Nissan and Toyota sue each other for making similar products. Toyotas are to be banned in the UK while Nissans are to be banned in the USA.
Sounds ridiculous? Well it is and it’s not true. But this is exactly what Apple and Samsung are trying to do to each other.
the-vu thinks it makes all parties look silly and it’
s very bad for public relations.
The money, time and effort wasted on this would be better spent on continuing to make the already excellent products even better.
By Jeffrey the Barak
In the tale, The Emperor’s New Clothes by Hans Christian Anderson, first published in 1837, the hero of the story is the little boy who screams “He’s naked”. In his innocence and honesty, he sees the truth.
This little boy is sorely needed today. Today we have organizations convincing people of untruths. Terrorists kill because they believe at that moment that it is the right path. And intelligence and reason are constantly suppressed by the world’s religions. Millions believe in the imaginary, and are seemingly quite oblivious of the beauty of truth, reason and intelligence.
And even our great President, arguably the most intelligent we’ve had, right about most things, has endorsed the organization named The Fellowship Foundation, also known as “The Family,” who’s goal it seems is to ignore separation of “Church and State”. When religion and politics kill or oppress millions every day, why do we invite a “National Prayer Breakfast” to occur in Washington and show such disregard for the letter and spirit of our First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States?
Praying should have no place in our government. Religion and God do not belong there. In fact that’s the law of our nation. When omnipotent imaginary characters are invoked (God, son of God, the Devil, Angels etc.,) and these organizations of hate, intolerance and discrimination are given credibility and respect by our leaders, then the dream of fairness for all recedes ever further into the future. Minorities will be victimized, and the tricksters and megalomaniacs of the religion business will continue to amass wealth and power over the weak and gullible.
Today, the modern American fundamentalist Christians are as scary and dangerous as the radical Islamists that our armed forces are sacrificing themselves to protect us from. They may not attack in a deadly fashion with explosives, but they apply pressure en masse and bully the more reasonable people who share residence in their strongholds. If you imagine it is safe for a mixed-race couple or a same-sex couple to go, for example, into a Southern restaurant and hold hands, then you don’t realize how dangerous the American Christians are. The good people of the South are being taught intolerance, dressed up in a cloak called “Family Values”. And of course the most obvious victims are the Americans who were born gay, but it does not end with them.
By legitimizing American religion in the American government we are sowing the seeds for an internal culture war, and reinforcing narrow-mindedness and hatred. Those who do not comply with the predominant philosophy will be the victims.
Human beings, ordinary men and women, are using the God myth to control people for their evil ends, and they have succeeded, because belief in God is legitimized and made to seem correct and normal. If you dare to interrupt a prayer at the start of a sporting event, you are being “disrespectful”, but why is the inclusion of a prayer, when religious affiliation is not required of a person attending, not also disrespectful? After all, we non-believers have the law and the Constitution on our side, don’t we?
Personally I feel disappointment when I see my President endorsing an organization such as The Family. But I put my feeling aside and continue to support him as the least unreasonable man in Washington. Perhaps the outcry should not be directed at the President himself, but we need that innocent and honest little boy from The Emperor’s New Clothes to jump up and shout out the truth, and stop the crazy train before anyone else gets victimized.
Jeffrey the Barak is a non-believer, and is proud to live in a free country, with a reasonable constitution.
By Jeffrey the Barak
I hope that our post office and banking employees have a very nice day off today, for Columbus Day, but let’s not forget, he did not discover America, He did not come to America, and he was by today’s standards an all round horrible guy.
We can thank him for murdering natives, enslaving random peoples he encountered, delivering disease, and all manner of other great achievements, but to celebrate him with a holiday or to enshrine him as a discoverer is not appropriate.
There is still much discussion about exactly how and exactly when the Native Americans arrived and spread over the continent, and then of course there is further discussion regarding possibly more recent Polynesian and Chinese naval visitations that are pre-Columbian, and we have solid evidence of Leif Ericsson’s pre-Columbian settlement on the East coast. (Yes I know his name can be spelled several ways).
But the failure of Columbus to discover the American continent was the nicest thing he ever did. And yet in the United States we honor him with a holiday, we call a region, the District of Columbia and we have named many cities and towns Columbus. In South America, an entire country is named Columbia, and then there is CBS, and there are hundreds of other other businesses flaunting his dirty name. Perhaps one day we’ll do something about it, but for now, lets start by telling the kids the truth about this scoundrel.
There are many articles and books describing the real Columbus. Rather than go further here, I will offer a web link to a page by Roy Cook, published on AmericanIndianSource.com: http://www.americanindiansource.com/columbusday.html
This splendid introduction to the dark truth of the history of Columbus is a good starting point for further reading and contains external references.
