A Wish for the New Year/Decade/Century

Can we return to not being treated like suspected criminals before boarding an airplane?

Enough is enough.

If someone *REALLY* wants to hijack a plane, don't you think they'd do the research as to which airports are going to use those full body scanning machines - and just avoid them? In the meantime, hundreds of thousands of regular people have to go through the entire tedious process of removing all outerwear and shoes and get full body scans... while the random angry person will just go to some airport that does not have the equipment.

What I want to be able to do again:

• Take my friends/relatives to the gate when they depart... have a drink at the bar while waiting for the plane.
• Greet my friends/relatives at the gate - and help them with the carry-ons while walking to the baggage claim
• Just go on through to the gate without removing my laptop from my bag...
• not have to take off my shoes/coat/belt - this is all so undignified.

Isn't there another way to promote goodwill and return to some sort of civil behavior rather than create more hate? I mean - think of all the poor people who's only "crime" was that they were born in some countries that are being bombed by the U.S. (and other countries)... what kind of quality of life are they living? So all they know is that they are being hated-upon because the country they live in is harboring terrorists... but what kind of terror are we wreaking among them? of course they're going to grow up resenting us... and hating us more...

so we are our own worst enemies. yes i'm ranting incoherently - but all this escalation of security measures is encroaching on our personal freedoms... and it can only continue so much longer until we all are at our wits' end. ENOUGH ALREADY!

If some crazy person is *THAT* angry and wants to kill lots of people - he/she can do it in many different ways - not just on an airplane.

and what's more - i heard the airplane (that landed in detroit - the one with the underpants bomber) referred to a weapon of mass destruction. WTF??? I wish i remembered where i heard that ridiculous statement uttered... It's a vehicle used for transportation... and it was almost hijacked. but it wasn't. what about that subway car in Madrid that was bombed? would that also be referred to as a WMD? I hate talking heads... they do nothing for real discourse. They do nothing for solving problems...

I sometimes hate TV...

but i really hate the whole airport experience now. i might have to stop air travel for a while. Thanks, assholes - for ruining it for the rest of us.