Sara von Tresckow wrote:
> Times have changed, and behaving in a manner that helps more than one's self
> - thinking of the personnel who serve us in the airports and on the planes and
> their daily hassles, might now be called for.
>
> Certainly thinking up ways around the security measures just to cut a few threads
> on a plane seems to me to be rather childish and selfish.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
So far as I know, needlepoint per se is not being banned on
airplanes. It's a legitimate activity still, so why not figure out
how to engage in it in legal ways? There are lots of people who spin
who have discussed ways to spin on airplanes over the years. I like
to spin in airports--would it be inappropriate for me to figure out
a substitute for my 40 inch diameter Rio Grande wheel?
This discussion seems to me to cut to the heart of the question
faced by the USA today--how much liberty is it prudent to exchange
for peace of mind?
I suspect that Ben Franklin would laugh at the thought that banning
eyelash curlers on airplanes would bring about any *actual* increase
in safety. It's just the illusion of greater safety that we're
buying today with the ban on fingernail clippers. So how much are we
willing to pay for this illusion?
I have a cousin who served in the military in Great Britain. He
spent time in Northern Ireland at the time when the troubles were
very bad. He once showed me how just about anything can be
considered a weapon by someone with military special ops type
training. The current security regulations can probably deter
amateur nutcases but those with some serious training? I doubt it.
I never thought I had anything in common with Jason (my cousin)
except that our mothers are sisters. He's a fireman, has fought
fires in England, Australia, Canada and the USA. I'm glad he wasn't
in New York on 11 September because I know exactly where he would
have been. He has strange hobbies like mountain racing (where teams
race up and back down mountains) and he is part of an organization
that re-builds damaged homes. Sort of like Habitat for Humanity,
except they do it in active war zones, like Bosnia and Chechnya.
Obviously, he enjoys high risk (euphemism for "scary as all get
out") activities. I asked him about whether he feels fear once and
he told me that he does, every time he goes into a burning building,
every time he flies into a war zone to help those in need, and on
and on. But he refuses to let his life be controlled by fear.
And in that, I'm like my cousin. I'll be on twelve different flights
in the next five weeks and I won't be afraid. To let fear control my
life is to allow terrorists to win.
Shirley
M. Shirley Chong
The Well Mannered Dog http://www.shirleychong.com
Grinnell Iowa
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