Saturday Ramblings

Normally he's the most serious of babies, so this shot of Mr. Monkey Toes grinning at the camera made my day!

He may look like his daddy, but he's got his mama's sweet smile!

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As cool as this is (and it is)...

... the fact that the animation was done by a high school freshman is just amazing!

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Mary Schmich lists her nine best books for 2010.

While I still haven't posted my list of December books read, here's my own Top 10 Books Read in 2010 (I'm choosing by what I read this year, not necessarily what was published this year)

1. Beatrice & Virgil: A Novel, Yann Martel -- In turns beautiful, comical and horrifying. This one has stuck with me like no other. I highly, highly recommend it.
2. Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority, Tom Burrell -- Written by a black man to a black audience, but for anyone who wants to understand race relations in this country it's a must-read.
3. Born Under a Million Shadows, Andrea Busfield -- My favorite character since Piscine Molitor Patel. I'll read this one again and again.
4. Confessions of a Compact Camera Shooter, Rick Sammon -- If you want to do a whole lot more with your little point-and-shoot camera, this book is packed full of good information and written in terms that won't intimidate the techno-challenged (like me).
5. The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafón -- Set in post-war Spain, it's a quest novel of heartbreaking beauty.
6. Packing for Mars – The Curious Science of Life in the Void, Mary Roach -- It made me laugh out loud and it was stuffed with interesting data.
7. The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food and Love, Kristin Kimball -- Not a life I'd choose for myself, but one that certainly is rich and wonderful. I could practically taste, smell and feel every element of life on an organic farm.
8. Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand: A Novel, Helen Simonson -- A reminder that there's no age limit on finding love.
9. The Believers, Zoe Heller -- Whether you're liberal, conservative or independent, this is a fascinating fictional peek into the mind of the liberal left. Favorite quote: “’You want to know what I’d do if the truth revealed itself to me and it wasn’t the truth I wanted to find?’ ‘Yes’ Audrey smiled. ‘I’d reject it.” Bang on.
10. Mary Ann in Autumn: A Tales of the City Novel, Armisted Maupin -- I loved the original series and was delighted that Maupin treated my old friends, all of them dearly missed, with such affection.

What are your Top 10 reads for the year?

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Speaking of love stories, here's a dandy:

For the back story, go here. Sappy. Hilarious. Charming.

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So my underwire bra is a threat to national security and requires a groping that left marks for days, but an Iranian-American can get on a plane with a Glock in his bag? Sooooooooo glad to see that the TSA has it's priorities straight and is so effective in its mission.

By the way -- this story about a TSA agent stealing travelers' laptops is exactly why I object to having to step away from your stuff for a body scan or grope fest.

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It's no secret that I'm fully in favor of repealing that obnoxious "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law. I'm happy to report it's on it's way out the door! Well done.

(John McCain can go pound sand, as far as I'm concerned.)

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More Game of Thrones geekery:

The Artisans: Simon Brindle

Beautiful, no?

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I just had to swipe this from Becky:

Bus Fumes

My BlogDaddy may think it's funny, but here are today's two things that stand my hair on end with regard to the TSA:

This quote by a TSA agent on so called pat-downs, for those of you who still believe that it's innocuous and no big deal.

"You're not going to like it," a TSA agent told correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic. "Nobody's going to do it once they find out (what) we're going to do."

And the fact that TSA agents are now putting their hands down fliers' pants:

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Monday that the agency has an "open ear" to any "adjustments" to security measures in place at the nation's airports, as some groups and individuals continued to call for a boycott of full-body scanning machines that they complain are invasive....

But, she said, "if there are adjustments we need to make to these procedures as we move forward, we have an open ear. We will listen."Sure. Listening costs nothing. But that doesn't mean she intends to change one freaking thing about the procedures, unless it's to make them even more invasive.

I'm with Michael Graham, who says:

Napolitano says it’s vital to our security, though nobody can point to a single attack foiled by this fondling. She insists this is a key part of their “layered” approach to air safety.

OK, fine, Janet. I’ll do it. Only, you go first.

I want you to zip over to Reagan National and, on live cable TV, go through the full body scan - with the images available for broadcast and our review. Since it’s no big deal and it’s all for security, I’m sure you won’t mind setting the suck-it-up example.

