Mondays with Jim

There are only a handful of things that can interrupt the tinsel-infused jingle bell-splosion known today as the Christmas season.  The first is frozen precipitation.  It is common fact that human beings are trained to drop everything that they are doing and stare at the sky when snow falls, which incidentally is why there are no animated snow globes.  The only other event that can slow down our fa-la-la-la-laness is an act of international terrorism, which we recently experienced when a confused Nigerian man misinterpreted a cheesy pick-up line and mistakenly invented a less-than-stellar method of combating jock itch.  As a result, the talking figureheads of the Anti-Obama movement (which these days encompasses everyone with a political agenda to the right of Karl Marx) have wound up the finger-pointing wagon and driven it straight to the White House.

Now, anyone who has exhibited consciousness in the last fifty years knows that when blame is placed on the government, the government responds with the fury of a thousand fire ants.  It wasn’t long after the breach when members of Congress began calling for tighter security measures and increased scrutiny for passengers, neglecting the fact that there have been as many deaths by crotch bomb, zero, as there have been deaths by listening to members of Congress.  If we’re going to prevent one from happening, let’s prevent them both.

It’s common knowledge in the IT world that great computer technology is only as effective as the users who operate them.  This rule also applies to airport security, which is why the system is so fouled up and doomed to ineffectiveness.  For every dynamic sniffing, bomb locating, metal detecting, radar enhanced security device, there’s a man operating it who is either more concerned about his iPod playlist or one who is gradually pushing the limits of gerontology.  Even the militant ex-commandos that take their job seriously are guilty of the occasional lapse in concentration.  Thus, so long as humans are involved, we’re probably better off invoking the 1934 method of airline security, whereby a woman stands in front of the aircraft and asks each passenger, “Do you have a bomb?”

If it were up to me, I’d do with the TSA what we ought to do with reality television, the WNBA, and my recipe for tomato pancakes: admit that mistakes were made, acknowledge that it never should have been invented in the first place, and move on.  The Transportation Safety Administration has the foresight of a blind centipede and the flexibility of a three-week-old biscuit.  After a guy tried to hide a bomb in his shoe, they made us remove our footwear.  After this bozo invented the world’s first plutonium cup, we’re seeing full body scanners at all airports.  If the TSA was in charge of fast food restaurants, you and I would have to submit to an inner thigh temperature tolerance measurement before buying coffee at the drive-thru.

I suppose the ultimate question in this matter lies with where to draw the line.  At the rate which we are currently accelerating, we are soon going to reach a point where the line between airport security agent and back-alley masseuse is significantly blurred.  Let’s just add a giant disco ball and some runway lights to the scanner line and be done with it.  The only thing more frightening than learning that the government has gone into full pat-down mode is the fear of what comes next.  Once they broke the barrier of full-body scans, there’s really no limit to the level of invasion that the TSA may implement.  Just remember, ten years from now, when you’re strolling bagless through the airport in nothing but your underwear and a poster-sized ID card, that this was the moment when we started rolling down the proverbial hill.

I’m not entirely sure what would cause a man to place an explosive device so close to his nether regions.  Perhaps he was instructed to do so.  Perhaps he realized that it was the only way to prevent detection.  Perhaps he was just really, really scared of getting his girlfriend pregnant.  I suppose the only positive from the whole situation is that we’ve finally raised the level of awareness for the dangers of gunpowder-infused jock straps.  So, ladies, the next time a man walks up to you and starts talking about how what he has in his pants is “the bomb,” make sure to alert the authorities.  Let’s all do our part to make this world a better, safer place.

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