Thanksgiving 2010, Pt. 3

This holiday week is typically the most heavily-traveled in the US calendar; come tomorrow every TV station in the nation will have “news” teams at every airport even remotely close to the broadcast area, “reporting” on how many bazillion travelers are trying to get over the river to Grandma’s house for Thanksgiving.

But there’s another travel story taking up electrons: the choice air travelers have in 70 airports of either going through the new Superman-X-Ray-Vision scanners or else submitting to a thorough pat down by TSA staff. (These scanners give a “nearly naked” view of anyone passing through them; presumably they would find your explosive underwear if you were of a mind to blow up your flight. The patters-down are the same TSA employees who’ve endeared themselves via their charm and professionalism to the flying public for the last eight years.) The scan/pat conundrum has been in place for a couple of weeks and has got a lot of bad press from travelers whose videoed experiences went viral over the Web.

(After the first couple of YouTube maelstroms the TSA started confiscating the mobile phones and video cameras of passengers who refused to be scanned. Good to know the agency can actually learn; bad to know that it’s the wrong lesson.)

Airline pilots have also decried the process and they’ve been given a dispensation from having to do either. The intensity of the scan multiplied by the number of times an air crew has to show up for work may be a health hazard; and TSA chief John Pistole has declared pilots “trusted partners who ensure the safety of millions of passengers flying every day.”

(Evidently, however, those members of the crew who don’t sit on the flight deck aren’t “trusted partners”; flight attendants will have to go through the scanners or submit to pat-downs, even though they generally go through the same security background check as pilots. Pistole spoke about how everything would fall apart if pilots couldn’t make their way expeditiously to their craft. But nothing happens until the stews show up, so I’m not getting the distinction that’s being made.)

So there’s been a call for a National Opt Out Day tomorrow—the busiest flying day of the year—by having travelers decline the scan and go through the pat-down, thus slowing down the security process. The boycotters are also asking passengers to demand the pat-downs in full public view, so that everyone will understand what the experience is.

Naturally, Pistole has responded by urging people not to do anything that will screw up a system that’s barely hanging together now. (Not the way he precisely described it.) This is all for our protection, etc.

Well, but is it? Seems to me like TSA has been three steps behind terrorist technology from the git-go. I do not feel like they’re actually anticipating what may be coming down the pike; just reacting to what has been discovered apparently by chance in the past. I’m reminded of the folk tale about Foolish Jack, who hasn’t got the sense he was born with. He drops a gold coin he was bringing to his mother into a river; when she berates him by saying he should have put it in his pocket, he says he will follow her instructions. So the next day he’s given a pitcher of milk to take home; he pours it in his pocket. His mother says he should have balanced the pitcher on his head and he says he will follow her instructions. The next day it’s butter, which he puts on his head and it melts. And so on and so forth.

(Hear a story teller’s version of the tale here.)

And I think I’m seeing butter dripping down all the heads of TSA, and that doesn’t make me feel secure at all.

What would make me feel better is if people would stop trying to user their persons to blow up things, including aircraft, nightclubs, pizza parlors and government buildings.

If they’re not going to do that, then governments should think about what actually might protect the non-explosive citizenry, come up with 1)a plan; 2)truly appropriate technologies; and 3)consistent policies to enforce and use 1) and 2).

“Coming up with” includes having the intestinal fortitude to fully fund the programs (to include investing in initial and continuing staff training) as well as to stand up to the various industries and special interests that don’t want to have to take extra steps (or expense—since their cost-benefit risk analysis has indicated that it’s cheaper to lose a 757 every once in a while than to run thorough security checks on all cargo shipments) to comply.

I’m also beginning to think that profiling should be a part of the plan. If non-TSA security agencies on US soil think it’s key to sniffing out terrorists before they commit acts of violence, why is it unreasonable to include it as part of programs to ensure the safety of air travel? I have an Irish name on US passport; I’ve never been asked to step out of line for a private chat when I passed through HM Immigration at Heathrow, but I know I fit a profile and I was therefore careful to be extra-special not-crabby or –flip when the agents asked about the purpose of my visit. I respect the fact that there are serious reasons why Irish names on US passports entering the country could raise someone’s anxiety level and I’m willing to let them do what they need to do to satisfy themselves that I have not, in fact, packed any undeclared gelignite in my carry-on.

