I know this borders on class warfare type trope-age, but when it comes to media punditry commiserating on one another’s often nightly programming about being screwed over by “the management” or “people from so and so”, I can’t help but think, so what? You’ve got/made your money, fuck your bruised hubris and ego!
I’m sure it’s mostly the recession talking for me, or my very own stagnant wages, but between Keith Olbermann telling tales of Rupert Murdoch “blackmailing” him in to taking more money and Cenk Uygur puffing his chest and being called a hero for his unceremonious dumping from MSNBC, I’m looking for the pacifier and some earplugs to shut them both up.
In both cases, it’s essentially someone bruising their massive egos. It’s them eating humble pie and telling you that the food stains are actually real blood, sweat and tears being pulled from them against their will!
A few weeks ago Keith Olbermann couldn’t help but hop on the obligatory “Murdoch was a butt hole to me one time…and aha! I have proof” Olbermann told a story from his younger days as a sports “journalist” where he got a scoop that Murdoch was going to sell the Dodgers. Olbermann makes sure to thump this “journalist” thread a few more times, by saying he had rock solid sources….blah blah. He asks Murdoch’s P.R. fellows if he can run the news story, and they agree, only if the sources aren’t Murdoch employees of some kind and blab blah. The fiery journalist in Olbermann doesn’t see the obvious red flags that if he ran this story, it probably wouldn’t bode well for him (more importantly in this case it’s probably to add to his mythological mostly self imposed canon of strong spine and fortitude to “stick it to the man” whilst lazily reclining in “the mans” premises on every occasion). He supposedly gets permission to run the story, and lo and behold days later he is brought in to learn that he is basically being demoted. He then relates a tale of working so hard that his doctor tells him he’ll have heart disease within the decade! Heroically, Olbermann feels obligated to tell his corporate masters that he’d like to take ONE day off from his sports casting duties, just to maintain his health, which is tantamount! (Never mind that most men Olbermann’s age, and who typically reside in high stress occupations, are told about the onset of heart disease if they don’t do something preventative) No, he is told by his Fox Sports overlords led by the Shadow Master Murdoch, he will WORK even MORE, and to top this off he will have to travel! Coldly and with sinister calculation, they offer him more money. Olbermann relates that he takes it, he HAS to! And if Murdoch can do this to someone with as “high a profile” as his, what about the lowly minions?
Now most people who follow Olbermann know he has this knack of story telling. I could imagine that when he see’s himself, he see’s those grand oil paintings that dictators have in their mansion, Where their torso’s are magnanimous and they have bulging muscles, and fierce look on their face, doing something heroic, like riding the purest white stallion with a matching fierce visage!
Now I couple this with Cenk Uygur leaving MSNBC this past week over problems with “the management“. They wanted him to stop being an outsider, not be so hard on Obama, book more Republican guests, stop gesticulating so wildly, etc, etc. --This also reminds me that a cult of victimization amongst are media punditry is kind of getting out of hand don’t you think? This is probably an idea for another time. Back to Cenk!--MSNBC offers Uygur not the vaunted 6 o’ clock show that he think he rightly deserves, in fact he believes he should be promoted to the 7 o clock show, but a weekend show, roving contributor status and get this…MORE MONEY! He turns them down, saying that he will not be reduced to this paltry “roving” business, and the he views this as a demotion. He even whips out the progressive punditry bullshit of providing graphs of figures that show he was dominating CNN in the timeslot and that his show was up in ratings (with the 18-54 “money” demographic) from the same time slot a year ago, before he took over in January. Uygur believes that sense he was doing a better job than Ed Schultz was, who got "promoted" to a better timeslot, that Uygur is crushing it and should be promoted as such.
Now, I caught Uygur’s program a couple of times back in early March, some again in April, and from what I watched of it, MSNBC maybe had a point. To me, Uygur was stiff and seemed to have difficulty reading a teleprompter. The show was an odd experiment of mixing Maddow’s news, fact graphs show with Olbermann’s opinion hubris and not much of Uyuger’s strengths which are of course gesticulating wildly and being hyperbolic much like a bizarre world AM Conservative radio cliche robot. Uygur admits to as much in his Young Turk’s video where he lays out his departure from MSNBC.
