Dear editor,
I love to fly.
You meet very interesting people in the seat across the aisle; you notice random acts of kindness, you get from A to B in jig time. And I have even come to accept the fleecing I get when I read $142 for a flight from Vancouver to Comox, but $198 goes onto my Visa card.
Can you believe all those extra charges? What is the easiest and cheapest way to get to Bellingham from Comox?
I have even come to accept that I should carry my passport when I travel to Calgary.
But what makes me scratch my head is the herd instinct that takes over when we go through security. Under trained, underpaid staff that have just enough power to puff them up with that “I can make you” look in their eye.
And we all wilt. Yes, sir. Yes, ma’am. Yes, that’s a computer and yes, it is on. Oh, forgot my belt, sorry.
Then, I look around me at others in the lineup and I get a flashback to the 1940s post-war movies about refugees fleeing Hitler’s Germany, or the stories told of my Mennonite ancestors getting out of Soviet Russia at the last minute.
I also get a flashback to people shuffling into the ‘showers’ in the Schindler’s List movie.
And if you drew the short straw, you get the patdown. Ever look in the eyes of the person doing the patting?
You stifle an attempt at humour by asking for the good-looking one to do the patting, fearing it will land you in jail. Humour is a dangerous thing — suggests the potential to defy authority in another context.
Deadened eyes, resigned looks, some hints of fear, totally defeated people (sheeple?). What the hell has happened to us that we allow our government to put in rules that make us look and feel like criminals or refuges in our own country?
Don’t give me that propaganda crap about fighting terrorism. Government is fighting me!
Some company that produces screening equipment obviously got to the right cabinet minister and urged better security to protect Canada. Ha!
Am I the only one who feels this way about government’s security paranoia? How come Ottawa gets away with this treatment of innocent citizens?
Apathy is the glove into which Evil slips its hand!
Cliff Boldt,
Courtenay
