Lives in a Shoe

Travel Safe Now, Y'Hear?

After pointlessly groping countless Americans, the TSA is keeping a secret watchlist of those who fight back.

Naturally, the TSA’s official definition of troublemaking goes well beyond punching its officers. According to a confidential memo, any behavior that is “offensive and without legal justification” can land a traveler on the list, as can any “challenges to the safe and effective completion of screening.” Anyone who has ever “loitered” near a checkpoint could also make the list. So could any woman who pushes a screener’s hands away from her breasts.

The memo would be more accurate if it stated that anyone who fails to unquestioningly submit to all the TSA’s demands would be found guilty of insubordination. As an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, Hugh Handeyside, told the Washington Post, the policy gives the agency wide latitude to “blacklist people arbitrarily and essentially punish them for asserting their rights.” Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-New Jersey) expressed similar worry. “I am concerned about the civil-liberty implications of such a list,” she said.

The watchlist would seem less perilous if the TSA were not one of most incompetent agencies on Earth.

Travel Safe Now, Y'Hear?

Let's Hit the Town Milord

  We are going to see our friend Jenn in Kansas, visiting the Harry Truman museum again and Harry and Bess's residence, hoping to take in a Vermeer exhibition in Kansas City and eat some ribs. I am a travelphobe in love with a swashbuckling adventurer.  Working hard at letting go and embracing my inner Gertrude Bell (oh for heavens sake, look her up) -- with inspirational stir-the-blood singing from Edith Piaf to help stiffen my resolve.

Milord was sung by an entertainer who appeared the early-to-mid seventies sometimes at the grand Olympic Hotel in Seattle where I worked as a cocktail waitress -- fishnets, bustier.  I wish I could remember that singer's name.  She had a throaty voice and, although no Piaf, could knock the stuffing out of this song.  My friend Donna and I would dance and high kick during the chorus. That's not so amazing for foolish young women.  The amazing part is we worked full eight-hour shifts wearing four-inch stilettos.

Fashioning my Tinfoil Hat...

Ann Althouse is a lawprof at UW Madison.  The other day she posted that a man came to her door with a clipboard and government ID from the National Health and Alcohol Study, wanting to interview her or her husband.  Study participants, volunteers, would be paid a total of $90 the man said, and after completing the interview -- "Questions like age and education, drinking, medicine and drug use, mood, anxiety, behavior and medical conditions and personality" -- would be asked to spit into a tube.  The brochure didn't mention a reason for collecting the saliva, just that it woud be used "to better understand the health care needs of the American people." The man told Althouse's husband the saliva was for DNA, said Althouse, "something about checking one's ancestry for alcohol (and drug?) related problems."

Take a look:

http://www.althouse.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-us-government-sent-man-to-our-door.html

Creepy?  Uh huh.  Not a one-off deal though.  Look here:

http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/surveillance.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Yarn Yarn

Lorette, who blogs as www.TheKnittingDoctor, is visiting Scotland.  We share a passion for yarn and things knitting so I was interested to get this email from her:

We found a billion sheep, but little local wool. A woman at a local croft shop that I stopped at told me that most of the sheep are raised for meat, not wool. There are some folks raising sheep varieties more for the wool, but not many, yet. I did get some good stuff though. And ate a lot of lamb!

George and I were in Scotland and Ireland a coujple of years ago.  I was excited about the yarn-buying opportunities I fancied would be there for the finding.  Alas...

Dublin: I searched and found very little actual yarn, but many shops that sold "hand knit jumpers" (sweaters, for those of you who are not world travelers).

We were searching for George's people who according to Ellis Island records emigrated from Boyle in County Roscommon.  Lovely tiny town with its own castle -- and lorry after lorry (trucks, for those of you who are not world travelers) stacked high with fleeces rumbling down the center street heading somewhere else. 

I found a sort of clothing/notions shop and asked for "knitting wool".  The lady looked puzzled and then -- Aha!  She dove into the dark bottom of a cupboard, rummaged like a terrier, then surfaced holding aloft yellow sparkly stuff balled big as a prize pumpkin.  No label, but not wool.  She said the fleeces were sent "away" and "nobody knits anymore except old women". All-righty, then. (This shopkeeper was no spring chicken her own self.  Just sayin'...)

In Scotland I noticed that everybody, except those who lived smack in urban areas, had sheep.  So whoopee, I thought -- my ship has come in.  But no.  I resorted to asking a waitress in Edinburgh to check the phone book thinking maybe there was some local terminology that had been eluding me.  Nothing, nothing. 

Eventually, in St. Andrews (George golfed The Old Course)  I found a gorgeous wool shop with shelves of truly scrumptious yarn.  Weird thing, though -- every time I liked something and checked the label it appeared to be from Italy or Japan.  I bought a book of patterns -- something "Scotland Experience".  Haven't made anything from it yet.  Great souvenir, though.