Uygur’s rages that he will not be cowed to be an “inside man”, and that he will continue to shout from the outside like he always has been with his Young Turks programming. Which, to those in the progressive media is viewed as ballsy. I don’t get it Cenk, is MSNBC where you were kind of plotting your trajectory? Maybe the nightly thing just wasn’t your bag, but the roving contributor weekend thing was? The weekend show is more to your strengths, you wouldn’t need to dilute yourself down in to nightly segmented half assery, and could deliver a more potent show? On top of this, you were going to get more money, for less work. I imagine many of his progressive media peers would literally kill for something even closely resembling that! And any residual progressive outsider bullshit deficit you were feeling could be mopped up with your Young Turks programming.
Olbermann and Uygur would like us to believe that they’re dancers and performers instead of the sluts of a harem that they truly are. That they’re going to be fighting the good fight for you and not as another media whore mouth sucking on advertising dick to you. They play on their mommies (followers/fans) fears of things like “the man”, “corporate sellouts” and “beltway insiders” while they nestle in the bosom of those very foes, veraciously suckling with all their might!
This has absolutely NOTHING to do with their message, which typically is of truth telling, facts, and shining lights in dark places. But this doesn’t allow them to also be crybabies about someone spanking them and bruising their ego and hubris when they start pushing the wrong buttons and expecting to be rewarded for their rouge behavior as they believe this is why they were hired in the first place.
But lets not confuse them for the corporate whores they really are, who for when the money was right, toed that company line and did as they were told. This is especially true of Olbermann who has been a corporate mouthpiece most of his existence.
Lest we not forget as these two go on to smaller brothels, Current TV for Olbermann and back to The Young Turks for Uygur; that they had their opportunity and they blew it. Not because they wouldn’t be cowed or that they stood up for themselves, but because they’re a crybabies who didn’t get their way, took their collective balls and went home to sulk to mommy.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Review: Bastion (XBLA)
The Big Takeaway: The XBOX Summer of Arcade kicks of in glorious Fashion with Supergiant games’ first release: The action-role playing game Bastion.
The Little Takeaway: A bit short for a game of this ilk. Hard to line up melee attacks against the mid-sized enemies. Weapon pick ups switch out your current weapon with the new one forcing you to use it until you can get to an armory. Falling off the level occurs a tad too often.
Review:
We’ve all been burned by indie developers before with the slick graphics, an engrossing, mind-bending story, only to be left in the cold when you play the game proper. The “indie” moniker quickly falls to “amateurish”, and the “game” suffers for it. Luckily Bastion delivers on it’s promise to you and actually defies it’s roots with something not yet seen on the Arcade platform. Microsoft putting it first on the Summer of Arcade is definitely as good as any recommendation that you must play this game.
Bastion casts you as the silent protagonist known as the Kid, who wakes up to his world being tossed upside down by a great Calamity. You spend your time reforming the Bastion with crystal cores you find in the various levels you literally fall face first in to. Along the way you’ll pick up new weapons, attacks, survivors and crystals that are the currency used in the game.
The game plays from a three-quarter isometric view, and each level floats high above the world, which leads to the ever present falling off the edges that plagues most of these types of games. Since this type of game hasn’t been really been represented in modern times, it’s a odd throwback to the 16-bit era that maybe should’ve stayed there. While the forming world as you walk around is a great visual dynamic, often times you can get too far ahead of it and fall back on to a bad part of the level, and either fall again to maybe get a better spot, or use the evasive roll to try and spam your way back on to firm footing. Aside from that the hand painted graphics are a great visual, with lots of color and dynamic effects, especially with a nice HD monitor. There’s little cluttering the correct path through a level (you can smash most of it up) and neither you nor your enemies will ever get caught in the landscape.
The combat in the game is challenging and fun, but hitting some of the medium to larger enemies is a bit off. I don’t know if the hit boxes for the enemies is askew, or it depends on the weapon. Often times I found myself whiffing more often than not and instead taking damage instead of giving it. Maybe a patch is in the works to fix this aspect? It’s not a big deal, but it’s noticeable during large monster encounter like the “Who Knows Where” level.
