Airports can be magical places. Or so I keep telling myself.
I should know. Over the course of my misspent life, I have managed to accumulate 3,300,000 miles on American Airlines. If you don’t want to do the math at home that conservatively equates to a little over 275 days on an airplane and probably the equivalent number of days in airports.
If this seems like a lot of time to you, it is. Yet I still, or at least up until recently, found airports magical. Why? Because for a guy like me, someone who was born with a profound sense of wanderlust, it is the gateway to the next adventure. Going to a new destination or a city I have visited so many times that I don’t need to ask for a map rental desk, it doesn’t matter. For me, it is all about the adventure I am about to embark on.
Don’t get me wrong. There are things about airports that make me want to stab myself in the eye with a fork. But over time you develop strategies to cope with those things. Noise cancelling headphones to help drown out the sounds of crying babies and other cantankerous and annoying noises. You join airline clubs so that instead of being confronted with the hustle, bustle, and angst of your fellow travelers you can enjoy dulcet murmurs, warm nuts or a meal and perhaps an adult beverage.
But mostly you learn how to avoid lines. You apply and get TSA Pre-check approved. You get Clear, a concierge service to escort you through long lines. You get Global Entry, which allows you to re-enter the country with little more than a wink, nod and “welcome home.” In short, you pay a small fortune for the privilege of being treated the way air travel used to work for everyone.
I am thinking about this a lot today because in two days I am going to get on an airplane to return to the United States and transiting through one of my least favorite airports, Miami International (MIA.) I have been stranded there one too many times, their people moving light rail is often out of order, so you are forced to walk miles (no exaggeration) to get to your gate for me to have any great fondness for the airport. But that only dims the magic, not eliminates it.
But what does take a giant steaming dump on my wanderlust this time is the current TSA situation. I mean the thing that you want to do the least at 6am, after an eight-hour overnight flight is stand in a line to re-enter the airport. But you learn to deal with that (remember pre-check). What makes it hard this time around is you know the line is going to be far longer when there is absolutely no reason for it should be.
Nearly 2/3rds of all Americans, Democrats and Republicans, feel that ICE and its tactics have gone too far in its attempt to arrest undocumented people. Whether its masked Gestapo-Esque tactics, the death of American citizens exercising their constitutional rights, their flagrant disregard of judicial orders or establishment of what can only be called concentration camps, it is an agency out of control. Which is why Congress purposely did not fund Homeland Security in its continuing funding resolution. They wanted, their constituents wanted, to see fundamental changes to ICE before they passed funding. Unfortunately, the current occupant of the Oval Office, whose ego is so big he needs to put his name on everything from the Kennedy Center to prescription plans to signing currency won’t allow him to admit that he is wrong about ICE.
In other words, Trump would rather inconvenience 2.5 million Americans everyday than admit he was wrong about ICE.
To be fair, he did say he would allow a bill to pass if it included SAFE act provision. Once again this is about his pathological ego. The SAFE is all about him losing the 2020 election. His ego won’t allow him to believe that the majority of Americans voted him out of office. So he created a myth of voter fraud. And it is a myth. 60 cases, 60 dismissals. Going back 40 years there have been 1000 cases of voter fraud reported. To put that in perspective, more people have been struck by lightning while simultaneously being audited by the IRS.
In other words, he would rather inconvenience 2.5 million Americans everyday than admit he lost the 2020 election.
You might say, especially if you are fond of corpulent men wearing who like oversized baseball caps with writing on them, have no fear. We have sent ICE officers to the airport to supplement the diminishing ranks of TSA officers. Here is the problem. Not only are the ICE officers untrained for their current duties, but they have not trained for TSA duties. Which means they’re sitting around looking butch and little else. Truly a master class in solving a staffing shortage by adding staff who can’t do the job.
In other words, Trump would rather put at risk the safety of 2.5 million Americans everyday than admit that ludicrous and breathless campaign promises designed to stir fear and foster hatred are not good public policy.
Donald Trump has taken the magic of airports from me and it pisses me off. This place that has been the start and end points of so many wonderful memories has become infected with the malignancy of MAGA and its platform of hate and despair. It makes me want to travel with my “8647” ball cap on my, wearing my Foxtrot Delta Tango Tee and wearing my “Justice for Alex and Renee” pin screaming “Attica, Attica” (dated movie reference.”
But I probably won’t. I want to make it home. Rosie needs me. However, I will be thinking it. Loudly.
Winston Churchill once said that if you were not a liberal when you were young you had no heart, and if you were not a conservative when you were older then you had no brain. I know I have both so what does that make me?
Blame it on Rio
Making Airport Lines Great Again
Or 8647 Reasons This Line Should Not Exist
Airports can be magical places. Or so I keep telling myself.