By Jeffrey the Barak
How to make twenty-four dollars sound like ten.
It seems like a bargain, only ten bucks, and then they’ll throw in a second one for free, “just pay separate shipping and handling”. But that’s the catch. Shipping and handling may be $6.99. So let’s add it up.
First item: $10
Second item: $ free
Shipping and Handling 1: $6.99
Shipping and Handling 2: $6.99
Grand total: $23.98
Well that seems fair enough, or does it? Lets say this example is a pair of sunglasses, and I’m not picking on 3D Vision here, and I have no reason to assume they are not excellent $10 sunglasses, but I use them here to illustrate the example. You may not need two pairs, but to say no to a free pair is difficult. So you pay $13.98 for shipping and handling. Is this UPS Second Day Air? No of course not, it is regular mail, and the handling is unspecified, and it may be while before they arrive. Perhaps the postage only costs the seller a dollar or two, well that’s how they make their money, and you could have bought the glasses locally for $10 anyway.
So it may be fair to assume that any time you hear “just pay separate shipping and handling” it is your cue to not buy anything.
By Jeffrey the Barak
In the story, “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, adults are persuaded to accept a false reality, which is eventually shattered by one little boy, who voices a true observation that instantly makes the adults realize they were following a false path.
I too have my little boy, the eternally young Lamb Borghini, who although tiny and innocent, has a great skill for pointing out the obvious when I am being silly, or when I am wrong. His often repeated mottos include “world peace”, “civil liberties” and “stop global warming”.
His words of course come straight from my wife, a person of great wisdom, and someone who is simply unable to chose to not do the right thing, or not be nice.
But regardless of the true source, Lamb’s philosophy is simple, true and correct, and it can be applied to very much more complicated behavior in world politics. In world politics, leaders are all too often driven by greed, Sadism, spite, hatred, ignorance, fear, aggression and other ugly aspects of human behavior, and the result is, in a word, unfairness.
It is unfair to exploit a person or entity for the gain of another, and it is certainly unfair to hurt or kill others. I mean this is just plain logical common sense. It cannot be justified by observing non-human animals in the competition to survive. Because we humans can conceptualize good and bad, we are then responsible to choose to be good.
Being bad can be mildly harmful, as in the case of the school bully, or very harmful as in the case of the national leader who practices genocide, or anything in-between.
So when looking at the behavior that gives us the most trouble today, I wonder why Lamb’s simple philosophy cannot be applied.
Why would someone use, for example, a religion, to come up with a plan to misinform gullible children and adults about the true reality, and end up making them think that conducting a suicide bombing, can be good, as opposed to bad?
In Africa, generations of normal kids are transformed into fighters who go on rampages, dismembering, raping and murdering other people just like them. Why does any one of them think that this could be anything other than completely wrong? Who is responsible for making this their reality?
It’s too easy to blame religion for everything, although on a broad scale it is hard to find a common violent or dishonest act that is not tied into a certain brand of a particular religion or political movement. But religion is one of the easiest ways to make normal people into evil ones. You see, in order to have religion, you have to have faith, which is essentially a suspension of disbelief. If you can be taught to believe that the approximately three centuries old idea of a magic man who made everything is real, you can apparently also be taught to believe that you should run out and murder all redheads called Joe, because your structure of belief has strayed too far from the path of logic and reality.
And so even leaders of very small groups of people, for example the infamous Charles Manson, can lead hereto normal people into evil acts and cause terrible outcomes.
And yet even people who understand that religion is just a new idea that started a micro-billionth of a moment back in the history of time, can still be murderers, if they do not follow the path of good, which is independent of any movement such as religion etc.
If Lamb’s principals were followed by everyone, there would not be war, murder, gangster violence, racial hatred, repression of female people, or any of the other ugliness that we see around us.
Even if we focus, not on murder and war, but on social and economic issues of everyday government, we see blatantly dishonest people getting their way. A good party with all good intentions cannot make progress in government because an opposition party blocks all their ideas in order to try to get themselves back into power, and this is driven by greed. And this is at government level.
The same philosophy extends down to the mundane. It extends to households, relationships and to a sole individual’s own choices that barely affect anyone else.
If everyone knew Lamb, or if everyone could learn ethics from the purely good kids in the kindergartens, all our evil would pass into history. We would all be…. nice.
By H.E. Whitney
In Search of Space: Individual Claims of Public Space and Property in the University Library.
