Group Grope

Dope, peace, magic
and gods in the tree trunks
and a group grope, baby! 
--Group Grope,
The Village Fugs

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime 
--To His Coy Mistress,
Andrew Marvell,

My God, he was like an octopus.
Hands all over the place 
--The Gift,
The Velvet Underground
___________________

This Sunday's New York Times Travel section uncovered a threat to female airline passengers so great, the paper was moved to run not just one, but TWO, articles on the matter.

Since it WAS Sunday when I read this -- and one ought operate from a principle of charity -- one imagines the paper ran these out of a spirit of public service, for surely the print taken up by this imminent threat was not cheap.

In a word, Donald J. Trump's small but roving hands may show up in an airline seat near you shortly -- BEWARES, ladies!

Just to make sure you know (in case you have been in Timbuktu): there have been sinister "allegations that Donald J. Trump once groped a passenger" [quote -- see clips below]. I dunno about you, but as a ladyfolk, I'm feeling a darn site better knowing that my national paper of note is hard on the job working for my safety and erudition, right?

Yup.

UPDATE

Recent Incidents Put a New Focus on Sexual Assault on Airplanes

By KAREN SCHWARTZ

Recent sexual assaults — and allegations that Donald J. Trump once groped a passenger — have prompted questions about safety on airline flights.

UPDATE

How to Protect Yourself From Sexual Assault on a Plane

By KAREN SCHWARTZ

To minimize the risk of being sexually assaulted on a plane, book an aisle seat and talk to a flight attendant if someone is making you uncomfortable.

But Ranger wonders: after airline passengers have been pre-frisked so robustly by the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) mashers, how would one know the difference between an offense and a defense grope?

After all, some of those TSA handlers have some hella good fun in executing their appointed duties (all for Uncle Sam, mind.)

Taking people's wallets and loose change, belts and shoes, putting them in plastic boxes and running them through conveyor belts, pat downs and wand scanners. Day in and day out, peering closely at the bodily outlines of the obese and the skinny.

It must be a calling, like being a proctologist, perhaps.

Well, it's like being a member of the government (which they are). And like Mr. Reagan said, Don't worry -- we're here to help you.

Just sayin'.

--by Lisa & Jim

[cross-posted @ milpub.]

Last Stop Willoughby

--Keeping Akron safe

Mr. Williams's protection fell away from him
and left him a naked target.
He's been cannonaded this afternoon
by all the enemies of his life.
His insecurity has shelled him,
his sensitivity has straddled him with humiliation
--A Stop at Willoughby, The Twilight Zone

--I only know you got the wrong man.
--Information Transit got the wrong man.
I got the right man.
The wrong one was delivered to me as the right man,
I accepted him on good faith as the right man.
Was I wrong?
--Brazil (1985)

________________

While recently visiting my aged parents it was necessary to pass through four large airports.

There was a Transportation Security Administration warning playing on a continuous loop in each: "If you see anything strange [etc.], report this to the nearest law enforcement officer." Problem was, in two of the four airports, there were no armed law enforcement types visible. In Akron-Canton, I saw a Deputy Sheriff, but Akron is not exactly a threat environment.

The next point: What will an armed cop do to protect us from an IED, or even a camel-mounted machine gun? If a terrorist is going to conduct an attack in an airport it will be done in the blink of an eye, as it was in Lod, Rome and others. However, the reality is, we will never see such an attack in the good old Homeland.

The threat in the airports of America does not originate with the travelers, but rather with the vendors.

All of our airports have inside the security zone commercial activities that have thousands of workers who bypass the outer and inner security belts with ease. This is the weakness of our system. If there is a bomb or weapon smuggled, it will be performed by an insider who is able to bypass the TSA security theatre.

Even so, it is doubtful that any terror organization, to include al-Qaeda, has the ability or operational status to carry out such an attack at this time. For a terrorist attack to have any significance, it must be sensational and symbolic; such a bombing would lack that distinction.

Al-Qaeda will use disposable people like shoe-bomber Reid or crotch bomber Abdulmutallab as a means of keeping pressure upon our infrastructure, but that threat is consistently low order. The supposed bombers that the U.S. has arrested are naught but actors in the terror theatrics.

Actors just as surely as is the TSA organization an eye candy effort which, on a daily basis, closes the barn door after the horse is out