The Gentle Art of Air Travel

First, a message to Seats 18D, E and F:

Hi, I'm That One Guy sitting up here in 16A. Why do you find it necessary to inflict your spawn upon me? Maybe I've just completed a stressful trip full of meetings. Maybe I'm busy running away from my problems for good. Maybe I'm hungover. Hell, maybe I'm drunk. I'll tell you one thing that isn't a maybe: I don't want to hear your baby screaming all the way from wherever I'm coming from to wherever I'm going. If you must travel with your baby, maybe there's a way to do that that doesn't impinge on my life. You could drive. You could plan ahead a little and take enough time off to do that. Or you could wait a couple of years until the screaming is under control. You could have the family come to you. I'm on a red-eye flight so I can try to sleep while I travel, which is hard enough as it is. Now when I and everyone else on this flight show up at work tomorrow morning, we're gonna be exhausted, bloodshot-eyed and irritable. And it's all your fault, selfish inconsiderate Mom and Dad!

And now...

While we're on the topic of flying, let's talk about a little joke, and this time, the joke's on you, air traveler! I'm talking about airport security. Who are they trying to protect? From whom? Or what? They don't do anything now that they didn't do before September 11, with the exception of making you take off your shoes, pull your laptop out of your bag, and spill your toiletries all over the bathroom counter at home while trying to transfer it into smaller containers. Now three people instead of one watch the x-ray and snicker at your skivvies, and they stop the belt constantly to imagine you wearing them. Now it just takes longer, and it's a bigger hassle. But does it keep us any safer? It probably generates revenue for the airport bar. I know after having my socks, toothbrush and polka-dot boxer shorts spread out on a table for thorough examination, I want a couple beers.

Airport security is a dog-and-pony show intended to show the terrorists that Homeland Security has muscle. They show their power by delaying you for the better part of an hour as you enter the airport thus requiring you to show up an hour and a half before a forty-five minute flight, then they take away your shampoo because you didn't have time in your rush to leave the house to get there on time to put it in your contact lens holder, so you just grabbed the bottle.

I have seen some gruesome videos on YouTube of people severely pummeling other people using skateboards as the pummeling device. You can bring a skateboard through security and right onto the plane. Just run it through the x-ray with your coat and your Vans. The last time I took a plane anywhere, my first order of business after leaving the airport with my rental car at my destination was a stop at the local drug store to buy toothpaste. Fortunately, TSA managed to catch it before I had a chance to take the plane down with it. Crisis averted. Whew! Toothpaste in an 8.5-ounce tube is a threat to national security. Even when it's all rolled up in order to extract those last few shots that are really tough to get out of the tube. Guess I won't have to fight with that, since now it's Oakland International Airport's problem. Don't worry about the skateboard, though. The toothpaste, by the way, is far more dangerous if it's in your bag than if it's safely in your pocket. I would have saved myself a buck and a trip to the drug store if I had just thought of that. Even worse, I paid an extra $2.50 on my plane ticket in order to offset the costs incurred by this travesty. Do you think taking everybody's toothpaste away would have prevented the World Trade Center tragedy? Do you think relieving the passengers of their shaving cream would have prevented Pan Am Flight 103 from getting blown out of the sky over Lockerbie, Scotland?

If you want to actually make things secure in the airspace, the rules are going to have to be a lot stricter, and a lot more pervasive of your flying experience. Maybe even Draconian. First, no carry-on luggage. Bring a book, a magazine, a sandwich and an iPod in a ZipLoc bag. Get naked and wear a TSA-issued paper suit with a hang-tag on your chest to hold your government-issued ID and a few bucks for a drink. Print the boarding pass directly on the left sleeve. If you want to bring anything else on board, I think you can figure out where you'll have to stow it.

