Thinking Out Loud

By Gerard Meister

My readers know that I can usually handle what life has to offer with aplomb, and sometimes even a little humor sprinkled over the every-day travails that are constantly visited on me. But not this time! When it comes to providing safe and secure airplane travel our government's obsession with political correctness is downright dangerous. A veritable cult of political correctness coupled with the arrogance that flows from such belief, has suddenly become the (unwritten) law-of-the land, and any departure from that school of thought is morally wrong and therefore un-American. Here is the way it works:

In its efforts to provide safe and secure airplane travel the Transportation Safety Administration has decreed that a random sampling of between 10 and 15 percent of all travelers must undergo extra screening. Not 10 or 15 percent of all males between 17 and 49 years of age (a grouping which accounts for approximately 99.98% of all hijackings); not 10 or 15 percent of all Muslims males or females (a grouping which accounts for virtually every single deadly hijacking the world has endured the past few decades); not 10 or 15 percent of all cash purchased one-way ticket holders (a grouping which would have included 100% of the 9/11 hijackers); but the decree, because it is mandated to be random does include, particularly here in Florida: 70, 80 and 90-year olds; people in wheel chairs; people hooked up to portable breathing contraptions, colostomy bags and, of course, the blind - white cane, seeing eye dog and all!

Here's some "Believe It Or Not" chapter and verse from the Sun-Sentinel, February 7, 2005:
(Copyright 2005 by the Sun-Sentinel)

"Sharon West was appalled when her elderly parents were pulled aside for extra screening before flying from Fort Lauderdale to Norfolk, Va., a year ago. Her mother, then 74, had a hard time breathing and walking, while her father, then 75, had undergone a knee replacement. Yet, they were ordered to stand with legs spread and arms out, as screeners ran metal-detecting wands and hands over them. Today, her parents refuse to fly.

"The Transportation Security Administration says all passengers must be subject to stiff screenings because a wheelchair or a baby stroller could be laden with explosives. "We have found artfully concealed weapons in wheelchairs, prosthetic limbs as well as in children's toys and even on children," TSA spokeswoman Lauren Stover said."

For most people, secondary examinations are not that big a deal. But for seniors and the disabled, such scrutiny can be intimidating because of the close personal contact with screeners, say advocates for the elderly and the handicapped."

Bill Knight, deputy director of the Center for Independent Living of Broward, uses a wheelchair. Last July, while flying from Fort Lauderdale to Washington, D.C., screeners asked him to get out of his chair because they wanted to examine his cushion. 'I refused,' he said. 'I can't get out of my chair. They would have had to lift me up and put me in a regular chair in the waiting area. It seemed like overkill to me.' (The screeners relented and simply ran a wand over his chair.)

"Harold Cousminer, 79, requires a wheelchair, a special machine to pump oxygen for sleep apnea, and a white folding cane because he is legally blind. 'What with the wheelchair and that odd machine in a carry-on bag, he always gets a thorough search inside and out, whereas I'm allowed to just walk through,' said his wife, who has no mobility problems."

While the complaints about the idiocy of this policy have been rising to a fever pitch, I fear nothing will happen to neither ease the burden of travel security for the aged, the lame and the disabled, nor enhance the security at the airports one iota. This is because to some people it is just as important to be politically correct as it to be safe. So someday, somewhere at one of our airports, a thirty-one year old terrorist with a couple of vials of Anthrax hidden in his luggage will chortle as the screeners pass him by to check out someone's eighty-one year old great-grandmother. After all, that's the American way, right?