November 15, 2009
So I begin this short essay from the standpoint of a lowly staff assistant at a university library. The perks of the job are few but when I am free, I do manage to scour the internet for minutiae such as the latest football standings, the most recent Paul Krugman article, the newest row concerning Glen Beck’s antics, insect studies, or innovations in waste disposal. Occasionally I will peruse alternative media such as the Boston Phoenix or Alternet or high brow cultural magazines and journals such as The Atlantic Monthly, New Yorker, or the Journal of Postmodern Culture. Outside of these moments I lend study room keys to students, remove paper jams from the library printers, troubleshoot computer software problems, or help students research their papers. It is a thankless job, but since I am a graduate student, the librarians who hired me now have comfortable respites from these otherwise rote aspects of working in a college library. I’ve spent much of my life in the library so I probably know more about where things are than they do.
One of the most intriguing aspects of a college library environment is the quest for space. I don’t have to worry about finding a desk or table to perform my duties because one is already set aside for me to assist patrons. But the patron must find a table or chair to study or a workstation from which to scroll through Facebook pages or YouTube videos. (I think it is hilarious that there are signs on the workstations saying These Computers Are Reserved fo Academic Research Only when half of the monitors I see show the Facebook websites on any given day.) Yet what intrigues me about working in the library is the quest for space and the array of conventions used by students to establish personal territory.
Butted table-tops. (See first picture.) The circular or rectangular table-tops in my work area are about 3 ½ feet in diameter. Normally when I arrive to work, I will see two or three tables butted together but only one occupant. The occupant is sometimes waiting for two or three fellow students. Gender tends to play a role in this phenomenon, as women tend to study with other women while men tend to be solitary when they study. But since the tables are 3 ½feet in diameter, three “ordinary” sized people should be able to comfortably share a single table. (I know, I know: we are all fat Americans, right?) Yet two or three people using two tables is overkill. Which leads to. . .
Reserving chairs and tables simply by leaving personal effects on them. This occurrence is widespread. Visualize the following scenario. There is one table with three chairs. There is one student sitting in one of the three chairs. Yet he or she has placed his or her laptop in one chair and a knapsack or book bag in the other. So three chairs at this table are presumably “occupied”, although there is only one human being using the table. For prospective library patrons looking for a study area, this particular table has been exclusively cordoned off by this one patron. (See second picture.) In this picture, the woman’s purse also appears to be “studying”. While there is an empty chair across from the woman for another person to sit and share the table, she has made it clear that her bag will not defer its chair to a prospective human occupant. This isn’t bad in itself but when there are several other people at tables doing the same thing, demand for tables and chairs goes through the roof.
This scenario is laughable insofar as it expresses the vanity of claiming a public object for one’s self or for ones property. The mind of the college student who perpetrates this act is sadly misinformed by our system of commodity and exchange, which seeks to place a value on everything, including abstractions such as “space”. For the table hogger, he or she feels leaving belongings on the table constitutes the purchase of that table for his or her exclusive use. The problem is compounded when the occupant leaves the table for extended period of time, yet leaves his or her belongings at the table.
During peak periods when library traffic is high, a table that is being “used”, but with no human occupant, presents problems: for one, it inconveniences other patrons who need tables to attend to their studies. It is also a waste of resources from the library’s point of view: fewer individuals can use tables when a single individual has laid exclusive claim to them and fails to maximize the use of them from the communitys perspective. (See third picture.) In this picture the table (foreground) is “occupied” by a single individual: there is a single book bag on the table-top with a book and notepaper. In an attempt to preserve “ownership” of this table, the patron has left his or her stuff at the table. I see this very often, but I’ve also seen people leave valuables such as iPods, cell phones, laptops, and purses unattended for hours!
Nothing is more instinctive to the capitalist mind but to declare a thing mine: even when that thing is shared by all. Tables and chairs in libraries are publicly shared objects. Perhaps the lesson to be learned here is that we perhaps need to get library patrons in general to understand knowledge as a communal endeavor instead of as an object to be individually possessed at all costs. Libraries exist to serve the needs of all knowledge seekers, so it should make sense that we can share library furniture as well as books, right?
H.E. Whitney, Jr. is a PhD student in history at Florida State University. H.Es fields of study are the history of science, intellectual history, and technology and culture. H.E. is originally from Suffolk, Virginia but has called California, Ohio, North Carolina, Massachusetts, and Florida home at some point. H.E. has taught philosophy and graphic design/multimedia studies at the college level and enjoy creating digital art when not pontificating on scientific, cultural, or historical matters.
The Good Quiz: How good are you?
Answer the following questions with absolute honesty and tally your number of yes answers and no answers to see how good you are.
