"Officer! That Man Stole My Wallet!" "Don't Like It? Go Live In Cuba, Socialist!"

"The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments."
-William H. Borah

It's a lie, you know. Airport security. A shameless, bald-faced ridiculous lie. (What does it mean to say someone is a bald-faced liar? Does that phrase express a distrust of the beardless?) I travel a lot for work, as you may have noticed, and I've actually gotten to the point where I often momentarily forget what city I just arrived from when checking the baggage claim board. "Did I just come from Cleveland, or Los Angeles? Oh yeah, no, San Francisco, it was a direct flight this time."

My point only being that I'm pretty slow in the head when traveling, and it's taken me this long to catch on to the scam; I woke up thinking about it this morning. Part of my travel preparation ritual includes a few things, including wearing slip-on shoes, a plastic belt buckle, and bringing four packed bags; unfortunately I travel heavy due to all of the work items I have to bring, as well as a backpack for my camera and lenses... and my big tripod. I check two bags (don't worry, I'm a Silver Elite flier, no charge for check-ins) and carry on my camera bag and a small book bag with books to read, my mp3 player, my netbook, and sundry other items to keep myself occupied during the endless travel time. SO, my point being, I carry my camera bag on the plane with me, which has a large metal tri-pointy-ended-pod strapped to it, and the TSA security agents DON'T BAT AN EYE.

I've often wondered why that is, exactly. Especially considering that items you are not allowed to bring include, well, water. And you can bring liquids, but they have to be in 3oz bottles AND sealed up in a ziplock baggie. Why? What the hell difference does it make to ziplock them? If you are sneaking acid on a plane to dash in the face of an airline attendant, what the hell difference, security-wise, does it make to have to zip your liquids up in a baggie? A terrorist can train to hijack a plane and fly it into a building, but somehow a ziplocked baggie that he packed himself is going to give him trouble?

And then I realized; it's a smokescreen, a ziplockscreen. (I've often thought about how 90% of all security is mostly for appearance, especially after living in the IZ in Baghdad, to make you scared first and then to feel like you're being kept safe, not to actually make you safer) Anyway, in the aftermath of new and ridiculous airport "security" rules, they banned water. Water. To include all liquids, to make it look good. Then, when they realized that travelers were getting pissed because this meant they could no longer bring their toilet kits on board, especially now that they're charging all you non-elite fliers for baggage check in, they had to backtrack a little and allow toiletries with a few completely nonsensical security precautions, designed solely to save a little face and perpetuate the no water policy; I mean, you can bring 3oz of water on board, but that's not enough for a thirsty traveler. It's all about the water.

Because once I clear security, the first thing I do is head to a kiosk and buy a large bottle of water for my flight. For like $3.00 to $5.00. Because arriving for flights two hours early, layovers, and flight times can take all day, and you've got to have water. AND, airport water fountains are few and far between, and anyway the water always tastes rather rancid. And once you're on the plane, the flight attendants come by once, maybe twice if you're lucky or on a longer flight, with tiny little cups of water. Not enough. I wonder how much the rise in bottled water sales in airports has been since the implementation of, um, dangerous water rules at TSA checkpoints. I also wonder who is the biggest supplier of bottled water to airports across the country. I suspect Halliburton. But then, I suspect them for a lot of things, so take it with a grain of salt. Also, have you noticed lately how much tiny little travel bottles of liquid products cost lately? Sometimes, almost as much as the regular sized ones.

It seems unlikely, I know, to the untrained eye that TSA security is designed mostly to pick your pocket at the airport, especially when they're nominally there to protect you from terrorists. But little things like heavy pointed metal tripods Vs. bottles of water, the nectar of life, something everybody now has to BUY, make me suspicious. That, and everything in the news now is about the fight against greed in the health care industry. The more I read, the more obvious it is that corporate America is out there finding new and improved ways to pay off the US Government to legalize creative pickpocketing by targeting products which a human body can not live without. The fact that water and health care are now considered products is a God Damned tragedy, and disgusting. I honestly don't know which side Obama is really on, but in reality, it doesn't matter. Whether or not he wants to help, the cards are stacked against him, and he seems unable to break down the drug company lobbyists. Especially since, you know, he's dealing with them as though they were a legitimate part of the Government, and not tossing them out like the shills they are.