The Tin Lizard

The Short Arm Of The Law - Airport Security Patdowns

The headline event of the month seems to have been those security scanners, and the related personal pat-down searches, that have become the height of security fashion in airports.  Luckily, it appears that not too many people chose to participate in the boycott of the scanners that had been urged for the Thanksgiving holiday; this demonstrates that most people don't care that much, or perhaps just that they thought better of inconveniencing themselves and many others by causing delays on the busiest travel day of the year.

Either way, it seems the scanners and pat-downs are probably here to stay; their legality is being challenged in court now, but I can't imagine they'll be banned.  The scanner, it seems, can be made less "revealing," and that seems to satisfy many people.  I'd be happier if they could be made more effective in detecting what they're supposed to detect; if the machines could be relied on to detect about 99% of all potential threats, and only people who raised a flag in the scanner were searched, that would eliminate most of the pat-downs.

I find it interesting that here in the U.S., the rule seems to be that you'll be either scanned or searched.  Having just completed a trip to Europe, coincidentally through Amsterdam where the scanners are getting special emphasis, I found that most passengers, if not all, are being both scanned and patted down.  U.S. travelers should be prepared for that eventuality; their constitutional rights, even if supported by the courts here at home, won't do them much good in the rest of the world.

It's hard to say that we don't need these security measures, or that they're not doing any good at all.  But I would say that neither the TSA nor the average air traveler are assessing the situation clear-headedly.  The screening in most cases, once set up and applied broadly in most airports, won't detect many would-be terrorists because they'll avoid the screening and look for other avenues of approach; in that sense, passengers who accede to the screenings in the belief that it makes them somehow safer, are probably deceiving themselves. 

 

DWTS And The Bristol Factor

OK, after more than a month with hardly any posts, I guess I've given my readers enough of a rest from my endless blather, so I hope everyone is prepared for the floodgate to be opened once again...

One of the "big" controversies I noticed upon my return from a visit to Europe was all the talk about the television show "Dancing With The Stars."  After several weeks of competition, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol was still in the running, and complaints were running high that she lacked talent and was only being kept on the show by the votes of her mother's political fans. 

I had never seen the show, except in snippets that turned up - believe it or not - on newscasts, or the occasional accidental tune-in.  So I decided to watch the grand finale last week to form my own opinion about the show itself, Bristol, her competitors, and the "controversy" that had developed.

Regarding the show itself:  It's mass entertainment, it's television, so we know going in not to set our expectations too high.  It can be pleasant and fun to watch, and it's not as bad as some of the reality shows turning up these days, devoted to alligator hunters, hoarders, or "real housewives," but it's the modern equivalent of the Christians-vs.-lions stuff at the Colosseum -- keep the populace entertained so they don't cause trouble.  

The show's title is both ambiguous and pretentious.  First, "Dancing with the Stars" sounds as if the show is really about the professional dancers who are paired up with the "stars," yet it isn't really, even though I'm sure those pros, after 13 seasons, have some interesting tales they could tell.   Second, the definition of "star" is clearly a loose one; many of us have never heard of half of them.  The only definition that probably fits them all, over more than a decade of shows, is that they're people who have had their 15 seconds of fame at some point in their lives.  In fact that's the only way to explain how the object of our recent imbroglio, Bristol, whose only claim to fame is being her mother's daughter, ever got on the show in the first place. 

Third, it's important to realize that the program is only secondarily about dancing - the judges' assessments, "expert" perhaps but also inevitably subjective, account for only half the contestants' scores, while viewer voting (the roar of the crowd) provides the other half.  This is the thumbs-up/thumbs-down element, brought directly and unchanged from those rowdy gladiatorial sessions in the Colosseum.

Once the true nature of the show itself is clear, there is not -- or shouldn't be -- much controversy at all.  Anti-Bristolites, calm yourselves!  If political forces were in fact manipulating the vote, it's only because the program was designed to enable such a result.   

Dance afficionados, calm yourselves!  Even one viewing demonstrated fairly conclusively that this younger Palin, in contrast to her competitors in the finals or even to several who had left the show before her, had all the dancing talent and grace of her mother's party's mascot pachyderm, but in the end, she didn't win. 

Politicians of both Republican and Democratic persuasion, calm yourselves!  Far from representing a political surge, the voting in my view reflected the commonly manifested sympathy for an underdog; the non-star non-dancer was working hard and even improving (the judges themselves conceded) but the generally-recognized better dancers prevailed.

Bristol, calm yourself too!   You have no right to carp about people who hate you and your mother.  Nobody hates you!  You're neither important nor talented enough to be hated.  You are your mother's daughter, and that's not your fault.  Anyone who may have voted for you because of that feeble political connection ought to be ashamed for exhibiting such stupidity; by the same token, though, those who were tempted to attribute your longevity in the competition to political factors should hang their heads too, as clearly other factors were at work.  In fact, we don't even know your political views, and it's doubtful that we should care.