Do you think that female humans are in any way inferior to male humans? Yes or No
Do you think that people who do not share your identical and exact religious views are inferior to you? Yes or No
Do you think that people of a certain ethnicity are in any way inferior to you and your own exact blend of ethnic backgrounds? Yes or No
Do you think that people who do not believe in God are in any way inferior to you or less good than you? Yes or No
Do you think that people who are attracted to their own gender are imperfect? Yes or No
Do you think that homosexual people are a potential dangerous threat to the safety and well-being of children? Yes or No
Do you think that female humans should be treated differently to male humans with regards to rights and freedoms? Yes or No
Do you think that physically less able people are less important or of less value than the able? Yes or No
Do you think that “mentally unwell” people are less important than the “normal”? Yes or No
Do you think that people who have different moral standards with regards to sex and promiscuity are not as good as yourself? Yes or No
Do you think that gay people are not naturally so inclined? Yes or No
Do you think that governments and religions should prevent two people of the same gender from marrying each other? Yes or No
Do you think it is alright to put someone to death or imprison them for adultery or flirting? Yes or No
Do you think that the poor and/or homeless should be completely responsible for their current circumstances? Yes or No
Do you think that elderly people are less important or valuable than the young? Yes or No
Answers:
Note, some contentious issues, such as abortion, and euthanasia etc., have been deliberately omitted from the quiz, because everyone seems to think one camp is right and the other wrong, and few people ever change their mind. Among the truly objective, there may never be a general yes or no answer on such issues, but the truly objective are a rare minority.
By Jeffrey the Barak
At times, we wander the galleries and see pieces of art that look as if they could hurt someone, or kill someone, but in a way this has actually happened.
I refer to a place commonly known as Easter Island. This is its modern name, given to the place by Christian explorers from Holland in 1722 when they happened to come across this land on their Easter Sunday.
For most of history, This place had no name, and no inhabitants, but at sometime between 400 and 600 C.E. a human civilisation, the Polynesians, found it, and it became known as Rapa Nui.
We know from the surviving Polynesian people here and across Oceana that for at least two thousand years, their relatively advanced society was capable of trans-oceanic explorations by canoe that no modern sailor in their right mind would dare attempt. By contrast, the people of the nations that would later become the worlds explorers, the Britons, the French, The Spanish, The Portuguese, The Dutch were by comparison, quite behind in terms of long-distance seafaring.
Even the Mediterranean traders of the day would have been amazed at the voyages back and forth that the ancient Polynesians embarked upon.
So art came to Rapa Nui with its first people. It is generally accepted that they came from either the Marquesas Islands or Mangareva, which like everywhere else, are very far indeed from Rapa Nui.
The oral history tells us they brought plants, food animals and tools and their mission was colonization. The climate on Rapa Nui was certainly not the tropical paradise they were used to so they had a lot of adaptation to do in order to survive and thrive.
Rapa Nui was covered in trees, palms and other types, and drinking water was naturally gathered in volcanic craters, despite the islands absence of rivers or streams. The island also had obsidian, great for making cutting tools and weapons, and it had lot of special rock which we call lapilli tuff.
Some say the islanders employed slash and burn techniques to clear land for farming, and others say, they used up all the wood in order to make and transport the huge stone statues that Rapa Nui is now famous for.
With the forest cover gone, the rain and weather eroded the topsoil and famine ensued. But lets take a step back and focus on the art.
The art of Rapa Nui is divided between two periods. The Moai period and the Birdman period. On other islands in Polynesia, there were statues, (Moai), atop shrines, (Ahu). which were representations of chiefs (living and dead) and the gods in which they believed.
Dead chiefs were sacred, and after their life passed, their representative Moa remained. Rapa Nui has around 900 such moai, either standing, toppled or partially completed, still in the quarry or partway to their final site. There are about 360 ahu. The moai did not look out to sea, as commonly assumed, but they faced away from the sea, towards the villages. Some completed and erected statues had white coral eyes and wore stone hats or top knots called pukao, carved from a rock that was more red (scoria).
There is much debate as to exactly how the heavy statues were moved, assembled, erected etc. They are so heavy, that engineering on a grand scale was definitely needed, but the methods used have passed from memory.
It seems clear that at some point, the statues were worshiped as gods, and were a means of control for the ruling society, called the “Long Ears”. Everyone else, lived as subjects of the ruling Long Ears. However they were not slaves, but simply lowly subjects of the rulers, who would eventually rebel aginst the Long Ears and topple the very statues that generations suffered to construct.
It is said that so much wood was expended on the statue making that the islanders could no longer build canoes, so they became unable to travel to and from other parts of Polynesia. However, it is possible that the forests were burned to clear land, without any understanding of the long term environmental consequences. Without canoes, there was little opportunity to fish offshore, and without the lush vegetation, farming was all that was left.
So in isolation, with the natural resources of the island being eroded, burned and used for making statues, the people sealed their fate. Numbering as high as seven thousand in its heyday, the society on Rapa Nui became unsustainable with the resources at hand, and they were unable to leave or go for help.
Eventually, out of this declining situation, a powerful warrior class emerged, called Matatoa. And a change of power and leadership ensued. This also heralded the second art movement. All of the statues were toppled, some face up, some face down, and a new, even sillier religion began to dominate.
