Off the Wall Thinking

Chris,

 That  scenario is so off the wall crazy that it has to have come from the mind of Homeland Security.  Where else outside of Alice in Wonderland could such insanity be hatched? 

But in fairness, long before we declared war on Terror and began terrorizing our own people in our efforts to keep us safe, see what I mean?  it's crazier than Alice in Wonderland, airlines were practicing being stupid.  I must have wrestled with a dozen shapely flight attendants over the right to retain my solid fiberglass travel cane.  

"This could become a missile in case of severe turbulence", I was told.  "I could become a dangerous missile, too", I told them.  But no amount of logic, humor, begging or throwing a hissy fit could sway them from their preprogrammed course.  

And it has become ten thousand times worse now that we are really being protected.  I had a fellow spend about twenty minutes feeling up the seams of my jeans in the San Diego     airport last year.  "Are you finding something there?" I asked him.  no answer.  "What are you expecting to find?"  I tried laughing about it.  Still no answer.  But each time I commented, he bent to his task and began all over again.  "Would you like me to take them off so you can turn them inside out?"  No answer. 

"You know, if you keep this up we're going to have to begin dating".  Finally, as the line behind us began snarling that they were going to miss their flight, another person arrived.  This one had a brain between its ears.  "Keep them moving," she ordered in a tone that suggested torture if he did not. 

But it must have worked.  My jeans did not burst into flame and the plane landed safely in Seattle.  Around that same time across the United States a coupled of fellows proved that it is still possible to smuggle a device of mass destruction aboard a commercial plane. 

Someone did not check their jeans closely enough. 

 

Carl Jarvis

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Chris Coulter

To: acb-l@acb.org List

Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2012 1:25 PM

Subject: [acb-l] Here's a thought about Laurie and the nonflight

I want to begin by saying that what I'm writing in this message shows 
a real lack of training on the part of the airline staff. It's just 
something to be aware of.
My husband, who keeps up with how criminal minds work and how plane 
security is handled gave me something to think about when I told him 
about the article and video about Laurie and her inability to get from 
here to there on the plane.
According to Jon, staff on airlines are trained to look for scenarios 
that can happen when suspected terrorists are on a plane. It goes like 
this: Someone comes onto the plane. This person could be posing as a 
blind person or could actually be blind. The "blind" person needs to 
go directly to the bathroom. Someone has left a gun in the little 
bathroom. Our person with the white cane then comes out; gets to her 
seat; then asks to trade seats with the person sitting next to her. 
Somehow the weapon gets from the blind person into the hands of 
someone who is in line with the new seat.
Let me be clear: I don't think Laurie was doing this but the airline 
staff was probably trained to look for just this type of scenario and 
wouldn't let it go. Even before I knew about this possibility I never 
had a problem sitting in a window seat and never asked to trade seats 
with anyone. It just never occurred to me to do that. It might have 
been the courteous thing to do but it may have triggered a whole chain 
of events that didn't need to happen. We'll never know if the 
flapdoodle happened because of post 9/11 training or not but things 
like this come up with sighted passengers and it shouldn't happen to 
anyone, blind or sighted. Airline staff shouldn't behave like robots; 
they should be observant human beings.
Chris
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