No More Binkies

Okay. No more liquid-filled binkies on airplanes. I can understand that. I mean, some crazy son-of-a-bitch could stick the business end of an electrode attached to a battery or a cell phone detonator into the binkie and set off an explosion proportionate to... Well, I guess the amount of peroxide based or whatever liquid explosive the crazy (now, stupid!) son-of-a-bitch put in the binkie would, most likely poof pretty much like a beer fart and burn the guy's nose hairs, while scaring the shit out of the baby, for Christ's sake. That is, of course, if he had a baby and if he didn't, what the fuck was he doing with the binkie in the first place? Satisfaction of a fetish, maybe?

I'm wondering here if the issue of Preparation H came up in a Chertoff staff meeting. Although--thank the good Lord--I don't have to use this stuff, the wipes are smothered in some kind of liquid and, I understand, there are suppositories that, most likely, also contain some kind of liquid. What about hemorrhoids? If you're on a four or six or eight hour flight, I guarantee you that, if you've got the nasty buggers, hemorrhoids, you're going to need to soothe their certain-to-occur complaints during the flight. What about Prep H? Or, is one simply left with locking oneself in the toilet and massaging oneself with one's index finger which, most likely, will ease the discomfort for about five minutes? But, then, liquid hand soap has been banned, so what means of cleanin' up is okey-dokey according to Chertoff? Yeah, I guess the airline's supply their bathrooms with those little bars of soap. I wouldn't know. Of all the thousands of miles I've flown, I've never used the bathroom in an airplane, except, of course in my novel, "A Cirlec of Magic," available at... Never mind.

Today, I heard that those liquid filled inserts Dr. Scholls makes for your shoes have gone on the banned list. I've got a couple of those in one pair of my trail shoes and they're great for the stressed arches. I'm wondering though, if Chertoff and company are banning all electronics on airplanes, how would one detonate the peroxide paste-based explosive in one's shoes? Of course, this assumes that--the by and large non-English-as-a-primary-language federalized mafia who meet and greet us as we pass through the beeping machines--those pesky Dr. Scholls inserts haven't been spotted and ripped out and confiscated before we ever get on the plane.

Now, I'm hearing that mascara is a banned substance. Gawd!

This whole knee-jerk reaction from Chertoff and crew is, of course, reactionary and, sadly, really doesn't provide or invoke any real confidence that Chertoff and crew know what the hell they're doing. Remember Katrina, ya'll? Why'd Chertoff keep his ass on that one?

Recalling the initial hysteria with the onset of the AIDS pandemic, I'm reminded that, in time, hysteria kind of slipslides--for most of us--into a non-hysterical logicality that respects fact over fiction (and hysteria) and centers on what measures are really, truly effective in the fight against the demon, the bug, the fearfull entity that has been visited upon the human condition.

Fundamentalistic Islamic terrorism is the demon, the bug, the fearfull entity that has been visited upon us. Does one really believe that banning binkies from aircraft is the answer?

Forgive me, but I do believe there is another direction--political correctness be damned to the particular hell it deserves--that might be a wee bit more effective in assuring the safety of what Chertoff calls the "traveling public." Islamic Fundamentalists fit a profile. Or, at least the pictures and descriptions I've reviewed tend to indicate--100 fucking percent of the time--that Islamic Fundamentalists--forgive me--kind of all look alike. Would it be too much for Chertoff and crew to consider that reality rather than honing in on binkies and Prep H?