This was the birdman cult, (Tangatamenu). Once a year on a small island off the coast of Rapa Nui, migrating birds laid eggs. It was a bountiful annual harvest. The young warriors would hold a swimming race across the rough, shark-infested straits between the main island and bird island. The first man back holding an intact egg became absolute ruler for exactly one year, until this was repeated.
In the time after the upright moai, the art consisted of carvings and drawings on rock, depicting a bird-man character. Again the sheer quantity of this art in the virtual absence of all other, shows us that life at the time was all about the birdman. And a new monotheism emerged, coincidentally featuring a single, creator god, not the Jewish-Christian-Moslem one, but one with the name Makemake.
If the Western sailing ships had never found Easter Island, the natives may or may not have survived to this day, but considering what the sailors did to them, it is amazing that any have survived. The so-called advanced civilizations from Europe murdered, enslaved, kidnapped and infected the people with diseases such as smallpox and syphilis, and those few who survived these horrors were later subjected to forced Christianization.
As a result of the missionary subjugation, at this point there was no more art for a long time. The island was culturally dead until relatively recently when inhabitants of Polynesian decent began to nurture their cultural heritage, which amazingly still has much in common with other far way parts of Polynesia. And so through dance, costume, cuisine and the tatoo, the art of the island survives, but this time it wont kill them, it may save them, from us.
Airport security is watching you but who is watching them?
By Booth Vance
When television producer David Gardner recently proposed to his girlfriend during a Christmas vacation at his parents house the moment was perfect except for one key element. The ring was too big, said Gardner.
Preparing to fly back to Los Angeles, Gardner hid the ring in a pair of rolled-up socks and buried it in the bottom of his suitcase. I knew Id be going in and out of my carry-on and felt it would be safer in my checked luggage, he explained. Handing his suitcase to a Southwest Airline sky cab outside of Tucson International Airport, he entered the airport with his new fiancée for the trip home.
Upon unpacking, Gardner was shocked to find the ring missing. His disbelief gave way to anger as he told his fiancée what had happened. The look on her face was one of devastation, he said.
Gardner found a card in his suitcase stating that his belongings had been searched by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the division of the Homeland Security Agency responsible for airport security. Noticing that there wasnt an I.D. number for the security personnel who opened his bag, Gardner called Tucson International to ask to have the video records checked during the time his baggage was in their care. He was amazed to learn that there were no video cameras operating in the secured baggage areas of the airport.
I was surprised there wasnt an identification number for the baggage handler who searched my bag, but I still thought it would be easy to determine who had taken the ring. With so many new airport security measures, I just assumed there would be cameras everywhere, Gardner said. Everyone in a casino is being watched or for that matter, a 7-Eleven. Shouldnt the people who handle our property in an airport be under surveillance too?
Like most airline passengers, Gardner didnt realize that only a small handful of the 459 federalized commercial airports under the TSA jurisdiction utilize any type of video surveillance systems in secured baggage areas, leaving screeners and handlers free to open any piece of luggage, largely undetected. And with the requirement that all checked luggage remain unlocked-that is, except with an approved TSA lock that still allows Transportation Security Officers access to baggage-airport theft is on the rise.
With more people checking luggage after the new restrictions for carry-on luggage went into effect last August there has been a dramatic increase in mishandled bags, the term used by the Department of Transportation to define lost, damaged, delayed or pilfered items. More than 435,000 passengers filed reports of mishandled baggage during the first month of the new carry on restrictions, a 28% increase during the same month in the previous year.
Once luggage is checked, it passes through many hands, often traveling for miles on conveyor belts. Both TSA screeners and airline baggage handlers have access to all personal property which is oftentimes left unattended for hours if a passenger checks in early for a flight. With the TSA and airlines acting as separate entities, it is the norm for neither to take full responsibility for pilfered items. Theft victims are then forced to file numerous claims and hope for the best. To make matters more complex, the TSA doesnt share theft claims with local police departments and only rarely with airlines.
On January 4th of this year, a seventh baggage handler was arrested for his role in a theft ring at Torontos Pearson International Airport that police uncovered after a four month sting operation. On January 5th, a sixth subject was arrested by police in connection with the theft of 158 pieces of luggage by employees of Menzies Aviation which oversees connecting baggage at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston.
While there are more than 36,000 airline passengers a year filing claims of personal item theft, the TSA responds by saying the actual percentage of theft is small considering the estimated 1.5 billion pieces of luggage that are screened each year. Also, the airlines themselves provide handlers that are not under the authority of the TSA.