Governments should also at least look like they’ve thought further ahead than the self-explosive contingent, so that the rest of us don’t always feel like the latest “program” is a reaction to the last attempt, but is actually an anticipation of the next one. (What’re the odds that now there’s going to be a ban on toner cartridges on aircraft?)

And if they’re going to scan, pat, wave crystals or consult Ouija boards at airports, I want the system to be the same at every damn facility, and I want everyone who flies to know that if something off the scan/pat/Ouija/crystal spectrum turns up you are gonna have some esplaining to do, Lucy, and you sure as hell aren’t going to make your flight.

It’s all this muddle that’s pissing me off.

In the meantime, it’ll be interesting for once to stay at home and watch those travel-chaos-at-the-airport stories on the local channels to see if any travelers really are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.

Thanksgiving 2010, Pt. 2

I had a 2.5 hour interview today (in San Francisco so with commute the total project time was close to seven hours), & I’m just thankful it’s over.

It’s for a job I’m eminently capable of doing well (product marketing for research services) in an industry I’m familiar with (& interested in), so I should have done well. But each of them (two VPs & a senior director of various marketing disciplines) asked me a question (different ones) that I didn’t know the answer to. & I felt like a dope.

Additionally, one asked for the three words I’d use to describe myself, & naturally I went blank. Then he asked for the three words a conclave of friends & colleagues would come up with to describe me & I also tanked. (I’ll have to add snappy thoughts on those topics to my collection of “tell me about a time you failed miserably & what you learned from it/would do differently” answers. Which was asked today.)

I guess I should be thankful that he didn’t ask what kind of tree I would choose to be. Because today it would be one in a forest fire assured of a swift death.

Thanksgiving 2010

Since moving to the Bay Area I’ve done a bit of volunteering, helping a church group make & serve lunches to a couple of homeless shelters in San José. We serve at each of the two one Saturday per month.

For the past two Saturdays the menu has been soup, sandwiches, fruit & dessert. We actually make vegetable soup from scratch—it’s not like we’re opening a couple of industrial-strength sized cans of Campbell’s soup & nuking it; there are aromatics, potatoes, greens, tomatoes & herbs. Last week I got to taste it & it was really pretty good.

What upset me were the sandwiches: white bread, a slice of processed turkey, a slice of American cheese, mayonnaise & mustard. I’m leaving aside the issue of whether there’s any nutrient value in white bread—I’m sure it’s injected with all kinds of stuff to make up for the over-processed flour. & it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than the $2.99 you pay for a small loaf of Trader Joe’s multi-grain bread, so I get it. We made 100 sandwiches each Saturday.

& I won’t cavil at the American cheese, although I personally think you shouldn’t be able to call it “cheese” if Stilton, Brie, Edam & Asiago are also “cheeses”. Protein is protein.

What brought it all home to me was that as my co-volunteers were laying out the assembly line was that the homeless people didn’t get to choose to opt out of either the mayo or the mustard. Every sandwich had it. & once that stuff is on the bread, it’s pretty much impossible to scrape it off.

Then I thought back to last month, when the menu was pasta (with chicken—really pretty good), salad (with dressing applied en masse) & garlic bread. Now me—I happen to like garlic bread; perhaps too much. But if you wanted a piece of bread that wasn’t already thoroughly infused with the stuff, you were out of luck. (Or if you didn’t happen to much care for the particular dressing.)

Your choices were take what was offered or go hungry.

