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'.

--Lisa & Jim

[cross-posted @ rangeragainstwar.]

Gunning for It

They're talking about things of which
they don't have the slightest understanding, anyway.
It's only because of their stupidity
that they're able to be so sure of themselves 

--The Trial, Kafka 

We didn't love freedom enough 
--The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

_________________

The Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) has spawned myths that have been sewn into our gun culture.

We were told that being alert would alleviate our fear and neutralize the threat, a threat left largely undefined.  The first reaction to the 9-11-01 attacks was to place National Guard riflemen in the airports of America to create a simulacrum safety net against the "bad guys".

From this image issued a cornucopia of terrorist TV and movie depictions of terrorists bearing old fashioned AK's and semi-auto pistols being ferreted out from behind every bush by brave Jack Bauers.  The problem with this media-driven bravado was that it did not address the actual threat.

The closest we came to suffering this sort of threat was the inside the wire shooting by Major Nidal Hasan at Ft. Hood, an event which was entirely predictable and avoidable (as were the World Trade Center attacks themselves if anyone had connected the dots.)  Terrorism was not the problem, but rather a failure of leadership.

The collective insanity of our national reaction to a containable terror threat has led to a warped perception that our safety is enhanced by firearms, a hyperbolic idea beaten into our consciousness at all levels.

The United States has not seen a significant firearms-related terrorist event and we will not because such an attack would lack the drama demanded by the terrorists.  Terror must be significant and, well, terrifying.  It is unlikely that terrorists will ever engage in shootouts in the Homeland.

We confuse the low-intensity conflict in far-flung reaches of the earth like Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza, Israel, Philippines, Mexico, Columbia, et. al. with U.S. concerns at home, leading us to the false conclusion that this will happen in America.  Being so misled allows the proliferation of government security excesses and the militarization of our civilian security and law enforcement agencies.  While this does not make us safer, it does make us less free.

Imagine what our unemployment rates would look like if the people employed by the current U.S. security apparatus, including the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) -- as though we were Britain during the Blitz -- were not padding about in para-pornographic airport pursuits.  How many people are employed in nebulous security functions that provide no protection from any actual threat.  Security and Prisons are the only growth industries in America.

The entire system is like a metastasized cancer -- it is systemic, but we do not see it because we are in the tumor.

We fail to see the fiscal cliff that is based upon security, defense and intelligence activities that have little or any rational basis for their existence.