You would think that a fully vocal narrated story would be nothing less than a gimmick to put Bastion ahead of the pack. For that you would be wrong. I couldn’t believe how beautifully the narration fit in the game, and gave it that mysterious edge that permeates the entirety of Bastion’s story. The tiny semi-personal touches the narrator provides, for instance, the number of times I fell off a skiff during an intense action section, makes the game that much more endearing and gives you a sense of impact not really felt in an downloadable title.
I have to mention the Proving Grounds levels that are sprinkled about. These levels have a singular weapon specific challenge with certain parameters, for example how much junk you can smash with a hammer. The faster the time, the better the prize. Typically these types of challenges do nothing for me and I tend to avoid them. Somehow Bastion’s challenges made me want to come back and try to ace them all, regardless of how infuriating they became. They’re legitimately challenging, but also fair, and you get so close to just getting first prize that it’s actually…fun! The prizes are well worth the challenge and the little tricks the game teaches you with the various weapons make acing these challenge well worth it.
Also of some sort of special note is the soundtrack to Bastion. Not sense the likes of Bionic Commando: Rearmed and Braid has a games soundtrack grabbed my full attention. On top of this the way the characters in the game act and respond to it is also awe inspiring in how well it's woven in to the fabric of the game. I hope Supergiant Games has plans to do something with the soundtrack, as I would gladly pay for it.
There are few downloadable games that are as expertly crafted as Bastion is. There’s a level to the design and craft of the game that shows how much time, effort and though went in to every aspect of the game. The story is well worth one to experience and for 1200 Microsoft Points ($15), you can’t do better than this. Microsoft made an excellent decision in getting behind Supergiant Game and Bastion, and you should too. I can honestly say that I really look forward to what Supergiant makes next. If it’s half as good as Bastion is, we’ll all be in for a treat.
Final Verdict: Buy and then tell as many people that you can to buy it as well!
Monday, July 11, 2011
Movie Review: Transformers: Dark of the Moon
The Big Takeaway: It wouldn’t be the summer movie season without a little Michael Bay for that ass!
The Little Takeaway: Too many characters, still kind of hard to distinguish Decepticon and Autobots let alone what they’re names are, and way too long of movie clocking in over 2 ½ hours.
Review:
There’s a scene towards the end of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, in that now standard slow motion action buffet, where the beautiful Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is staring up in the sky whilst explosions go off all around her. This is when I thought that from now on, they should just copy this scene and green screen every hottie that gets cast in a Michael Bay movie from here till the end of time. You could add dynamic music and make a trailer out of it. Michael Bay could, as he’s done with a few of his thinly plotted movie, stretch it out into a full length motion picture to release this same time next year. I think it’s pure Hollywood genius!
Transformers 3 is everything you’d expect it to be: loud, rumbling, numbing and mostly boring. It’s on of those movies that plays well in theaters, but once you get it home loses something in the translation. It’s a bit long for a summer popcorn movie too. The children seated around me in the theater started losing interest about 1/3 of the way through the movie with only the fight scenes quieting them from time to time.
There’s a lot of dialogue from a lot of different people that don’t really have much to do but look intense. Ken Jeong, John Malkovich all show up for a bit of scenery chewing and nothing more, I’d like to say I would’ve enjoyed seeing more of them, but doing what exactly?
The plot of Transformers 3 involve the Autobots (the good guys, who also have a bit more color to them) doing what they do best: protecting humanity from the Decepticons (who are uniformly gray-ish which leads to confusion as to who’s who’s and what and why). It’s discovered that part of an Autobot spacecraft is hanging out on the moon with the Autobots former leader Sentinel Prime, yawningly voiced by Leonard Nimoy. The Autobots go grab him and bring him out of stasis, then the plot thickens.