Then, last Sunday, I was at coffee hour at the church, which is across from a downtown San José park that’s a center for the homeless. This park is surrounded by a couple of churches, offices & some up- & down-market housing, but I’m thinking that it’s not used by much of anyone but the drug addicts & homeless folk. (The church I attend keeps its doors locked most of the time, because there had been a lot of drug deals going down in it when they were open.) I noticed a lot of people lined up & asked one of the long-time parishioners if there was a meal being served.

He told me it’s a “drive-by” feeding: it’s actually illegal to distribute food in that park, so people come by, park & hand out sandwiches & things until the cops come by & roust them.

(I get it that there’s an issue of balance as to whether the park belongs to the bag people or the families who want to take their kids to the swings without them picking up drug paraphernalia in the sandbox. I myself feel uncomfortable walking past the place. But is it better to let them root through garbage bins rather than receive food that hasn't already been at least partially consumed?)

I think of the wealth in this area—Google has just announced plans to build yet another Googleplex that will have offices, retail shops & housing, so you never have to leave work—& all the upscale restaurants patronized by the technorati; & then I think of the children in the shelters & the park people lining up in an orderly fashion to get food before the police show up. Even if the food is sandwiches with both mayo & mustard.

There’s something wrong here.

FDA to the rescue

Okay, we really are living in a Salvador Dalí movie: following in the footsteps of of Washington, New York & probably other states, the FDA & FTC are moving to ban caffeinated alco-pops.

Seems alcoholic energy drinks (an oxymoron that should have been a clue from the start) are really, really bad for you (especially if you drink six of them at a frat party) & so supermarket & convenience store shelves should be cleared of them ASAP. (On Tuesday the manufacturer of these things announced it would take the caffeine out of their formula. That makes it so much better.)

Now, coming from the agencies that took bleeding decades to slap a “smoking may be hazardous to your health” sticker on packs of cigarettes & allowed GlaxoSmithKline to manufacture & sell (at top dollar) defective drugs for years (despite constant warnings by a whistle-blower) before finally tickling a $750M fine out of them (a sum which can be vacuumed out of the sofa cushions in the executive lounge), this is just kurazy.

All I can think is that the alco-pop industry doesn’t have the juice that big pharma & big tobacco does so it was easy for the FDA to be seen to protect the public.

It’s still Chien Andalou.

Kings & queens

Well, Britain’s just hogging all the news this week; latest is the announcement that Prince William, second in line to the throne, has got engaged to longtime girlfriend Kate Middleton. The ceremony will take place in an as yet unidentified London location (what besides Westminster Abbey or St. Paul’s would hold even the bridal party?), sometime next spring. Or maybe summer.

A couple of thoughts on this:

Let the souvenir selling begin—a royal wedding might just haul the UK’s butt out of recession faster than anything the Tory-Lib-Dem coalition could come up with by way of benefits-cutting or tax-raising.

Whatever nom-de-rule Wills chooses (they haven’t had much luck with a King William since the Conqueror, & he was a Frog), she will be the first Queen consort named Catherine since Henry VIII. Which may also not bode well.

Three of his wives were Catherine (or Katherine); two did not enjoy what you would call happy marriages. Henry divorced Catherine of Aragon because over the course of nearly 25 years she bore him no viable sons. This resulted in England irrevocably leaving the Roman Catholic fold, the establishment of the Church of England, the destruction of Church assets, the enrichment of the Tudors & five centuries of Anglican theology trying to straddle the fence between high & low church.

Most recently we saw the defection of five CoE bishops to the Roman Church over their discomfort with modernizing trends, including the ordination of women priests & consecration of female bishops. Which I don’t get because if they’re jake with the Queen being the Supreme Head of the Church, what’s the beef with women clergy?

Catherine spent her final few years after the divorce (granted not by the Pope, but by Henry himself—after he declared himself head of the church) in spitefully penurious retirement (King Hal didn’t like reminders of failures), & she wasn’t allowed to see her daughter, who eventually ascended the throne as Mary I. Upon receiving word of her death, Henry is reported to have celebrated.

