Of flights, flying and the TSA, Part Deux

On Nov. 5, I posted my thoughts about the Transportation Stupidity Agency on this blog. More recently, the far better-known and wa-a-a-ay more articulate Anna Quindlen wrote about the same thing in Newsweek. "Osama bin Laden could get through the line if the name on his license was the same as that on his ticket and he wasn't packing Oil of Olay," was the call-out subhead for her column.

She told of scooping half-an-ounce of face cream from a 3.5-ounce jar so that it wouldn't be confiscated. "Is this any way to run an airline?," she asked, articulating my complaints of just a few days ago. "Between constant delays and nonexistent services, flying has become the modern version of seafaring steerage accommodations. But nothing has made it seem worse than the long lines of bedraggled and beaten-down travelers at security checkpoints, pouring their change into plastic tubs, standing in stocking feet as their shoes are scanned, proffering zip-lock bags full of face creams and foundation."

And in a great leap to big-picture analysis that I never thought to post, she wrote: "This is not merely an inconvenience. The whole cockeyed system has become a symbol of the shortcomings of government programs and responses. It's expensive, arbitrary and infuriating; it turns low-wage line workers into petty despots. And instead of making Americans feel safer, its sheer silliness illuminates how impotent we are in the face of terrorism. The hustle and bustle at U.S. checkpoints is window dressing, another one of those rote, unthinking exercises that are the hallmark of bureaucracies, like 'Bleak House' with luggage."

Read her entire column at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15562940/site/newsweek/ -- and don't forget your one-quart zip-lock bag when you head for the airport.