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Cynthia, I agree with you completely.
posted by
SilverMoon7
on December 5, 2005 at 5:21 AM
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Anthony Wiley, you know how
to bring on a smile:-)...
posted by
Cynthia
on November 27, 2005 at 10:42 AM
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Cynthia
Yeaaaaaaaa Canada. We must be doing something right, although I've been interrogated by our customs people at times in a manner far uglier than the U.S.A. customs people. But then, I'm not as pleasing to the eye as you would be luv.-;)
posted by
WileyJohn
on November 27, 2005 at 10:27 AM
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Dear Silvermoon, Your questions
hang in the air. They are the same questions I ask myself. But I do believe we would have been in a very different place, a better place, had we not had this man who some call our president (I can't) in office for the past 5 years. The problem is, we are where we are and many people, maybe the majority of people in the world today, think WE are the problem, not the answer.
posted by
Cynthia
on November 26, 2005 at 6:50 AM
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Flying out of Frankfurt to America, I was interrogated by a customs agent. Who packed my bags? Where were my bags packed? When did I pack them? Where did I leave them before bringing them to the car? Who packed them into the car? Who unpacked them from the car? What electronic devices do I have in them? Am I sure? Is there anything else? Who is the boy with me? What's his name? Where am I going? Who am I meeting? etc. etc. Then, I could pass and check in at the counter. In the meantime, my husband was told to wait some distance away from the check-in desk. All around me, ordinary people were subjected to baggage searches. Somehow, my bags were not searched, leaving me relieved, only because I had exceeded the allowable bottles of wine for transport per person by one. Then, passing through security, I was subjected to a body search. My purse was run through the x-ray no less than three times. Each time I had to unpack and repack and rescan my little carry-on until the mysterious object was found: a lowly USB stick. Returning from Chicago to Frankfurt, check-in was quite the opposite. Yes, bags were x-rayed before they even went through, and no, we weren't allowed to stand and watch. But there was no interrogation. Only one question about my five-year-old travel companion. The guard that passed me through security looked only at my passport, not my son's. He compared my married name on the ticket with my maiden name on the passport, and up until this point, every single guard, customs agent, and ticket agent has paused while they tried to figure out why the names are different, and locate the name change verification on my passport. But this young man, about 20 years old, if a day, didn't pause for a second. He waved me through to the security point, where my son and I had to take off our shoes before passing through the metal detectors. No body check, not a single double-take at my suspicious USB stick. Things at American Airlines, ORD, were decidedly lackadaisical, not to mention generally disorganized, in comparison to my time spent in other airports in other parts of Europe. Our chain is only as strong as our weakest link. Who is the weak link here? Bush? The Administration? Young adults who foster a blase' attitude and don't understand the significance of their inaction? Parents who don't teach their children a proper sense of responsibility? People who betray their own country out a sense of misbegotten righteousness? Religious zealots who hate our country? Where does it end? Will it end when Bush is no longer responsible for our country? And what happens when he's gone? Will someone make the boo-boo finally go away? Or will someone, some force, finally make US go away?
posted by
SilverMoon7
on November 23, 2005 at 5:20 AM
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