PhoneBoy Says

Yesterday, I was touched -- in my opinion, inappropriately -- by a TSA agent at LAX.

I'm not going to talk about it in detail until I can speak with an attorney, but I've spent much of the last 24 hours replaying it over and over in my mind, and though some of the initial outrage has faded, I still feel sick and angry when I think about it.

What I want to say today is this: I believe that the choice we are currently given by the American government when we need to fly is morally wrong, unconstitutional, and does nothing to enhance passenger safety.

I further believe that when I choose to fly, I should not be forced to choose between submitting myself to a virtually-nude scan (and exposing myself to uncertain health risks due to radiation exposure)¹, or enduring an aggressive, invasive patdown where a stranger puts his hands in my pants, and makes any contact at all with my genitals.

When I left the security screening yesterday, I didn't feel safe.I felt violated, humiliated, assaulted, and angry.I felt like I never wanted to fly again. I was so furious and upset, my hands shook for quite some time after the ordeal was over. I felt sick to my stomach for hours.

This is wrong. Nobody should have to feel this way, just so we can get on an airplane. We have fundamental human and constitutional rights in America, and among those rights is a reasonable expectation of personal privacy, and freedom from unreasonable searches. I can not believe that the TSA and its supporters believe that what they are doing is reasonable and appropriate. Nobody should have to choose between a virtually-nude body scan or an aggressive, invasive patdown where a stranger puts his or her hands inside your pants and makes any contact at all with your genitals or breasts as a condition of flying.

via wilwheaton.typepad.com

I can't say that I've ever had quite the same experience as Wil Wheaton, but I agree the choice between groping and the nudeoscope is not a very good one.

If they were serious about improving airline security, they'd do it like they do in Israel. They're pretty good at it there. They have plenty of reasons to be, too.

Questions for the Angels" is Simon's most beautiful song in years, paced just a step above a lullaby while the soft guitars, harp and marimba stand back enough for the words to come through: "If you shop for love in a bargain store / and you don't get what you bargained for / can you get your money back? / If an empty train in a railroad station / calls you to its destination / can you choose another track?" Simon poses these and other rhetorical questions from the perspective of a wandering pilgrim crossing the Brooklyn Bridge.

via npr.org

It's a pity the album isn't available for purchase, yet, but for the next week or so, it's available on the NPR website. See, our National Treay-shure is occasionally good for something.

This is one of my favorite songs my dad wrote that he often played on his guitar while I was growing up. Whether I should have heard a song like this at that age is a different matter. Then again, I saw a lot of things growing up I probably shouldn't have, either. It was, as they say, a different time.

06_track_6.mp3Download This Episode

Download 06_Track_6.mp3

I don't know what dad actually called this song. He didn't announce it on this recording. He didn't sing this song around me, either, so this was a new one for me.

04_track_4.mp3Download This Episode

Download 04_Track_4.mp3

I think I know who he is singing this song about, and around the time he met this person. That and the phone number he mentions helps me place this recording to be around 1983 or 1984. I actually remember riding around town with him on a bicycle to post ads for his "mobile mechanic" service.

Here's another one of my dad's original songs I grew up listening to him play on his guitar.

03_track_3.mp3Download This Episode

Download 03_Track_3.mp3

Dad did find the country in the later years of his life. And what pretty country it was.

02_track_2.mp3Download This Episode

Download 02_Track_2.mp3

My dad was, among many things, a musician. He played guitar. He was a member of a Santa Cruz, CA-based band called Hot Pursuit that played Rock 'n. Roll. They played a lot of cover versions of songs (as local bands often do), but my dad also wrote a few songs of his own.

In any case, this is apparently a recording of him on a local radio station playing a song he wrote called "Loving You." The person in the background is my Granny, who it sounds like was telling people that his son was on the radio.

It took me a while to get the courage to listen to this stuff. It brings back a lot of memories.

Major food pr0n

Taken with picplz at Check Point Software Technologies in Redwood City, CA.