And after that, you can step over to the personal screening area for what you euphemistically call a “pat-down.” We’ll all watch as a female TSA employee does to you what she did to American grandmothers over this weekend.

I’ll do whatever the TSA says, and without complaint, as soon as I see Janet Napolitano do it. Until then, I’m fighting back.

Pouring Jet Fuel on the Bonfire

Seems I'm not the only one who's had a bad experience with the TSA's new procedures, as this little poll over at the Washington Post has stirred up a shit storm in the comments.

Question: Have you ever been subjected to an airport security 'pat down'?


They're having a free-for-all in the comments section, as well they should. (Be sure to read 'em all.)

In fact, people everywhere are getting pissed and demanding that heads (or even departments) roll.

If that doesn't get your Irish up, then perhaps this will:



(A tip of the cap to Amy Alkon.)

This is ridiculous and totally beyond the pale.

Here's the problem: Good parents like my pal LL are starting to say things like this:

If any man or woman put their hands in my children’s crotches because of a perceived security risk, I absolutely would reign fire and destruction upon those muthafuckers.

Mark my words.

Try it, however, and you'll find yourself under arrest, facing jail time and at least a $10,000 fine.

For those of you who think giving up your right to privacy is a small price to pay, a superior mind to yours replies:

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Ben Franklin

As for me, I may just have to rethink the not driving thing, and soon.

Bus Fumes

You know, I really wish they'd stop calling them "pat downs" -- because they're not. From Dictionary.reference.com:

pat-down   
[pat-doun] Show IPA
–noun
an act or instance of passing the hands over the body of a clothed person to detect concealed weapons, drugs, etc.; frisking.

In reality, from recent personal experience, TSA agents don't just pass their hands over your body -- they grope you, and hard in the manner of Dictionary.reference.com's definition #6:

Slang . an act or instance of sexually fondling another person.

I also take issue with TSA's promise of privacy and that no pictures will be taken:

The U.S. Marshals Service recently admitted saving some 35,000 images from a machine at a federal courthouse in Florida. TSA says that will never happen. Human experience says, oh, yes, it will.

Here's all the proof I need that your parts can and may be exposed to the rest of the world: this CNN article photo. This quick Bing image search. Repeated photos from the scanners on Drudge Report banners. This quick google image search. Also, this Fox News report that shows images of not only the scanned image, but also identifiable images of the person scanned:

Sure, the TSA assures us that the image-saving capability "will be turned off" in these scanners, but they don't say when, and they don't say what has been or will be done with the gazillion images already saved.

Then there's this YouTube video describing the "pat down" for an "opt out":

Even if you agree to the scan, you still aren't out of the woods. I didn't opt out, and still got the so-called pat down, thanks to my bra's underwires.* The young lady in the video at least got groped in private. I got my breasts squeezed and twisted in full view of every single person in the security area -- and no, nobody offered to take me off into private to do it.

(Please don't tell me it's okay because I submitted. I had no choice. Neither did anyone else in line that morning, as we were all forced through the scanners or to submit to a pat-down if we wanted to fly that day.)

I'm a mature adult who's seen a lot, and still this was a humiliating experience for me. Imagine, then, if it's your grandmother or wife or teenager or tween or very young child who's always been told never to let a stranger touch them inappropriately. Whether its the public chest mauling or the full body scan or the private full body feel-up, it's wrong on just about every level.

Furthermore, the new procedures really slowed the security line down at O'Hare. Don't be even a little late for a flight, or these new procedures will likely make you miss your flight. And be prepared for gridlock at airport security if you're traveling over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Neither of these forms of screening should be used until or unless there's a suspicion that a passenger may be carrying contraband of some sort. It should not be the primary screening method unless it's used for all airline passengers -- including the Head of Homeland Security, the President, the First Lady and the First Children. The TSA has gone way too far.

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*The least the TSA could do is educate their screeners as to what an underwire looks like and why it's not a threat to national security.

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Update: I've heard a lot of discussion on talk radio about this subject today, and a lot of people who experienced the old "pat down" with the back of the hands that came if you made the metal detector beep more than once or had a medical note due to surgical pins, rods, plates or replacement joints saying that TSA agents were "respectful" and that "it's not that bad" and that they were given a choice for their pat down to happen publicly or privately.

Trust me, things have changed. I can't wait to hear about your next experience with the TSA. That was then. This is now, and it's different.

