What should be and what is...

[derien]

What I should be doing...

I have a pile of holiday cards here I need to get out. 

I have to try to phone my brothers (not this morning because they're on the west coast).

I have to balance my checking account.

I have to get a new battery for my alarm clock - it started making a funny chirping noise at the end of it's normal ring sound, this morning.


What I'm actually doing...

- Looking at porn.

I spent an hour writing a comment for lucylou's post of a dirty picture to indeedsir.  (Yes, it's Wooster and Jeeves doing the nasty.  Don't click here if you're at work or otherwise don't want to see, um, sock garters and not much other clothing.)  Well, yes, I think I spent the time making comments because I care about art and artists.  I was not happy when I saw how much space I'd devoted to the constructive criticism part of my response as opposed to the praise part, but I suppose if one is going to be truly constructive it requires space. 

Anyway, after I was done with that I realized I wasn't going back to bed, so had my shower and made tea. 

- Trying to resist reading the newest chapter of daegaer's story at mars_assassins until I can read it over breakfast. 

- Feeling badly that chn_breathmint is now so scared of the TSA that she's decided not to come to the U.S. (even though she wasn't going to visit me). 

I feel rather bothered about that whole incident, actually.  I think there's a whole lot that strange_selkie neglected to say in the post which scared Mel, whether by purposeful or accidental ommision or because she didn't realize some of what was going on.  I elaborated somewhat in a reply to harlecerule's comment on my post of yesterday.  In a nutshell, strange_selkie posted a story of how she was cavity searched by TSA, given no reason for it beyond 'discrepancies in your ID.'  Her post has been picked apart on metafilter and holes seem to appear in her story, but I don't really hold the holes against her as I don't think anyone's story initially is 100% clear and accurate no matter how truthful they may think they are being.  The picking gained her some anonymous trolls, apparently, so she friendslocked her original story so you can no longer read it, and made a response here.  (I haven't read it all, nor all the comments.)  In other words, it's turned into a typical internet shitstorm.  (People also pointed out that she does display some racism in her comments saying she shouldn't have been picked for additional screening because she is white and wasn't wearing a headcloth or anything.  I'm sure we all have some blind spots and assumptions.  It bothers me that she seems completely unaware of it and in fact in denial of it, but it's neither here nor there in the larger setting of her story, I think.)    Anyway, I'm right now composing a comment for strange_selkie with the number for TSA Office of Civil Rights, because I think that whenever someone is badly treated they need to stand up and shout about it or they're leaving it for someone else to be badly treated.   

Okay, now it's time for dishes and making breakfast, then I get to read mars_assassins.:)

Comments

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

Re the "head covering" issue - I suppose people are assuming selkie meant "I don't look like a 'Muslim'" - in fact she has made several posts about her desire to cover her hair as a Jew once she's married. Given that she was visiting her fiancee, it's fairly reasonable to assume she may have had her hair covered while with her, and had removed the scarf/whatever so as not to attract attention from outsiders (I don't know if that's actually the case or not, but covering her hair is a big personal issue for her, and one that she does mention frequently).

[chn-breathmint.livejournal.com]

what I'm really scared of is of something happening and me never getting any recourse, you know - nobody believing me or nobody caring even if I get roughly cavity-searched in a small, dirty room.

I don't think I could deal with that. I don't dare to fly alone. I don't know how to deal with that.

I'm not getting on a plane until that gets solved. (that and the rising complaints about patdowns being too intrusive and articles about NINE YEAR OLDS BEING ASKED TO UNBUTTON THEIR PANTS)

Also. Jeeves. Wooster. Slash. Oh. My. God.

It's so wrong it came out the other way and is somehow right. Don't dare to click.

- Mel

[dances-withcats.livejournal.com]

Tough call about the whole TSA thing. I remember reading about it before Selkie friends-locked it. Whether or not her story "has holes," it's still a story that should be told.

It kinda bums me out that these stories make people scared to come to the US or to deal with the TSA. I used to be one of those people who thought that anyone in uniform was a fascist thug just waiting to go beat up some "niggers" and "fags" and "towelheads"....ah yes, my Hardcore Years, where I happily blared MDC's "Dead Cops" while driving through town....but since I decided to jettison that prejudice (after having a brother who joined the army, the best supervisor ever--who just happened to be a retired Marine Colonel--and getting to know the cops around town), I've found that my life is oh-so-much easier. Of course, here in Maine where you can really get to know cops and the like as members of the community, it's much easier to jettison those kinds of prejudices.

