IP: more on Cool It

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: "Bob Rosenberg" <bob () bobrosenberg phoenix az us>
Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 17:54:00 -0700
To: dave () farber net
Subject: RE:  Cool It

Dave

Thomas Friedman, In the New York Times and on IP, says, "Cool It".  He also
says, in his article, "We have put in place reasonable precautions at
airports".

Mr. Friedman's "reasonable precautions" are another person's rigid,
inflexible, arbitrary and capricious Beureaucratic rules of engagement with
the flying public.

Last weekend, I flew roundtrip from Phoenix to San Diego.  I purchased my
E-ticket a month ago over the internet with a credit card.  I checked some
luggage, and I carried some with me.  I also carried what I call some of my
"electronic toys":  Digital camera, pager, mobile phone, PDA, and, of
course, credit cards.

At each airport, I requested a hand search of my electronic toys.  I have
this awful superstition that ionizing radiation might have some cumulative
deliterious effect on them.

At each airport, the person who dealt with me refused my request for a hand
search.  they did tell me that they would be kind and gentle enough with me
to hand search my camera (they told me that they didn't have to, however, as
a courtesy, they would) -- but, everything else had to go thru the x-ray.
If they will wave a piece of cloth over my camera, it seems reasonable* to
assume that it will take very little time and/or effort to wave it over the
other electronic stuff at the same time.

As a result of this experience, I have made a personal decision to avoid
flying in the future.  It works for John Madden -- It should work for me.

The FAA and the friendly folks over at Homeland Security obviously could
make the skies safer by parking all those commercial airliners.  Then nobody
could skyjack any of them.

Bob

* I do not claim to be reasonable, however, I did discuss this matter with a
reasonable person who agreed with me.


------ End of Forwarded Message

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