Tarmac Times

Yesterday I got to do something I haven't done in a long time--see someone off at the airport from inside the airlines gate.  Ever since September 11 we've had to drop people off--pull up to the curb, unload their bags, and speed away.  But since Miranda flew as an unaccompanied minor ("UMMMMMM," as we call her) to Boston last night, I was able to be with her until she boarded her plane.

Here's a song to celebrate the memory of old times at the airport.  Sing to the tune of Peter, Paul & Mary's "Leaving on a Jet Plane":

So your bags are packed, you're ready to go
I'm standing here inside the gate
Watching all the planes glide in and out
But they haven't called your row just yet
The pilot's smokin' a cigarette
Already I'm so sad to see you go.

So kiss me and smile for me
Turn around and wave at me
Let me know that you'll be back again
You're leavin' on that jet plane
The one that's on the tarmac now
I'll wait and watch you go.

There's so many times I dropped you off
When the TSA don't let you stop
I tell you now, they've changed everything
For we're all potential terrorists
With suspicious shoes and underwear
We're patted down, it's all too much to bear.

So kiss me and smile for me
Turn around and wave at me
Let me know that you'll be back again
You're leavin' on that jet plane
The one that's on the tarmac now
I'll wait and watch you go.

The Bogeyman

As a child I worried about the bogeyman. If I left my bike outside overnight, the bogeyman might take it. If I walked home in the dark after playing outside, the bogeyman might get me. I never saw him, but he was always there.

It didn't occur to me until this week that an entire nation might fear the same bogeyman. Yet we did. His machinations created the stuff of nightmares: jumping from burning buildings; being buried alive; knowing you're about to crash.

I didn't think much about Osama bin Laden in recent years. But I realize now that he was always there, lingering in the dark. Now that he's gone, though, I wonder what fears will take his place. For when the child learns that there's no bogeyman, she feels relief, yes, but soon learns that danger itself is ever present in ever many forms. Though the devil is gone, evil remains.

Are we safer today than we were before Sunday night? I doubt it. But maybe now that we've gotten the bogeyman and buried him at the bottom of the sea, we can regain the balance and vision we need to move beyond September 11 and its disastrous legacy.

Security That Works

Does anyone feel safer with the installation of new body scanners at airports? I don't. And I feel even less safe when I read in Roger Cohen's New York Times column, "The Real Threat to America," that Michael Chertoff--our former director of Homeland Security--runs a security advice business whose clients include the company making these new scanners.

Surprise, surprise. Former government officials profiting from fear.

Meanwhile, conservative Republicans are touting Israeli security, which I was curious about as well. But as Dana Milbank writes in The Washington Post, we can't begin to afford the sophisticated techniques used in Israel, and the use of profiling and invasion of privacy well exceed American norms.

No, what makes me feel safer is this weekend's story of the foiled teen-aged bomber in Portland who thought he was going to obliterate a crowd of Christmas revelers and instead found himself arrested. Good for the FBI. They'd been on his case for months and led him to a point where he couldn't succeed. This is the the kind of detective work that I call security. The more of it, the better.

Removing my shoes and watching TSA employees wand children at the airport don't strike me as powerful terrorist deterrents. Good old gumshoe work does.