I imagine that if I were black and lived in an urban center, I'd have a much different feeling about police and security officials. I remember as a poor kid and as a punk rocker, shopkeepers always eyed me with suspicion (to the point of following me around the store) believing that I'd steal something, while the rich kids were the ones doing all the shoplifting. So I know what it's like to be seen through prejudiced eyes. I still think life is better if you don't go through it thinking that The Man is out to get you. :-)

Besides, most of these cops, TSA officials, security gards, shopkeepers and the like are just doing their jobs as they are required to do. What's the point of giving people a ration of shit for doing their job?

[derien.livejournal.com]

Well, that may be the case. I think her words were along the lines of "why should they pick on a bright looking young white woman who didn't even have her hair covered?" - although not having the original post to refer to I may have that wrong. I may be oversensitized because I've heard so many passengers complain that we shouldn't be picking on them because they're obviously not terrorists since they're 'Americans' (read "white").

[derien.livejournal.com]

*hugs* I'm sorry that your scared, and I can understand why you are. You feel what you feel and that's not to be ignored. I like to think that you'd be fine - I believe that you would be. But if I put my voice forward to convince you to make the trip and then something did happen - because sometimes things do happen, no matter how slim the odds - I'd feel horrible.

Again, the nine year olds being asked to unbutton their pants - It shouldn't be happening, if it is I want it to be stopped, but I don't know how much of that is misperception. Very often people who are getting upset unbutton their own pants, it's like they expect that's what we're going to ask them to do and we're actually standing there saying, "No, no, stop, we don't need that, we can do perfectly fine without that, please," and they just are so caught up in their own heads that they don't even hear us.

Re Jeeves / Wooster - I love it, I can't tell you how much I adore this pairing. :)

[derien.livejournal.com]

And, as you probably very well know, I never thought, when I was a kid, that I'd ever in a million years be gotten into a uniform to work for The Man. ;)

[chn-breathmint.livejournal.com]

I guess the real underlying issue is I have been raped and abused by other authority figures, and nobody believed me because who's really going to believe a 10 year old over an upstanding parishioner?

It's because of this I have a niggling mistrust of most authority figures up to and including security staff.

The physical violation of a cavity search just triggered me more - there's already the fear that if something happens to me, it's my word against theirs, and would a filthy furriner even be trusted?

What if they really do go overboard? I don't think I could cope with the ramifications of sexual molestation again. I'm scared, and I honestly would do better with someone I trusted to hold my hand or at least protect me. Bear witness so that it's someone else's word plus mine. So someone believes me.

Unfortunately, plane fares being what they are, this is about as likely as a snowball's chance in Hell. I don't know how to solve this fear.

- Mel

[chn-breathmint.livejournal.com]

Also, here's two articles about kids being searched, with a teen being asked to remove her belt, unbutton her pants, and roll them below the beltline for an inspection.

AFAIK they're not allowed to ask me to remove my belt, even if it's a money belt - or maybe I'm wrong on this.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=25627
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=24796

- Mel

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

She never mentions ethnicity, just her style of clothing, which includes non-covered hair. Reading over the post, the first immediate reason she gives for being selected (and she says she doesn't know, it's the first thing she thought of) was the fact that she was crying.

In the second, unlocked post she makes it clear that it wasn't the fact that she was searched that upset her, but the fact that she was mocked in a sexist and homophobic way, and that it seemed to her that the officials were abusing their power.

I'm sure you get a lot of idiots who think that their ethnicity should excuse them from being searched, and that you should only examine people with dark skin, but selkie doesn't come across as saying that. What's more, I know quite well that even the most innocent of people can look rather shifty if suddenly asked questions by someone in authority (hell, if a cop stops my car in a routine checkpoint I start feeling like I'm about to be hauled away even when they''re just checking tax discs). But these particular officials seem - if she's remembering it right - to have taken delight in frightening her.

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

After this Christmas, when I have a car, I am not flying again if at all avoidable until I stop seeing the terrifying stories about TSA. I was scared before, when it was just intrusive pat-downs and targeting women. Now I'm fucking terrified.

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

If TSA implemented better training and all, or at least the vast majority, of TSA officials demonstrated sensitivity to the part where patting down strangers in public tends to make them uncomfortable, then I wouldn't object to them "just doing their job" (even if I still think airline security is a joke at the moment).

This is not the case. So if anything inappropriate happens to me, if I am given shit for asking for my rights, I will complain, and I will not say "Oh, they're just doing their job."