Riiiiiiing….riiiiiiiiiing

“hello, Senator Bob Casey’s office, Tayeesha speaking.”

“Hi Tayeesha, my name’s Brendan Skwire. I’m a constituent calling from Philadelphia, and I have a number of concerns for the Senator related to the TSA.

“I’ve spent the weekend reading a number of disturbing articles about the TSA” I quoted from Goldberg’s most salient piece:

During a trip last Sunday by a father and son through Orlando airport in Florida, the 8-year-old boy was selected for extra screening by TSA after going through the metal detector.

The father said the officer described the procedure before conducting it. Then he patted down the boy in the open security area, using the backside of his hands to check his genital area, he said.

“I didn’t think it was going to be as horrible as he was describing,” said the boy’s father, Bill, who works as a lobbyist in Washington and did not want his full name used.

“We spend my child’s whole life telling him that only mom, dad and a doctor can touch you in your private area, and now we have to add TSA agent and that’s just wrong,” he told Reuters. “At some point the terrorists have won.”

“Look,” I said, “I have a six-year old child who flies to and from Canada on a regular basis. I don’t want him going through those x-ray machines because they cause cancer, and I certainly don’t want him getting molested by some guy at TSA. I want to know what Bob casey’s office is going to do to stop this.”

“There’s nothing we can do,” Tayeesha said. “TSA is there to protect us.” That’s the typical democratic response to anything these days, “No we can’t”, so i pushed back, hard.

“Really? Senator Casey can’t ask someone to investigate? He can’t publish an op-ed? He can’t call up Janet Napolitano and register a complaint?”

“well, uh uh uh um, sir, I think that it’s more important to be secure when you’re flying than–”

“Oh really? Listen, TSA is searching kids in a way that that’s been banned by the US Army in Afghanistan, because it makes people join the Taliban! Americans and our kids are worse than the Taliban?”

What bothers me is that I am on the verge of re-deploying from Afghanistan after a 10-month combat tour that involved having to deal with, among other things, conducting searches of local nationals when involved with security tasks within my Infantry company. At no time were we permitted or even encouraged to search children or women. In fact, this would have been considered an extreme violation of acceptable cultural practice and given the way word travels here, been a propaganda victory for the Taliban.

“No! that’s not– wha– ”

“if my kid gets searched like that, I’m going to call your office.”

“That won’t do anything sir, we can’t come down or–”

“No, but I’ll bet having to listen to an angry parent and a crying child will get the message across, won’t it?”

“Who do I sue if my kid gets abused like that?”

“Sir,” she said. ‘if you’re that concerned about someone touching your son, maybe you should have him go through the scanner.”

“No Tayeesha,” I said. “I already told you, i don’t want him going through an x-ray machine because of the radiation..”

While the TSA says the machines are safe, backscatter technology raises concerns among some because it uses small doses of ionizing radiation. The use of millimeter-wave technology hasn’t received the same attention, and radiation experts say it poses no known health risks.

The risk of harmful radiation exposure from backscatter scans is very small, according to David Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University and a professor of radiation biophysics.

But he said he is concerned about how widely the scanners will be used.

“If you think of the entire population of, shall we say a billion people per year going through these scanners, it’s very likely that some number of those will develop cancer from the radiation from these scanners,” Brenner said.

Skin cancer would likely be the primary concern, he said. Each time the same person receives a backscatter scan, the small risk associated with the low dose of radiation is multiplied by the number of exposures.

“I mean for crying out loud,” I continued, “have you ever been to the dentist for an x-ray? They put a lead vest on you to prevent exposure, and leave the room! And you want me to put my kid through that unprotected? NO!”

“well maybe that’s the solution,”Tayeesha said. “maybe your son should wear a lead vest when going through the scanner.”

That was too much. “What?” I asked. “that would defeat the purpose of having a scanner to begin with, because the lead vest would prevent it from working.” I honestly couldn’t tell if she was being flip or just a jackass, and either way the response was inappropriate for an upset constituent.

“You’ll be hearing more from me about this,” I said. “We can’t do anything is not an acceptable stance. I’m going to be calling my representative, the TSA, and making a stink about this. NO ONE IS TOUCHING MY KID, AND NO ONE IS SUBJECTING HIM TO RADIATION.

“Good day to you,” I said, and hung up the phone.

And that’s my conversation with Bob Casey’s office.

Adding: although I am no fan of jeffrey Goldberg the warmongering pig, I will admit that his stance on TSA is admirable and confrontational. he promotes the idea of a national opt out day:

Who?
You, your family and friends traveling by air on Wednesday, November 24, 2010.

What?
National Opt-Out Day. You have the right to opt-out of the naked body scanner machines (AIT, or Advance Imaging Technology, as the government calls it). All you have to do is say “I opt out” when they tell you to go through one of the machines. You will then be given an “enhanced” pat down. Remember too, as the TSA says, “Everyday is opt-out day.” That is, you can opt out any time you fly.

Where?
At an airport near you!