Oh, there’s that Sam Witwicky fellow all futzing about worried about his new hot girlfriend who works for a car museum being letched after by Patrick Dempsey attempting to show he has range by playing a bad guy? For some reason after the last two movies, Sam can’t hang out with Optimus and the gang, and he tries to guilt trip his car about saving humanity all the time. The human part of this film, while also padding out the film, kind of seems unnecessary at this point in the franchise, I mean, at the very least, they could be CGI’d in or something.
The movie, unsurprisingly, really feels like it has sitcom plotting going on. With an A, B, and C plot going on, with near equal time given to A and B, then C just kind of being there, all in your face. The Decepticon plot (The C thread) is confusing and wholly makes no sense. Coupled with the fact that in robot form they all kind of look the same. Megatron is chained up for I guess not fully going along with Sentinel Prime’s master plan? He has to be goaded in to action by the Carly character calling him a bitch? Then he’s given a 5 second battle, only to have his spine ripped from him? The whole end of the movie’s kind of anticlimactic and pretty much the same as the last two films: Blur of robots shooting and punching each other. The Optimus Prime narrating over the end of it.
I get it, it’s a Michael Bay movie, and I should just sit back and relax, enjoy the pretty graphics and explosions, but 2 ½ hours is one of hell of a time investment, I need something to latch on to here! Transformers 3 walked a fine line between being the perfect popcorn flick the first movie was and the insulting, childish overwrought sequel. Those characters pop up from time to time, but again, I think they’re mostly there to entertain the younguns in the audience. The film series no longer has that nostalgia hit going for it, so it reeks even more of blatant paint by number film making meant to make Paramount another mound of cash.
Final Verdict: Pass
The Little Takeaway: Too many characters, still kind of hard to distinguish Decepticon and Autobots let alone what they’re names are, and way too long of movie clocking in over 2 ½ hours.
Review:
There’s a scene towards the end of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, in that now standard slow motion action buffet, where the beautiful Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is staring up in the sky whilst explosions go off all around her. This is when I thought that from now on, they should just copy this scene and green screen every hottie that gets cast in a Michael Bay movie from here till the end of time. You could add dynamic music and make a trailer out of it. Michael Bay could, as he’s done with a few of his thinly plotted movie, stretch it out into a full length motion picture to release this same time next year. I think it’s pure Hollywood genius!
Transformers 3 is everything you’d expect it to be: loud, rumbling, numbing and mostly boring. It’s on of those movies that plays well in theaters, but once you get it home loses something in the translation. It’s a bit long for a summer popcorn movie too. The children seated around me in the theater started losing interest about 1/3 of the way through the movie with only the fight scenes quieting them from time to time.
There’s a lot of dialogue from a lot of different people that don’t really have much to do but look intense. Ken Jeong, John Malkovich all show up for a bit of scenery chewing and nothing more, I’d like to say I would’ve enjoyed seeing more of them, but doing what exactly?
The plot of Transformers 3 involve the Autobots (the good guys, who also have a bit more color to them) doing what they do best: protecting humanity from the Decepticons (who are uniformly gray-ish which leads to confusion as to who’s who’s and what and why). It’s discovered that part of an Autobot spacecraft is hanging out on the moon with the Autobots former leader Sentinel Prime, yawningly voiced by Leonard Nimoy. The Autobots go grab him and bring him out of stasis, then the plot thickens.
Oh, there’s that Sam Witwicky fellow all futzing about worried about his new hot girlfriend who works for a car museum being letched after by Patrick Dempsey attempting to show he has range by playing a bad guy? For some reason after the last two movies, Sam can’t hang out with Optimus and the gang, and he tries to guilt trip his car about saving humanity all the time. The human part of this film, while also padding out the film, kind of seems unnecessary at this point in the franchise, I mean, at the very least, they could be CGI’d in or something.
The movie, unsurprisingly, really feels like it has sitcom plotting going on. With an A, B, and C plot going on, with near equal time given to A and B, then C just kind of being there, all in your face. The Decepticon plot (The C thread) is confusing and wholly makes no sense. Coupled with the fact that in robot form they all kind of look the same. Megatron is chained up for I guess not fully going along with Sentinel Prime’s master plan? He has to be goaded in to action by the Carly character calling him a bitch? Then he’s given a 5 second battle, only to have his spine ripped from him? The whole end of the movie’s kind of anticlimactic and pretty much the same as the last two films: Blur of robots shooting and punching each other. The Optimus Prime narrating over the end of it.
