February, 2005

. . . because otherwise it hurts too much to read what’s actually going on inside what passes for Homeland Security.

The airports are ticked off because of the ban on lighters and matches on planes, due to some demented would-be bomber who tried to light his shoe and . . . oh, god . . . now they can’t light the little candle-thingies in the airport lounges.

Does anyone know where Monty Python is buried? Is the ground strangely disturbed, as in the old rotating-coffin syndrome?

We all just line up like sheep, actually taking our shoes off to get on an airplane and think not very much of it. Standing there in our socks, not even blushing. Meanwhile, Homeland Security blinks different colors at us as if there was anything we could personally do about the difference between flashing-red and pulsating-puce and we accept it!

What on earth are they doing? Is this charade just a cover-their-ass in case a major city goes up? . . . a sort of well, we told you it was flashing-red, what the hell did you expect?

Only our beloved congress could actually vote to prohibit matches and lighters onboard aircraft because some Brit tried to light off his shoe. One’s imagination entirely fogs over with possibility, had this fellow been caught repeatedly pulling a string on his jock-strap.

In the meantime, all this silliness not only deprives us of our constitutionally guaranteed access to flickering tea-candles in red, net-covered hurricane lamps on our airport lounge tables, it soaks up so much funding that there’s virtually no dough left to spend on checking incoming cargo containers. That makes sense, to keep Uncle Al from carrying matches while they let 10,000 sealed and unchecked cargo containers a week (a day, a month?) into our major ports.

Meanwhile (chuckle), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) suggests airports install wall-mounted lighters. Try to light a table-candle or your shoe with that!

Get out of the Archives and read what Jim's writing today