When?
Wednesday, November 24, 2010. We want families to sit around the dinner table, eating turkey, talking about their experience – what constitutes an unreasonable search, how forceful of a pat down will we allow, especially of children, and how much privacy are we will to give up? We hope the experience then propels people to write their Member of Congress and the airlines to demand change

Why?
The government should not have the ability to virtually strip search anyone it wants. The problem is compounded in that if you do not want to go through the naked body scanner, the government has made the alternative perhaps worse! In an effort to try and make everyone comply with the scanners, the government has instituted “enhanced” pat downs. There are reports from travelers across the country about how the TSA now touches the genitals and private areas of men, women and children in a much more aggressive manner. We do not believe the government has a right to see you naked or aggressively feel you up just because you bought an airline ticket.

How?
By saying “I opt out” when told to go through the bodying imaging machines and submitting to a pat down. Also, be sure to have your pat down by TSA in full public – do not go to the back room when asked. Every citizen must see for themselves how the government treats law-abiding citizens.

…and then goes further. Way further:

come November 24th, here’s an idea you might try to make the day extra-special. It’s a one-word idea: Kilts. Think about it — if you’re a male, and you want to bollix-up the nonsensical airport security-industrial complex, one way to do so would be to wear a kilt. If nothing else, this will cause TSA employees to throw up their hands in disgust. If you want to go the extra extra mile, I suggest commando-style kilt-wearing. While it is probably illegal to fly without pants, I can’t imagine that it’s illegal to fly without underpants.

In intend to wear a kilt whenever I fly, from now on. Buy one here.

and makes question marks look like this: É

Anyway, visiting with the teachers, hanging out with Sam, and hitting a bunch of shows tonight at the Montreal Pop Festival.

I love it up here: everyone is so well dressed. Even the bums look sorta classy.

The website is called “Becky & Jeremy’s Exciting Adoption Adventure,” created by a Haverford couple to capture a once-in-a-lifetime odyssey to bring home a son from Kazakhstan as well as the joys of raising a first child.

But what has happened so far to Becky Compton, Jeremy Meyer, and the 16-month-old they call Noah Aldanysh Compton-Meyer in the mountain-ringed city of Taraz has been anything but routine.

It is there, about 6,350 miles from home, that Meyer, 40, and Compton, 39, have spent most of the last 7 1/2 months as Noah learned to walk, ate his first banana – and became a pawn in a battle with Kazakh officials who have blocked what the couple expected to be a routine adoption.

Compton, a psychology professor at Haverford College, remains in Taraz, spending three hours a day with Noah at an orphanage while fighting the Kazakhstan bureaucracy. Her husband, a labor lawyer with a Center City firm, returned four weeks ago to an empty house on Haverford’s campus and the possibility that Noah might never arrive at the freshly painted, toy-filled room that has been waiting for him for nearly a year.

“It was incredibly hard to leave,” Meyer said. “I may never see him again. That’s horrifying.”

Jeremy is a friend of mine, and I’ve been following this wrenching saga.

If you’d like to help the Meyers, or any of these families, please call your senator or congresscritter, especially if they prioritize children’s affairs and international relations.

The fact is, Obama wanted to cut food stamps to pay for Race to the Top, aka “No Child Left Behind” with a different name:

My point is that I have been working for school reform long before I ever heard of the secretary of education, and long before I ever heard of Obama. And I’m happy to welcome them on the reform road, but I’ll be damned if I think the only road to reform lies in the head of the Secretary of Education.

We were told we have to offset every damn dime of [new teacher spending]. Well, it ain’t easy to find offsets, and with all due respect to the administration their first suggestion for offsets was to cut food stamps. Now they were careful not to make an official budget request, because they didn’t want to take the political heat for it, but that was the first trial balloon they sent down here. … Their line of argument was, well, the cost of food relative to what we thought it would be has come down, so people on food stamps are getting a pretty good deal in comparison to what we thought they were going to get. Well isn’t that nice. Some poor bastard is going to get a break for a change.

No wonder he’s signing bills at the Ronald Reagan Building: just like the man he admires, Obama also sees food for the poor as optional.

Don’t mind me of course, it’s the relentless negativity talking. I get that way when people start talking about taking food out of poor people’s mouths. Maybe I should clap harder, so the Republicans don’t win.

Christina is 30 today. Happy birthday sweetie, I love you!

I don’t know who decided that singing like Randy Newman with a head cold was a good idea, but the real bad actor is Scott Colan, who visited this horror on me. And on you too, if you play the vid.

Specifically:
Phillyist Framed 2010 Opening Reception
Studio 34 (4522 Baltimore Avenue)
Friday, January 29th
7 – 9 p.m.
FREE!

Be there!

My brother Ray has an entry. Hope to see you there!

Also, for beer lovers, my first batch of all-grain homebrew is in the primary fermenter, waiting to be transfered to the secondary later today.

So there will be a little writing later. Right now, I have to get a recalcitrant 5-year-old into the shower….