DC Direct, Part 1 – Get Your Kicks

An elderly woman sitting across the aisle nudges her companion, points out the Airbus’ window and announces, as the Capitol Mall comes into sight: “There’s where I was for the inauguration. I had tickets that would have gotten me up front, but I didn’t use them. I wanted to be with the common people.” Pause. “Because that’s what I am – a common person.”

Actual common people don’t ever feel the need to make that declaration of course. Announcing that you are “a common man” pretty much establishes that you consider yourself anything but.

I had helped this same woman heft her aircraft-structural-integrity-straining, full-of-anvils-apparently, slab-sided suitcase into the overhead compartment. Had I known, I might have suggested she find a government agency to take care of the problem for her. The sad thing is: such an agency probably exists, or soon will.

Ah well, it was a comfortable flight and our feeling of well-being was enhanced by the knowledge that no one’s shoes could possibly present a security threat. New rules require travelers to put their shoes directly on the conveyor through the x-ray machine, NOT IN A PLASTIC BIN! The reason, we were told, was that it gave the TSA techs a better x-ray.

I am not a security expert, nor am I a regular TSA-basher, but this announcement caused a bit of concern. If the plastic in the plastic bins does indeed screw with the x-rays, then it’s not going to take Mohammed bin Blowmeupgood very long to fashion a pair of shoes out of plastic bin material and stuff them with C-4.

This explanation made so little sense that I decided that the TSA is lying about the reason for this latest security policy change. It has to be a hygiene thing – somebody might want to eat out of those gray bins or something – but they figured that the new policy would “sell” better as an enhanced security thing.

However, the fact that I got the following item through security is a bit disturbing:

My air travel routine always involves leaving my pocket-knife in the cup-holder of my car, before I head for the terminal. Perhaps because I was distracted by the presence of the smokin’ hot Mrs. Trzupr, I failed to do so this time. So I tossed it in my carry-on and hoped for the best – or possibly the worst, depending on your point of view. There is little chance of someone taking over an airliner using a Swiss Army Knife that has a rather dull 2 ½ inch blade, but I did find it rather unsettling that I could have tried.

We flew United, which gave me the opportunity to eavesdrop on radio traffic between the cockpit and air traffic control. And I heard something rather, er, “unusual” when we were on final approach. Usually, the tower at an airport identifies itself by the airport name. Thus, “O’Hare tower, United 235 is cleared for landing…”, or “LaGuardia tower, American 802 is cleared for take-off. Fly runway heading…” etc.

The official name of the airport along the Potomac across from D.C. is: Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. So do you think the reason controllers in the tower there do not refer to it as “Reagan tower” and choose to use “Washington tower” instead has anything to do with still-lingering bitterness over the way that the Gipper broke up the illegal strike of air traffic controllers over two decades ago?

Yeah. Me too.

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