Alarm at 3. Taxi at 4, airport at 4:30 because Alaska strongly suggested we “needed” to be at the airport 2 hours before the flight. There might be long lines at Security.
Ah, Security... Shoes off, the raincoat you’re carrying into the basket, also, if you’re less than 75 years old, your black plastic vest into the basket, also, phone, keys. No, no iPad, tablet, laptop hidden in the bag, only the phone. Step this way into the x-ray chamber. Feet on the yellow footsteps (i.e., legs apart). Hands meeting above your head.
"Step over here. You alarmed the machine in these areas." Yellow circles on the shoulders of the outline I suppose is mine. "So I’m going to have to pat you down."
My shoulders contained, surface to centre: cotton shirt with cotton seam-stitching, no metal studs; camisole shoulder strap, black, indestructible, with perishing spandex, possibly made from recycled milk cartons; skin, sub-surface skin layers, veins, capillaries, layers of tissue, bone, bone marrow.
The girl pulled my shirt sleeves up to my armpit, both arms, and found: nothing up my sleeves, nothing under my arms.
So, firstly: the machines don’t work. Giving false positives isn't "working."
Secondly (looking around): this is an industry.
Thirdly: the industry’s primary purpose is to make money for the manufacturers of the machines. Michael Chertoff – remember him? Heckuva job Brownie’s best friend? Dubya's Administration? – had invested in that company. If the machines don’t work, i.e., if they give false positives all the time, then their primary purpose cannot be to detect explosives. The only thing they do do, unfailingly, all the time, is cost money. So costing money has to be their primary purpose.
Fourthly: the industry’s next purpose is to make you understand that officialdom can do whatever it likes. To you and to anything else.
And tangentially, lastly, but not leastly: Homeland really doesn’t mind if whatever you’ve inserted into your Nike heels blows up in a Social Security Office. SoSec offices have metal detectors, but no transparent, feet-in-the-yellow-circles x-ray chambers.
Ah, Security... Shoes off, the raincoat you’re carrying into the basket, also, if you’re less than 75 years old, your black plastic vest into the basket, also, phone, keys. No, no iPad, tablet, laptop hidden in the bag, only the phone. Step this way into the x-ray chamber. Feet on the yellow footsteps (i.e., legs apart). Hands meeting above your head.
"Step over here. You alarmed the machine in these areas." Yellow circles on the shoulders of the outline I suppose is mine. "So I’m going to have to pat you down."
My shoulders contained, surface to centre: cotton shirt with cotton seam-stitching, no metal studs; camisole shoulder strap, black, indestructible, with perishing spandex, possibly made from recycled milk cartons; skin, sub-surface skin layers, veins, capillaries, layers of tissue, bone, bone marrow.
The girl pulled my shirt sleeves up to my armpit, both arms, and found: nothing up my sleeves, nothing under my arms.
So, firstly: the machines don’t work. Giving false positives isn't "working."
Secondly (looking around): this is an industry.
Thirdly: the industry’s primary purpose is to make money for the manufacturers of the machines. Michael Chertoff – remember him? Heckuva job Brownie’s best friend? Dubya's Administration? – had invested in that company. If the machines don’t work, i.e., if they give false positives all the time, then their primary purpose cannot be to detect explosives. The only thing they do do, unfailingly, all the time, is cost money. So costing money has to be their primary purpose.
Fourthly: the industry’s next purpose is to make you understand that officialdom can do whatever it likes. To you and to anything else.
And tangentially, lastly, but not leastly: Homeland really doesn’t mind if whatever you’ve inserted into your Nike heels blows up in a Social Security Office. SoSec offices have metal detectors, but no transparent, feet-in-the-yellow-circles x-ray chambers.
