I’m sick of the bullshit airport security stories currently gobbling up headline space in newspapers across the country. People are worried about body scans because of radiation, they’re worried about someone touching their naughty regions, they’re worried about images of their tubby bodies being seen by strangers.
To all of this, I say: Shut the fuck up.
1: If getting felt up by a stranger makes for a safe flight, I will gladly offer my freakishly large tatas for the safety of my fellow passengers. You’re welcome.
2: Have you seen the lines at airport security? Are you really so full of yourself that you believe a body scan watcher gives a flying shit about your body? Get over yourself. You will be one of thousands. Unless you’re a super model or a super hunk, your budgy chunks will likely go unnoticed.
3: You’ve probably had x-rays inspected by a total stranger on more than one occasion for health reasons. Try thinking of dying in an exploding plane as a health issue and walk through the damn scanner.
4: No one cares about your naughty regions but you. Got it?
5: Yeah, frequent fliers will be exposed to more groping and scanning than most. If they don’t like it, they should try not being frequent fliers. Take the train. Get a new job. Move closer to your family. Travel within your region, by car. But don’t compromise everyone else’s security because of your privileged, jet-setting lifestyle. You would have to go through a body scanner more than 1,000 times per year, according to the government and independent experts, for the radiation to harm you. If you’re flying that frequently, you’re part of a much larger problem than airport security.
6: To my media friends: Stop exacerbating non-stories. Get out of your offices and go find new, more meaningful stories that might actually make a positive difference in our world.
In this video, “How to survive an airplane crash,” note that being a selfish prick or puritanical prude are not mentioned:
Rhiannon “Rhi” Bowman is an independent journalist who contributes snarky commentary on Creative Loafing’s CLog blog four days a week in addition to writing for several other local media organizations. To learn more, click the links or follow Rhi on Twitter.
This article appears in Nov 23-29, 2010.
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” ~Benjamin Franklin
So you’d be good with being strip searched? How about a camera being inserted into your ass, there could be explosives in there right? HEY RHI, WHY DON’T YOU NOT FLY IF YOU ARE SCARED, instead of forcing me to be treated like an animal to travel as part of my job. And Google Chertoff Group when you get a chance…let me know what you find out.
I somehow doubt either of you corpulent clowns could manage to arouse even the loneliest of TSA agents.
Waddle on, fatties.
I wonder what TSA will think of next after a terrorist bogeyman detonates his device of choice in the middle of the line of hundreds of people who are all packed together in lines waiting to be groped, x-rayed, and magnetically scanned?
Please publish a list of all the terrorists who have been intercepted at the paranoia check points.
If you are afraid to get on an airplane unless everyone has been thoroughly searched, please stay home.
You stand a greater chance of being killed in a car accident enroute to the airport than you are to have your plane attacked.