I get it, it’s a Michael Bay movie, and I should just sit back and relax, enjoy the pretty graphics and explosions, but 2 ½ hours is one of hell of a time investment, I need something to latch on to here! Transformers 3 walked a fine line between being the perfect popcorn flick the first movie was and the insulting, childish overwrought sequel. Those characters pop up from time to time, but again, I think they’re mostly there to entertain the younguns in the audience. The film series no longer has that nostalgia hit going for it, so it reeks even more of blatant paint by number film making meant to make Paramount another mound of cash.
Final Verdict: Pass
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Pattin' Down Granny!
I’m just going to be grossly hyperbolic and probably ill-informed but here goes: The right-wing was all spooked about “the terrorists” blowing them up while they did the snow bird thing moving to Florida or vacations somewhere with a tropical beach. They, being of fierce loyalty to the corporate lords, allowed their lords to put in (maybe)tumor inducing, overpriced, super privacy smashing x-ray machines. For those who refused this method, enhanced pat down tactics were introduced that would affect young and old. In reality, let’s just blame the corporatist political glad handing that allowed this costly, wholly invasive chicanery on the corporatists in general, be they left or right…(here comes the hyperbole) mostly the xenophobic right.
This TSA debacle isn’t going to end any time soon it seems. And I’m pretty sure 90% of the right wing fervor doesn’t dip very low on the salary line to the ma and pa guntotin’, Muslim hatin’, flag waving’ underclass that comprises most of the GOP. I hope there’s a Fox News poll or something that asks how many of the viewers have flown in recent memory. I’m fairly certain it’s close to nil.
The bigger picture problem is that once we gift wrapped most of our constitutional rights and the ability to protect ourselves after 9/11, we didn’t really think about the long term repercussions of being a society lead by fear of another attack. I’m not heartless enough to believe that a heightened awareness wasn’t warranted after that horrible day, but now a decade later, ummm…how about being safe but also intelligent on the matter as a whole? There seems to be nothing but a large money grab based off xenophobic fears and the thought of the rapture and apocalyptic fever dreams. Shore up your canned goods, buy this 50 pound back pack with only two weeks worth of food, and by food we mean fortified soggy cardboard pieces!
I’m getting off track here, and so easily. We want the most protection that can be afforded to us, but refuse to acknowledge that that will come with some unpleasantness. I find it appalling that right-wing pundits are accusing TSA employees of “groping”, “shaming” and other negative connotations, when this is the fear land that they wanted. This is how you get people to support unwarranted armed invasions in foreign countries. This is how you provide the “we’ve protected you” mantra that you’ll wave around come election season. This is how you get that mound of corporate infused campaign money, by buying overpriced cancer machines that humiliate people on a regular basis. Oh, but you can refuse to be scanned, this is where the “groping” mechanism comes in.
Before we get too far, this isn’t a defense of anything the TSA is doing or how there is some buffoonery and racism in profiling fliers within the TSA element. I have to fence in my argument against something like this because it does rest squarely in the “gray area” of life: do you want to be safe or sorry? My beef is this right-wing fervor over people being treated like the sheep that they have been only scoffed at from high above in the pundit class. I guess it’s one thing to talk down to them, but then to take that molestation to the physical level is off limits, unless it’s by their hand it seems.
Yes, there is some blame to be levied against “the terrorists” who have gotten more creative in explosive placement. But again, are we better safe than sorry, that we have to check toddlers and grannies adult diapers? The surprise element justifies this, you’ll never know what they’ll think of next!
It’s heartbreaking to read about disabled people being “groped”, or babies diapers being swung open to check for bombs. It’s sometimes hilarious to see homophobic dudes get all testy over someone touching their junk. To these dudes, I say get your ass in the x-ray thing! To the others, I say, either don’t fly with your fucking kids, take a train or ride the bus. Yup, that’s what I’m saying to you.
