Fly Naked

Earlier this year, while traveling, the Phenom remarked that the whole security thing would be much easier if the airlines just made everyone fly naked. We thought it was a joke. It would seem that the day is coming.

I still don't quite understand why knitting needles are a-okay -- but lipstick isn't.

In the paper today, there was a photo of a woman applying lipstick before being forced to throw it away at the airline security check point. I have gone to the TSA's website, and they say anything gel or liquid is prohibited. Lipstick isn't a gel. It's a stick - it's waxy. Does that mean I can't take chapstick? I have to have chapstick. No one wants to see an ashy-lipped monkey on their flight!

The Phenom says that the government is right to ban everything in the name of safety. I bristle at the thought that perfectly law abiding citizens must be so inconvenienced by this crap. I understand, racial or national profiling isn't an adequate solution. But, most domestic travelers in this country have never belonged to a terrorist organization, have never traveled to the middle east, and frankly couldn't find iraq or iran or pakistan on a map if you paid them a million dollars.

Clearly, it's a good thing that I'm not the one expected to make such decisions -- but I also think that there must be some way to adequately address security without making people submit to humiliations to travel. What's next, we get national ID's tattooed to our arms?