The actuality, says TSA spokesman Nico Melendez is that baggage is in the hands of airline personnel 95% of the time. However, we understand the public perception as to our responsibility given that we are the ones interfacing with travelers. We frequently execute undercover sting operations and anyone found guilty of theft is terminated immediately. According to the TSA, in the five-year existence of the organization they have fired roughly 90 employees found responsible for stealing passengers personal items.
Melendez says that despite his organizations best efforts to reduce theft, passengers still need to take the appropriate precautions to safeguard their valuables. We tell everyone that if something is of value to either carry it on or ship it.
When told of the TSAs recommendation, Gardner replied, I know they have a tough job, but its hard to understand that a government organization would tell me to incur the cost of shipping my valuables because their own employees cant be trusted.
Melendez believes the implementation of video cameras in secured areas would serve a two-fold purpose. Our goal is to protect the passengers safety as well as their belongings, he says. Melendez is a supporter of video surveillance yet says that there isnt enough funding available to outfit the many U.S. airports under the TSAs jurisdiction. Video cameras would also be a tool in protecting our employees from false accusations. We constantly review claims of theft only to learn that an item was misplaced.
The Office of Management and Budget estimates that the TSA will spend $6.2 billion in 2007 for aviation security. Approximately $3.3 billion of that budget will come from passengers who are now required to pay a $5 flat security fee for each one-way trip. This new regulation stands to increase collections by approximately $1.3 billion over 2006 although more than half of the overall budget will be spent on just one security initiativeairline passenger screening.
Robert Cudmore, a Paris-based neuroscientist had his $1,000 camera go missing during a recent trip to Tucson and became exasperated by the bureaucratic maze he encountered. The airline representative told me in essence that it wasnt their problem he said. And the TSA was uncooperative other than providing me with a mountain of paperwork to file a claim. I didnt know where to turn.
Cudmore was relegated to filing claims with the TSA, the airline, the Tucson Police Department and his own insurance provider. His claims are still pending.
With everything they are making us go through at airports under the guise of security, my first thought was how long before a baggage handler, who is presumably stealing for monetary gain, will accept a bribe and put something into a bag, said Cudmore.
To date, there have been no reported cases of baggage handlers being held responsible for an act of terrorism. However, with a lack of video surveillance in secured airport areas; many feel its only a matter of time. In October of last year, 43 baggage handlers at Frances Charles de Gaulle airport were forbid entry into secure locations after an investigation claimed they had visited terrorists’ training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The TSA has certainly come under fire for their hiring practices although they have taken strides to overcome the initial setbacks. In 2004, Homeland Security Department’s Inspector General Clark Kent Ervin announced that more than 18,000 of the originally hired employees had not undergone required fingerprint or thorough background checks. 1,200 screeners were then fired after it was discovered they had criminal records or had lied on their applications. Ervin was unceremoniously released from his duties after making these and other claims of mismanagement and breaches of security by the TSA.
In 2004, the TSA offered airlines the opportunity to opt out of their contract via the Screening Partnership Program, which allows the hiring of private security contractors. To date, only a handful of small airports have taken advantage of this option–which is still under the hiring guidance of the TSA. Prior to the creation of the TSA, airlines would shoulder the burden of lost items. Now, claims are passed on to the government and with the added safety net of having the TSA assume responsibility for any type of a crisis, it is easy to understand why airports have chosen to maintain the current relationship. According to the TSA website (www.tsa.gov) the organization has a zero-tolerance policy for theft in the workplace and when infractions are discovered, offenders are swiftly removed from the agencys employment.
Ron Libengood is the founder and principal consultant of SecuraComm, a leading security planning, consulting and engineering firm based in Pittsburgh, PA. With over 40 years in the security industry, he is familiar with the necessity and pitfalls of comprehensive security measures.
Implementing security camera systems can be very expensive when you consider the massive size of some secured airport areas, says Libengood. Lighting and camera angles also come into play and even if there is complete coverage, anyone motivated to steal can find a way to block the camera.
While agreeing that video surveillance is an important tool that should be more fully explored by the TSA and airports, he feels there are other cost-effective measures that can be incorporated into airline security. First, the public needs to be educated as to the dangers of flying with their valuables, he says. I have logged millions of miles in the air and have learned the hard way that there is always a risk in checking luggage. Also, the airlines and TSA can do a better job of executing more complete and thorough background checks.
Despite a career that depends on his ability to stay one step ahead of potential criminals, Libengood is reluctant to categorize all airline handlers and screeners as potential thieves. Most of the stealing from luggage depends on collusion between workers. Tip lines where employees can remain anonymous when reporting thefts would go a long way in curtailing the activity. I still feel that the vast majority of airline workers are honest and take their jobs and responsibilities very seriously.