Somewhere along the line, and I guess in my mind while writing this column, is that flying is a privilege and not a god given constitutional right. If you want to fly you must comply! Don’t want your baby’s diaper checked, then don’t fly. “But Mayor, I’ll miss (insert Hallmark holiday)!” You may say. “Too bad!” , I say.
Jonah Goldberg’s recent column on the TSA’s “Passenger Jihad” got me to thinking about this. I had thought about it early on when people were complaining of the “enhanced pat down techniques”. What the news media failed to mention, for the most part, is that the enhanced pat down came with a refusal to hop in the cancer tube and get your body rendered polygonally naked and sent to some guy in a undisclosed room to make sure you weren’t backing anything more than what the good lord gave you. Then came the outrages as TSA agents were being accused of “groping”, “fondling”, “cupping the breasts”. As a man I was asked if I would be angered by someone’s “enhanced pat down” technique my child or wife. If she had it coming, I’d reply. But seriously, no I wouldn’t because this is what I gave up to make sure I wasn’t exploded by an explosion from someone’s asshole.
On top of all this, most of these would be “the terrorists” got caught by average citizens on the very planes they were trying to explode. No doubt doing their most xenophobic duty of eyeballing any odd brown people with funny accents, but none the less their American duty to not be exploded by a bomb taped to some guys ball sack.
Jonah Goldberg tells the tale of what Israelis do in their country with airport security”: just lengthy interviews by security, anyone who, I guess, answers poorly is denied flight. That human judgment is what preserves the day, and that these robot TSA agents are just soulless groping machines looking to get their kicks. I forgot to mention, Mr. Goldberg housed his column in this Dune world where the humans defeated robots or some shit, all to dove tail in to this “Well, look what Israel does,” bullshit. My argument against this is a few-fold. One, I’m sure the “Hey how’s it going!” interview implementation is fine and all in a country as small as Israel. Its’ that old boondoggle of trying to do something that works for a few smaller nations, and then trying to bring it the U.S. with it’s millions and millions of people. A better idea would be to try what China does with it airports.
The question no one asks is what the TSA agents think about all this? Surely this is a thankless job made more rough by some Mr. Macho trying out his best John Wayne and threatening you for doing your job. That people seem to think you’re a pervert because you have to do you job and touch people in and around their “no-no” areas. Never mind that no one really asked for their input in making security checks quicker and safer by a more streamlined implementation of checks and interviews with suspicious targets. Never mind that this has been done in the past and still yet “the terrorists” have managed to still get explosives and such on to the plane itself.
To talk of them as robots is to dehumanize them further. They’re still people, just like the ones Mr. Goldberg and the rest of the right wing yank at heartstrings for, even though they could honestly give a shit less about these people. It’s not like any of those people will be sitting in first class, after all.
This TSA debacle isn’t going to end any time soon it seems. And I’m pretty sure 90% of the right wing fervor doesn’t dip very low on the salary line to the ma and pa guntotin’, Muslim hatin’, flag waving’ underclass that comprises most of the GOP. I hope there’s a Fox News poll or something that asks how many of the viewers have flown in recent memory. I’m fairly certain it’s close to nil.
The bigger picture problem is that once we gift wrapped most of our constitutional rights and the ability to protect ourselves after 9/11, we didn’t really think about the long term repercussions of being a society lead by fear of another attack. I’m not heartless enough to believe that a heightened awareness wasn’t warranted after that horrible day, but now a decade later, ummm…how about being safe but also intelligent on the matter as a whole? There seems to be nothing but a large money grab based off xenophobic fears and the thought of the rapture and apocalyptic fever dreams. Shore up your canned goods, buy this 50 pound back pack with only two weeks worth of food, and by food we mean fortified soggy cardboard pieces!
I’m getting off track here, and so easily. We want the most protection that can be afforded to us, but refuse to acknowledge that that will come with some unpleasantness. I find it appalling that right-wing pundits are accusing TSA employees of “groping”, “shaming” and other negative connotations, when this is the fear land that they wanted. This is how you get people to support unwarranted armed invasions in foreign countries. This is how you provide the “we’ve protected you” mantra that you’ll wave around come election season. This is how you get that mound of corporate infused campaign money, by buying overpriced cancer machines that humiliate people on a regular basis. Oh, but you can refuse to be scanned, this is where the “groping” mechanism comes in.
