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Boy, did I ever get bummed out! I was in Paris last week returning to the US after a cruise that let us off in Istanbul. I had bought e few bottles of wine a few days earlier in Venice: my home town kind of (I was born and raised 50 miles from Venice). The wines I bought, all whites, are impossible to find in the US: they do not travel well and are mostly consumed locally. We drank two of the bottles on ship, and I planned to bring the last one: a fine Tocay, not the sweet Hungarian variety, but the light, pale yellow, semi-dry kind that is perfect with prosciutto. The plan was to share it with my daughter who was on her way to our house from Oregon. Well, we made through the Turkish security, three times mind you, and were on the way to our connecting flight to JFK in Paris, when we had to go through another security check, although we were in a transit hall. Sure enough, two young ladies were alerted that there was a bottle in my backpack and proceeded to open the backpack. They immediately confiscated the wine and went through my toiletry bag, dumping everything out. My wife's pack was also opened and all her pills were dumped out in her pill bag. There was no point in protesting too much, and there was a plane to catch, so I wished them good luck and asked them to enjoy the wine, but being France who knows if they considered Italian wine drinkable. I resent the terrorists (or do I resent the people who react to the terrorists after a threat?). I am not too sure whom I resent the most. Personally I cannot imagine that the terrorists are currently planning to assemble bombs the way they planned before the great coup in London. Their gig has been up on that scheme and I think they are smarter than to attempt to pull off the same stunt after they have been discovered. They are up to something new, I say! Meanwhile, our gels, aerosols, toothpastes, water and wine are being taken away. And there are multiple barriers in the way! Case in point, aside from the wine, I had to pull out my laptop at each barrier and sometimes had to turn it on. Additionally, since I have two titanium hip joints, I set off the alarms every time and consequently was wanded every time. I do not resent having security policy, I resent the overkill and the fact that so many opportunities exist for terrorism: check out the ports, stupid!! I resent that we look wimpy and scared, or rather scared easily if we believe what the current Administration is telling us. Terrorism was not invented to carry out the 9/11 horror. Terrorism has been around for quite a while. Some nations have suffered from it, dealt with it and survived. The British have dealt with IRA, the Italians with the Red and Black Brigades, the Spaniards with the ETA, the French with the Algerians and so on. We are the only ones who have declared war on terrorism; or rather the Administration has said we are at war. The statement that we are at war, allows the media to say that there is a war on terrorism, like there is a war on drugs (an abject failure) and a war on poverty (an abject failure). Finally, I resent being labeled un-patriotic by expressing my displeasure and opposition the Administration's foreign policies. And in a few weeks I will have an opportunity to be heard in the voting booth. I have a voting plan: to vote against any incumbent! |