After submitting the various claim forms provided for passengers, Gardner stands to receive approximately 1/5 the value of the ring through the TSA, Southwest Airlines and his own insurance. If his luggage had gone missing he could have been compensated up to $2,800 by the TSA; but their average claim payout for pilfered items is $150, with an average of $450, offered by the airlines. I always felt that my luggage was protected when it left my hands, added Gardner. Now I feel its like the fox guarding the hen house.
Author: Booth Vance
Assistant Vice Principal conducts ‘panty check’ of girls at local high school prom (Opinion)
By Betty Pine
May 2002
An assistant vice principal of Rancho Bernardo High School located in Southern California, conducted a ‘panty check’ on some of the girls the night of the their prom at the high school. A panty check?
Seems she wanted to make sure none of them were wearing thong underwear, or no underwear at all. So, she exposed them by having them lift their dresses up over their heads in front of the throng of onlookers, which of course included many of the young male teens attending.
Let’s see if I understand this; the assistant vice principal exposed the young ladies to make sure with her own eyes they were not going to expose themselves later sans underwear, by doing what exactly? Did she think ( I’m pretty sure she wasn’t doing much ‘thinking’ at the time ) cartwheels on the dance floor? Hand stands?
What gets me is the girls that were asked seemed to have complied with the request. Humiliation, and embarrassment aside, they were probably in shock that they would be asked to do such a senseless act that they were like sheep, just following orders. Who wants to get all dressed up, play princess for the night of their prom and then just go home before getting in the door because some loony woman wants to see under their dress?
This whole thing has so many things wrong with it, I’m afraid I might miss a few. Let’s go through the list:
1. An adult is asking teens to expose themselves to her.
2. This adult is conducting this ‘panty check’ in public view.
3. This adult is in a position of power over the teens, by being their assistant vice principal.
4. This adult upon discovering anyone wearing thong underwear sends them home. I’m sure if anyone was bare naked underneath they too were sent packing. I haven’t heard of any of the girls being without underwear. I wonder if pantyhose with no underwear was ok with the adult?
5. That the girls that were asked to lift their dresses complied. There is something just not right about that. I would have hoped if not all the girls asked, at least one girl would have said, ” Are you nuts? I don’t think so!”, when the adult came to her turn. Then she would have walked right past the loony woman and gone in to the prom. I wonder if she would have been arrested for not exposing herself to the adult? Maybe her parents would have been called to pick her up. That would have been a good thing. Yeah, a dad getting called by a loony woman saying “pick up your daughter, because she wouldn’t comply with a public ‘panty check’, would have been just what was needed in the mix.
6. There were boys at the prom, some of them getting an eyeful of the ‘panty check’. Where was prince charming? Buried under a few hundred milligrams of testosterone, and thinking “They do ‘panty checks’ at the prom? If I’d known that, I’d have gone to all the proms since being a Freshman!” These girls needed rescuing. It’s said that besides the boys and girls, teachers, and other miscellaneous persons attending the prom, (many of those getting a birds-eye view of the proceedings) that there were police there also. Really? Did they know what was going on? I guess they had gone to public high school at one time too, and just thought…”comply with the assistant vice principal, she’s in charge.”
What’s happening now with this loony woman? She is on paid administrative leave after outraged parents, and their teen daughters filed complaints to the school board. There will be an investigation into the allegations. They say that if she did do this, that she overstepped the appropriate boundaries of her position. Ya think? The parents want her fired, or to resign.
In my opinion the parents should file a complaint against the loony woman with the police. Take their complaints outside of the school system. And get a lawyer, if no one else came to these girls rescue, we all know a lawyer will. I love a good rescue.
Copyright 2002 Betty Pine
Betty Pine is publisher of Whimsical Review, an online magazine showcasing some of the best writers, and web sites on the Internet. http://www.whimsicalreview.com
Female Impersonation – Impersonating the professional working woman is that gal out to get your guy!
By S.D. Craig
Having only one point of view, a female one, I’m not sure what males think about their wives in the workplace. I’m up for discussion on that, too. But women in the office — that’s where I’m headed.
I grew up believing that one should act and dress professionally on the job. Sexy outfits were not considered work attire. I had enough trouble without it.
My first boss later told me he hired me because of my nice legs and that when I left the office that day, I was facing the sun and he could see through my skirt. Great. Had I forgotten my slip? Was I shocked at his years later revelation? Yes, though by that time, I knew this man well.
This same boss would send me to a store a few doors down for change several times a week, even though I’d told him the owner, an older man was harassing me. The boss thought that was funny and I was too young to know how to handle the jerk. The guy was pushing me up against walls, trying to kiss me. Worse yet, he was older than my Dad. I had only to admit this to my husband-to-be or my Dad but I kept silent. I realized it would create a mess. One in which I might lose my job.