Also, I just heard a United Airline employee assert that NONE of the airline food service truck personnel or bag handlers have to go through security of any type at O'Hare "because they're TSA employees." But pilots and flight attendants do have to submit to those indignities.

There's no logical reason why this is so.

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Update II:

If this photo from today's (11/15/10) Drudge Report doesn't convince you of the outrageousness of the TSA's procedures, nothing else will:



(And for those people who insist that they do the full feel-ups in private, this disproves it.)

Hey, Big Sis! How's that discreet thing supposed to work again?

Drive-Bys

I don't know what I find scarier -- that this might for even a second be true...

White House leaks about the ineffectiveness of Obama's presidency are expandng [sic] beyond the revelations attributed to a former high-level Obama administration insider and which have been reported by a blogger named "Ulsterman." Some White House staffers have described a "reign of terror" in the White House over continued leaks and a troika of leadership that is making decisions without any input from the president. The troika reportedly consists of First Lady Michelle Obama, presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett, and the president's mother-in-law, Marian Robinson, who resides in the White House.

Not to be deterred, some White House staffers have sought out journalists and have arranged to meet them at nearby Starbuck's cafes to discretely convey to them inside information about the current disarray within the Obama administration. Some staffers have personally born the brunt of Obama's temper and witnessed his extreme narcissistic behavior. WMR has also learned from White House sources that Obama is taking presciption [sic] anxiety medication.

... or that Biden is second in line.

I trust that this is wishful thinking, but then there's that faint whiff of truth. *Sigh* If it's not one thing, it's another.

(A tip of the cap to Desert Cat.)

Update: It's in stories like this that I find that faint whiff.
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Governor Giveaway just doesn't get it...

"Well, (legislators) voted for it, seniors ride free, a couple years ago. I think when you have a program, you want to see how it works. I think the seniors are pretty happy with it. (Curtailing free rides) is really not going to save the state money. I think we should do as much as we can for public transit."

Asked if a means test should determine which seniors ride free, Quinn said: "Well, you don't have means tests for Social Security. The genius of that program that was founded by President Franklin Roosevelt was, when you have a universal program, you have everyone participating and everyone supporting. I do believe in that principle of universality on important programs. I have supported seniors ride free, and I don't think that's our top priority right now; our top priority is to fund our schools."

...but at least one newsman does:

The free-rides program for seniors that Blagojevich jammed through the legislature costs the three transit agencies at least $38 million a year. Given their finances, the transit agencies cannot afford these free rides. Quinn should be apologizing for another governor's financial recklessness, not declaring that he'll block any attempt to rein in the freebies. [Emphasis mine]

Remember, these transit systems survive only because governments create them and riders pay to use them. We were troubled to read a comment in Wednesday's Tribune from Beryl Clemens, former president of Metro Seniors in Action, an advocacy group: "The whole bus is empty. It's not costing (the transit agencies) anything." Yes, it is. Those who use these systems ought to share the costs. All of us could, in a moment of selfishness, point to an empty seat and say, "I'll just plop my fanny right here and nobody's out a dime." Doing that would steal revenue from the kitty that keeps public transit in business for everyone.

We hope legislative leaders deliver to Quinn a more sensible means for handling senior riders. If Quinn issues a veto, we hope legislators override him and bring this notion of free rides to an end.

Too right.
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With all the controversy over the new airport body scanners and pat downs (which are, from very recent personal experience, really rough gropings, not fondling), $1 Greyhound fares on brand spanking new motor coaches sounds pretty good, as does Megabus or Amtrak. Since I'm not an Islamic woman I can and did have more than the area from the neck up manhandled.

So, I got to have at least one complete stranger see me nearly naked, and then I got the privilege of being mauled by another complete stranger in a way that I wouldn't have put up with on a date with someone I actually knew and liked... and I wasn't the only one.

Be prepared -- TSA is not using these scanners when they think there might be a problem -- they're using them for everyone.

Quite frankly, until and unless Big Sis volunteers for both, we ought to all say an emphatic "NO" and find alternate transportation.
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Hah! I love it when Karma works it's mojo:

For the first time in almost two years Thursday, WGN-AM 720 made a major personnel move that didn't upset at least some of its longtime listeners: It said so long to Kevin Metheny, its polarizing program director for the last 23 months.

I didn't like what he did back then, and I still don't like it. I'm not sorry to see him go.
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