The second of Henry’s Kates was Catherine Howard. About 30 years his junior, she was unprepared for the reality of an aging, obese sexual partner with a permanent festering ulcer on his leg. This not only impeded his dynastic designs, when she sought an extra-marital affair it made her vulnerable to blackmail from courtiers. Within two years of the wedding she was beheaded on charges of adultery. Girls just wanna have fun; but even in the days before TMZ & Twitter these things have a way of becoming known, & the Tudors were never known for their sense of humor.

Henry’s final Catherine, Parr, managed to outlive him; but as he was her third husband, she’d probably acquired enough negotiating skills to be able to manage him for their four years of marriage. This doesn’t mean it was necessarily a happy union for her: she’d actually been in love with Sir Thomas Seymour (brother to Henry’s third wife, Jane Seymour), but the King’s proposal trumped the baronet’s.

Following Henry’s death in 1547, Catherine was able to marry Seymour, but he was deeply involved in schemes to seize power, which included making a play for Princess Elizabeth, third in line to the throne, who was under Catherine’s care.

Nothing was simple with the Tudors.

Catherine died shortly after giving birth to her first child, at age 35. Her widower was beheaded for treason a year later.

Now, of course, historical dynastic marriages aren’t predictive; they’re not even indicative. But it’s interesting to speculate about a 21st Century Queen Catherine.

Don't get me started on the Williams, though.

Retail therapy

This just in via my BFF Leilah in Palm Springs: this Random Acts of Culture crowd brought the “Hallelujah” chorus to one of the US’s secular temples, Macy’s in Philadelphia. The Knight Foundation (may their endowment never depend on Wall Street investments) has sponsored various outbreaks of the classics around the country.

It clearly knocked the socks off the shoppers & proves that Handel is not just for the holidays.

I don’t care if you’re at work, crank your volume up to the max & let the experience envelope you.

Then hit replay.

& then email to your friends.

Adding up

A few random examples of how the art of written communication is going straight to hell in a hand cart.

First--an advert on the back of a Safeway receipt:

From the same tape an ad for a local spa:

There's a little blurb on another receipt assuring advertisers that they'll "be seen 100,000 times a month!" via this medium. Maybe local businesses just don't care that they look ignorant 100,000 views per month.

But it doesn't stop there. Here's an ad from the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle's food & wine section:

This illustrates one of my personal bugaboos: using the possessive (you know, the thing with the apostrophe) for the plural.

But even if the restaurant's marketer or ad agency couldn't tell the difference, doesn't the Chronicle have editors?

Power to the phalanges

Interesting piece from the Telegraph about a UK Twitter protest against the conviction of a guy for Tweeting a threat to/about Sheffield’s airport.

Seems that Paul Chambers, 27, was annoyed at the thought he was going to miss his flight, but evidently had the time and the device on his hands to threaten to blow up Robin Hood Airport (I’m not making that up) in a week if it didn’t get its [act] together.

A British judge found the content of the Tweet to be “menacing” (which is a crime) & fined him a total of £3000, which is probably the only kind of thing that will get a 27-year-old male Tweeter’s attention.

Although you might not think this was your basic blokish bloviating, and that authorities all along the line have lost their senses of humor and perspective, that’s not the story.

The story is that the Twittersphere has rallied behind Chambers, with thousands retweeting his original post and adding “#IamSpartacus”. (Although I’m sure there are multiple variants on the spelling.) This in reference to the 1960 Stanley Kubrick film where the rebellious gladiators refused to let their leader be singled out for punishment.

I’m not sure what to make of it—except that such an act of viral solidarity (is that an oxymoron?) is not at all the same thing as standing with a lighted candle under posters of the desaparacidos, marching on Selma or even texting three quid to a fund to help pay Chambers’ fine. Tweeting “I am Spartacus” is a no-cost no-brain act of trendiness, rather than a real protest, viral or otherwise.

It's not another country

Here’s irony for you: on the same day that the BBC reports that France’s state rail company finally admitted and apologized for its role in deporting that country’s Jews to Nazi extermination camps, the NY Times runs a story on a US government report admitting that for years this government did indeed harbor and use for geopolitical purposes whole rafts of Nazis and Nazi collaborators.

