tagged w/ encouraging
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By now, if you haven’t heard the outrage at the TSA’s “enhanced” pat-down procedures, then you don’t use the internet, and you’re not reading this blog.
They grope children. They touch your junk. The procedures are ludicrously ineffective and harmful from a security point of view. And the naked-picture xray machines are most likely unsafe.
Things like this get me feeling all rebellious and Jeffersonian. So, since I’m flying up to Joyent’s Vancouver offices today, I decided to do a little prep work.
First, I took the UCSF letter, added a bit of highlighting and annotation to make it a bit easier to scan, and printed it out. You can get a copy from http://j.mp/cancer-ray.
I was worried that I’d chicken out. No, not “worried”. I was sure I’d chicken out. Of course I would. I talk a good game about incendiary politics and unconventional ideals, but when the chips are down, I generally do the expedient thing like a nice polite citizen. I’m not one of these “talk down the authorities” types, even though I wish I was.
But then my flight was cancelled, and I learned that I’d have to be in the airport until 12 to catch the next one. The extra time to kill strengthened my resolve. “So what if I’m detained?,” I thought. “I don’t have to be anywhere for 5 more hours.” Plus I was alone, so there wasn’t anyone else’s embarrassment to worry about. I repeated the confidence mantras in my head. They’re expendable workers. I own this place. I’m the boss. They work for me. The only reason I don’t fire them is that they’re cheaper than robots. Etc.
I started talking to the family behind me as soon as I got into the security line, a middle-aged couple with 2 adolescent boys and a girl about 4 or 5. They were amused by my shoes, so it wasn’t too hard to strike up a conversation.
I asked where they were from. Santa Clara. Heading to Toronto for some family thing. I asked if they’d heard about the new X-Ray machines. The dad was tired and apathetic. She said, “Oh, yeah, I heard about those on the news, that if you don’t go through, they grope you or something, and if you do, they take a naked picture of you.”
“Yeah, it’s messed up. Did you know that the UCSF oncology department thinks they pose a serious health risk, especially to children or anyone at risk for breast cancer?”
“Whoa, no, I didn’t know that!”
(mal)By now, if you haven’t heard the outrage at the TSA’s... more
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