I should know. Over the course of my misspent life, I have managed to accumulate 3,300,000 miles on American Airlines. If you don’t want to do the math at home that conservatively equates to a little over 275 days on an airplane and probably the equivalent number of days in airports.
If this seems like a lot of time to you, it is. Yet I still, or at least up until recently, found airports magical. Why? Because for a guy like me, someone who was born with a profound sense of wanderlust, it is the gateway to the next adventure. Going to a new destination or a city I have visited so many times that I don’t need to ask for a map rental desk, it doesn’t matter. For me, it is all about the adventure I am about to embark on.
Don’t get me wrong. There are things about airports that make me want to stab myself in the eye with a fork. But over time you develop strategies to cope with those things. Noise cancelling headphones to help drown out the sounds of crying babies and other cantankerous and annoying noises. You join airline clubs so that instead of being confronted with the hustle, bustle, and angst of your fellow travelers you can enjoy dulcet murmurs, warm nuts or a meal and perhaps an adult beverage.
But mostly you learn how to avoid lines. You apply and get TSA Pre-check approved. You get Clear, a concierge service to escort you through long lines. You get Global Entry, which allows you to re-enter the country with little more than a wink, nod and “welcome home.” In short, you pay a small fortune for the privilege of being treated the way air travel used to work for everyone.
I am thinking about this a lot today because in two days I am going to get on an airplane to return to the United States and transiting through one of my least favorite airports, Miami International (MIA.) I have been stranded there one too many times, their people moving light rail is often out of order, so you are forced to walk miles (no exaggeration) to get to your gate for me to have any great fondness for the airport. But that only dims the magic, not eliminates it.
But what does take a giant steaming dump on my wanderlust this time is the current TSA situation. I mean the thing that you want to do the least at 6am, after an eight-hour overnight flight is stand in a line to re-enter the airport. But you learn to deal with that (remember pre-check). What makes it hard this time around is you know the line is going to be far longer when there is absolutely no reason for it should be.
Nearly 2/3rds of all Americans, Democrats and Republicans, feel that ICE and its tactics have gone too far in its attempt to arrest undocumented people. Whether its masked Gestapo-Esque tactics, the death of American citizens exercising their constitutional rights, their flagrant disregard of judicial orders or establishment of what can only be called concentration camps, it is an agency out of control. Which is why Congress purposely did not fund Homeland Security in its continuing funding resolution. They wanted, their constituents wanted, to see fundamental changes to ICE before they passed funding. Unfortunately, the current occupant of the Oval Office, whose ego is so big he needs to put his name on everything from the Kennedy Center to prescription plans to signing currency won’t allow him to admit that he is wrong about ICE.
In other words, Trump would rather inconvenience 2.5 million Americans everyday than admit he was wrong about ICE.
To be fair, he did say he would allow a bill to pass if it included SAFE act provision. Once again this is about his pathological ego. The SAFE is all about him losing the 2020 election. His ego won’t allow him to believe that the majority of Americans voted him out of office. So he created a myth of voter fraud. And it is a myth. 60 cases, 60 dismissals. Going back 40 years there have been 1000 cases of voter fraud reported. To put that in perspective, more people have been struck by lightning while simultaneously being audited by the IRS.
In other words, he would rather inconvenience 2.5 million Americans everyday than admit he lost the 2020 election.
You might say, especially if you are fond of corpulent men wearing who like oversized baseball caps with writing on them, have no fear. We have sent ICE officers to the airport to supplement the diminishing ranks of TSA officers. Here is the problem. Not only are the ICE officers untrained for their current duties, but they have not trained for TSA duties. Which means they’re sitting around looking butch and little else. Truly a master class in solving a staffing shortage by adding staff who can’t do the job.
In other words, Trump would rather put at risk the safety of 2.5 million Americans everyday than admit that ludicrous and breathless campaign promises designed to stir fear and foster hatred are not good public policy.
I could go on and on but if you have been paying attention ((29) Need to Know by David Rothkopf | Substack, (29) Marissa Rothkopf-Bakes: The Secret Life of Cookies | Substack) you know all this already. So let me make this personal.
Donald Trump has taken the magic of airports from me and it pisses me off. This place that has been the start and end points of so many wonderful memories has become infected with the malignancy of MAGA and its platform of hate and despair. It makes me want to travel with my “8647” ball cap on my, wearing my Foxtrot Delta Tango Tee and wearing my “Justice for Alex and Renee” pin screaming “Attica, Attica” (dated movie reference.”
But I probably won’t. I want to make it home. Rosie needs me. However, I will be thinking it. Loudly.
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About 34orion
Winston Churchill once said that if you were not a liberal when you were young you had no heart, and if you were not a conservative when you were older then you had no brain. I know I have both so what does that make me?