook. This means I have stacks of notebooks, organized in no way except chronological, and no way to find specific ruminations when I want them. Which is why I have switched to NoteBook on my laptop. It looks like good old-fashioned spiral notebook pages . . . except they can be organized, searched, rearranged, etc. (And I don't know about you, but my typing is way faster than my longhand scribbling.) Works like a scrapbook, too; you can paste in text, pictures, charts, etc. from other applications, web links, whatever (e.g., the kind of stuff a writer accumulates while doing research). It's a wonderful tool for outlining a novel (which I am doing right now; 70,000+ words in, I finally realize I need an outline to figure out what the hell I'm doing . . . oy), keeping track of research, notes, ideas, web pages, and just jotting things down and being able to have a prayer of finding them again. Mwahahaha--there's no PC version; it's only for Macs. (Me and my cult faves: Mac, Saturn, liberalism . . . Joooooiiiiinnnnnnn usssssssss....)

And the four-legged members of the household have asked mSEND TUNA! WE WANT TUNA LOTS OF TUN-- hey, give me back that keyboard, Eggie--um, they would like to express their fondness for Trader Joe's cat food, especially thTUNA WE LOVE TUNA WE WANT TUNA EVERY DAY NO EVERY HOUR OF EVERY DAY--Eggie! stop that! (and when you learn HTML?) I was just about to write that you like their tuna for cats. Their web site says "our tasting panel tastes every product before we buy it." The cat food too? Eggie would like to sign up.

Concession

I was wrong about the October surprise. And I was wrong to think that perhaps there were more people in the reality-based community than not. (The Democrats were wrong about a lot, too; more on that later.)

Anyway, Adam Felber (whom you may know of, if you listen to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me on public radio) has offered a concession speech for me to love. A taste:

There are some who would say that I sound bitter, that now is the time for healing, to bring the nation together. Let me tell you a little story. Last night, I watched the returns come in with some friends here in Los Angeles. As the night progressed, people began to talk half-seriously about secession, a red state / blue state split. The reasoning was this: We in blue states produce the vast majority of the wealth in this country and pay the most taxes, and you in the red states receive the majority of the money from those taxes while complaining about 'em. We in the blue states are the only ones who've been attacked by foreign terrorists, yet you in the red states are gung ho to fight a war in our name. We in the blue states produce the entertainment that you consume so greedily each day, while you in the red states show open disdain for us and our values. Blue state civilians are the actual victims and targets of the war on terror, while red state civilians are the ones standing behind us and yelling "Oh, yeah!? Bring it on!"

Felber in 2008.

A Precious Thing

This says it all.

The right to vote is something to be valued. And protected. And used.

Whatever your political persuasion, get out there and vote.