Before we get too far, this isn’t a defense of anything the TSA is doing or how there is some buffoonery and racism in profiling fliers within the TSA element. I have to fence in my argument against something like this because it does rest squarely in the “gray area” of life: do you want to be safe or sorry? My beef is this right-wing fervor over people being treated like the sheep that they have been only scoffed at from high above in the pundit class. I guess it’s one thing to talk down to them, but then to take that molestation to the physical level is off limits, unless it’s by their hand it seems.
Yes, there is some blame to be levied against “the terrorists” who have gotten more creative in explosive placement. But again, are we better safe than sorry, that we have to check toddlers and grannies adult diapers? The surprise element justifies this, you’ll never know what they’ll think of next!
It’s heartbreaking to read about disabled people being “groped”, or babies diapers being swung open to check for bombs. It’s sometimes hilarious to see homophobic dudes get all testy over someone touching their junk. To these dudes, I say get your ass in the x-ray thing! To the others, I say, either don’t fly with your fucking kids, take a train or ride the bus. Yup, that’s what I’m saying to you.
Somewhere along the line, and I guess in my mind while writing this column, is that flying is a privilege and not a god given constitutional right. If you want to fly you must comply! Don’t want your baby’s diaper checked, then don’t fly. “But Mayor, I’ll miss (insert Hallmark holiday)!” You may say. “Too bad!” , I say.
Jonah Goldberg’s recent column on the TSA’s “Passenger Jihad” got me to thinking about this. I had thought about it early on when people were complaining of the “enhanced pat down techniques”. What the news media failed to mention, for the most part, is that the enhanced pat down came with a refusal to hop in the cancer tube and get your body rendered polygonally naked and sent to some guy in a undisclosed room to make sure you weren’t backing anything more than what the good lord gave you. Then came the outrages as TSA agents were being accused of “groping”, “fondling”, “cupping the breasts”. As a man I was asked if I would be angered by someone’s “enhanced pat down” technique my child or wife. If she had it coming, I’d reply. But seriously, no I wouldn’t because this is what I gave up to make sure I wasn’t exploded by an explosion from someone’s asshole.
On top of all this, most of these would be “the terrorists” got caught by average citizens on the very planes they were trying to explode. No doubt doing their most xenophobic duty of eyeballing any odd brown people with funny accents, but none the less their American duty to not be exploded by a bomb taped to some guys ball sack.
Jonah Goldberg tells the tale of what Israelis do in their country with airport security”: just lengthy interviews by security, anyone who, I guess, answers poorly is denied flight. That human judgment is what preserves the day, and that these robot TSA agents are just soulless groping machines looking to get their kicks. I forgot to mention, Mr. Goldberg housed his column in this Dune world where the humans defeated robots or some shit, all to dove tail in to this “Well, look what Israel does,” bullshit. My argument against this is a few-fold. One, I’m sure the “Hey how’s it going!” interview implementation is fine and all in a country as small as Israel. Its’ that old boondoggle of trying to do something that works for a few smaller nations, and then trying to bring it the U.S. with it’s millions and millions of people. A better idea would be to try what China does with it airports.
The question no one asks is what the TSA agents think about all this? Surely this is a thankless job made more rough by some Mr. Macho trying out his best John Wayne and threatening you for doing your job. That people seem to think you’re a pervert because you have to do you job and touch people in and around their “no-no” areas. Never mind that no one really asked for their input in making security checks quicker and safer by a more streamlined implementation of checks and interviews with suspicious targets. Never mind that this has been done in the past and still yet “the terrorists” have managed to still get explosives and such on to the plane itself.
To talk of them as robots is to dehumanize them further. They’re still people, just like the ones Mr. Goldberg and the rest of the right wing yank at heartstrings for, even though they could honestly give a shit less about these people. It’s not like any of those people will be sitting in first class, after all.
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