Life moved along. Notice in recent years (more so since sexual harassment charges have become the norm), that women are dressing sexier, flirting often and dating men at work? I’m taking a wild guess that could mean they’re having more affairs then they did thirty years ago when I started working.
Did wicked women sprout up out of the earth when the sexual harassment laws were passed? Seems to me some were, and they went hog wild, now feeling protected. Yep, some of those females began doing, saying and wearing whatever they wanted to work.
That’s all well and good, if you’re looking for a husband. But what about our husbands? What about our men out there? I was invested in the ten-year marriage and nine months pregnant with our second child when I found out my first husband failed the test of a woman on his job coming on to him. He bit, and bit but good. And his boat no longer floated in my port, honey .
I’m better off without that man, but the bottom line is, what’s wrong with their men? Why are these women looking at ours at work? Wearing skirts slit up to here (what happens when they sit down at work, is this Sharon Stone all over again?), and necklines down to there. Where do they get off swaggering through the office like they’re trolling for trouser trout?
Ladies, it’s our fishing hole, ain’t it? Stand up for our rights. If they’re trolling, let’s toss them in the water, I say.
Business lunches with these women, are they a necessary evil then? Do you have to hear your husband on the cell phone while out having lunch with a woman, their laughter tinkling in the background? Oh, she’s having such fun, and with your man. That’s right but it’s business, and that makes it just fine in their eyes. That’s bull puckey.
If things are business, conduct them in the office, shall we? Leave those lunches out to the single sex-in-the-city types. You never know who is under that slinky dress and what she’s up to.
Impersonating a professional working woman? It’s an insult to the intelligence females have worked so hard to be recognized for. If these women would keep their skirts down, their necklines up, and their hands to themselves, some work might get accomplished. And, oh by the way, THAT man is taken.
SD Craig is a freelance writer and editor of LovingYourCurves.com and was given the nickname “Chatterbox” by fellow writers. At age fifty, Craigs Southern flair and sense of humor give her plenty to write about with a rapier wit and a wacky outlook. Her articles on body image (her biggest passion), marriage/divorce and relationships, family, friends, career issues, computers, the Internet, horses, baseball, movie reviews and writing tips remind one of Erma Bombeck or Dave Barry. A freelance writer who once juggled five columns then got real, Craig welcomes your e-mails and feedback on her articles. Drop her a hello at sdcraig922@yahoo.com or stop by www.lovingyourcurves.com.
By S.D. Craig
How many times have you thought something bad about someone who is heavier than you? Or said it out loud? And do you realize that this is discrimination, that it hurts, that it isn’t helpful or supportive? No, probably you haven’t thought about those things until it was too late. Or maybe, you just didn’t think. Period. Ouch.
So many times in my life, someone has hurt my feelings and though I admit I’m a ‘sensitive plant,’ (my husband says so), it doesn’t take much to have someone prick you in an area that they feel you need improvement in. The key word here is “they.” It seems that either they are insensitive louts or they’re busybodies. All in the name of love, most times. Whether you wanted the advice or opinion matters not.
They are floating with the flock, as it were.
The flock is society and the media, magazines and advertisements, flaunting that the only way to be popular, to be lovely, is to weigh no more than a girl of thirteen. The damage this is doing to our young children, not to mention ourselves, is horrendous. And floating with the flock sickens me.
People need to stop this behavior. I would no sooner think to inform someone they needed to gain weight or lose weight than I would think to murder them in cold blood. It just never occurs to me to advise where it’s not wanted. I learned my lesson long ago to be tactful and keep my nose in my own business. Most days.
If I thought someone was in grave danger, I might change my mind. But for the most part, I try to be helpful in a myriad of other ways and, if someone needs me, to be there for them and be supportive.
Society will never learn if we keep pointing out fat people (is there a nice reason to do this?) or saying to a friend, “Doesn’t she need to lose twenty pounds before she wears that outfit again?” It’s human decency, it’s consideration of feelings.
Floating with the flock will eventually mean you’re one of them. The non-people.
Stay down to earth and love your neighbors, whether they’re big, little, old or young, rich or poor. Wouldn’t that be a feather in your cap?
About the writer:
SD Craig is a freelance writer and editor of LovingYourCurves.com and was given the nickname “Chatterbox” by fellow writers. At age fifty, Craigs Southern flair and sense of humor give her plenty to write about with a rapier wit and a wacky outlook. Her articles on body image (her biggest passion), marriage/divorce and relationships, family, friends, career issues, computers, the Internet, horses, baseball, movie reviews and writing tips remind one of Erma Bombeck or Dave Barry. A freelance writer who once juggled five columns then got real, Craig welcomes your e-mails and feedback on her articles. Drop her a hello at sdcraig922@yahoo.com or stop by www.lovingyourcurves.com.