SNCF, which operates France’s railway system, spent the last five and a half decades insisting that it and its employees weren’t responsible for participating in the deportations; it was all German orders, and rail workers had no choice in the matter.

France as a nation has had an uneasy time with this issue of collaboration—right from the Liberation, when the preponderance of “collabos” punished were women who had consorted with Germans (and not, say, public officials who paved the way for governmental cooperation, or businessmen who made big profits off the invaders), there’s been this national myth that, really, no one helped the occupiers, everyone was a resistant and all the evil-doing was auf Deutsch. The biggest collaborator of all, Philippe Pétain, was in fact tried for the crime, but the French couldn’t bear to give him the death penalty he richly deserved—they did reluctantly sentence him to death, but commuted it to imprisonment.

(They didn’t have the same problem with his deputy, Pierre Laval; they couldn’t wait to send him to the firing squad. Laval was the perfect target. His execution gave the French the satisfaction of having “dealt with” a big-wig collaborator and enabled them to pretty much dust their hands of the whole issue.)

The reality is murkier, as you’d expect. There was plenty of go-along-to-get-along cooperation with the Germans; it was a long four years of occupation. Notable among the goers-along were businesses large and small. SNCF would be one of them.

There were resistants, even within SNCF; which means that if some employees could sabotage operations then there were choices to be made. But, as with the country as a whole, it’s easier to think back on those days as perhaps their “greatest generation”, and pretend that the French were either heroes or victims.

But the Frogs are nothing if not pragmatic: the “profound sorrow and regret” expressed this week are directly related to bids that SNCF wants to put in to build high-speed rail networks in Florida and California. It seems both states are making noises about not doing business with any organization that refuses to acknowledge its involvement in the Holocaust.

C’est l’argent qui parle; et la fraternité qui marche.

However, the US has been engaged in its own cover-up about collaborating in giving refuge to Nazis who should have been dealt with as war criminals. The report the Times acquired this week documents five and a half decades of activities by some federal agencies (largely intelligence related) to protect these Nazis from other agencies (like Justice) that were trying to identify and prosecute war criminals. (And, BTW—this is our tax dollars at work: one agency working full bore against another.)

Our hands are not only not clean in this matter, the agencies are still trying like hell to obfuscate their involvement. If not for a lawsuit filed four years ago, we still wouldn’t have any official recognition. They all want to pretend that their actions were above board; or else that it was so long ago it really doesn’t matter anymore.

But here’s a clue: if you spend all this governmental capital on covering something up, it’s generally something that you wouldn’t want to brag to your grandchildren about.

I understand that, having made a deal with the Georgian devil to destroy the Austrian one, the Anglo-American governments got to 1945 and realized that Stalin was going to be more troublesome than expected, and they made more deals with a whole flock of Nazi devils to help in the Cold War. We don’t have the luxury of black and white clarity; it’s all half-tones.

But what bothers me is that going on for 60 years after the fact we’re still acting like we’ve taken the high road when obviously we’ve been grubbing around in the ditches.

Perhaps what our government needs is a financial incentive such as enticed SNCF into apologizing. If brotherhood won’t do it, maybe the money will.

News of the good

A brief light piercing through this week’s usual complement of dreary news: Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been released from more than seven years of house arrest.

House arrest was only the latest of the restrictions levied on Suu Kyi. She was separated from her husband and sons for more than two decades—they lived in Britain and if she visited them there was a good chance that she’d have been refused return to Myanmar. The junta even denied her husband permission to visit her when he was dying eleven years ago.

Of course, you never know with dictatorships whether a decision will be reversed in the next five minutes. And you definitely know that this woman isn’t going to veer from the course she’s held for more than 25 years, resisting the military dictators and working to bring democracy to her country.

So it’s not the beginning of the end. But it’s a lovely end to this week in November to think that she’s able to walk around her neighborhood and share a cup of tea with a friend.