Wedge Issue With Teeth - Same-Sex Marriage

Our political system is chock full of wedge issues, things that politicians and the media trump up to be a big deal in order to distract the voting public from real issues like the oil war in the Middle East and our economy in a tailspin. One such wedge issue, and the topic of this column, is same-sex marriage. This particular wedge issue should be an open and shut non-issue, but instead it has a sharp point and a serrated edge. It is a matter that could impact the rights of citizens of this country. The California Supreme Court legalized it in May. A proposed amendment to California's state constitution banning it will appear on the ballot in November, and it has a vast base of support. Talk of a similar amendment to the US Constitution has been circulating for years in Washington.

Why do we find it necessary to limit the rights of anyone? I can understand locking up murderers and rapists and restricting their rights. It has been demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt in our fine criminal justice system that they are not fit to run loose in regular society. [The criminal justice system is a topic for another column, and you can be sure you'll hear about that soon enough in this very “blog.”] But what has the gay population as a whole done that can justify restricting their rights?

The answer is simple: they went against the very word of the Almighty. “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is an abomination,” says Leviticus 18:22. Some translations use the word “detestable,” and another even goes so far as to say “God hates that.” Naturally, it is the Christian lobby that is taking the lead on banning gay marriage. Funny thing is, Christianity views the Old Testament as a historical narrative, but the Word that they follow comes from the New Testament, with lines such as: For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). I would think “the world” includes homosexuals, and that even they might receive this “everlasting life.”

Focus on the Family, one of the biggest organizations mobilizing against same-sex marriage, uses this as the intro to their web page about the issue:

Marriage is a sacred, legal, and social union ordained by God to be a life-long, sexually exclusive relationship between one man and one woman. Focus on the Family holds this institution in the highest esteem, and strongly opposes any legal sanction of marriage counterfeits, such as the legalization of same-sex "marriage" or the granting of marriage-like benefits to same-sex couples, cohabiting couples, or any other non-marital relationship. History, nature, social science, anthropology, religion, and theology all coalesce in vigorous support of marriage as it has always been understood: a life-long union of male and female for the purpose of creating stable families.

In an article posted on the Focus on the Family web site entitled Defending Marriage: Answering the Tough Questions, Glenn T. Stanton, Director of Social Research and Cultural Affairs and Senior Analyst for Marriage and Sexuality at Focus on the Family, states that “homosexuality is not a civil right.” Why not? No answer. In fact, Focus on the Family and other similar groups do a pretty good job of not answering the tough questions. The answers they give pretty much refer to God and the Bible or they re-state the position that it is impossible to raise a child in a same-sex household. “No society needs homosexual coupling. In fact, too much of it would be harmful to society and that is why natural marriage and same-sex coupling cannot be considered socially equal,” according to the esteemed Mr. Glenn T. Stanton. Compelling examples are difficult to find on the Focus on the Family website.

One question I have is this: How would a homosexual couple becoming legally married, receiving the legal and financial protections associated with marriage, and living happily ever after affect your life? If you're a gay couple, the answer should be obvious. If you're me, which I am, the answer is – not at all really. And when I get married and have children, the answer will still be – not at all really. So why are groups like Focus on the Family spending so much time, money and effort to fight against extending an institution so that it might include everybody, especially when it doesn't affect those who are not part of the gay community at all really? They argue that it's for the children, that a same-sex couple couldn't properly raise a child. First, why is it any of their business? Second, not all same-sex couples intend to raise children. And third, Charles Manson and Ted Bundy didn't have gay parents.

There's supposed to be a separation of church and state here. The government leaves the church alone to practice their First Amendment right to freedom of religion, and the church lets the government handle the paperwork. Marriage as a sacrament, an announcement of love before God and the world, is in the purview of the church, if you want it to be. Marriage as power-of-attorney, inheritance rights, and community property is a paperwork issue that is none of the churches' business. If a church doesn't want to marry same-sex couples, it doesn't have to. The First Amendment guarantees that right. And I'm pretty sure a same-sex couple would rather get married somewhere that would accept and encourage their union, not in a church where the entire process is a fight. But when a gay man's partner of sixty years dies, is there any reason he can't sign the forms and keep the house?

Links:
Equality for All

Focus on the Family