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[OM] Re: [OT] Flying with digital cameras

Subject: [OM] Re: [OT] Flying with digital cameras
From: Steve Dropkin <steve@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 20:59:43 -0500
keith_w wrote:

> I understand about your inconvenience, Thomas, but what the airlines are 
> doing 
> is not about YOU!
> We, the rest of the flying world, are *all* at risk, tremendous risk, because 
> of a couple of insane terrorist organizations.
> It's VERY real, okay?
> Some flight paths are more at risk, and if you insist on going to or from 
> there, you'll either have to put up with the many safety measures or not go.

According to http://www.planecrashinfo.com, the odds of being killed 
on a single airline flight is 1 in half-a-million if you fly the 
worst airline in the world and as good as 1 in almost 6.5 million if 
you fly on the best carriers. Even if terrorism bumps up those 
numbers by a factor of _ten_, that's still no worse than one in 
50,000. Hardly any of us would buy a lottery ticket with those odds. 
We certainly don't plan our days around such long odds.

To avoid this remote possibility of danger, though, we made people 
with illnesses board planes without medicine and tossed away _tons_ 
of beverages, hair gel, and toothpaste _throughout the entire 
airline system in the U.S. and Britain_ to guard against the 
possibility that some 60-year-old from Miami in a bad polyester 
outfit might terrorize the plane with a her bottle of mineral water. 
(Actually, I've smelled some colognes which _could_ do that, but 
that's something else.)

Almost every one of us gets into our cars every day and drives 
somewhere. We do so without the aid of four-point competition seat 
harnesses, huge rollbars, crash helmets, and HANS devices (cf. Dale 
Earnhardt) even though those things could save some of the driving 
public from a fatal injury. There are many more people driving than 
flying. So why are we so "lax" about driving? Could it be that there 
has been some reasonable assessment of risk versus benefit?

I find it hard to go along with walking onto a plane without so much 
as a book (what kind of weapon is a book -- unless we're talking 
"War and Peace" or something critical of the war-mongers in 
Washington?) while hold luggage is given a quick once-over and air 
cargo is barely checked at all. I find it hard to take security 
seriously when the people hired work at a minimum wage (_there's_ a 
job with value!) and don't even know all of the rules they're 
supposed to enforce (how many discussions have we had on this list 
about our "right" to not send film though the X-ray machine?).

No, this security as theater; it is (re)activity substituting for 
progress. Next time you're taking off your shoes, subjecting 
yourself to patdowns, and shipping laptops full of business 
information and your toiletries as baggage (hoping they get there 
with us), take the time to think about how "safe" we are and how the 
terrorists haven't won .... :-(

Steve

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