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Antiterror measures drown us in details
© St. Petersburg Times The most ridiculous casualty of September 11 may be Florida orange juice. Orange juice! As a result of the cutbacks U.S. Airways made in the wake of the terrorist attacks, passengers can no longer get orange juice in Florida. Instead they must settle for apple juice, Coke, Sprite, beer, wine or water on the puddle jumpers that traverse the state. On a recent flight to Tampa, I happened to be sitting next to Dr. Martha Rhodes Roberts, Florida's deputy commissioner of agriculture. I don't think she believed me when I told her we were not going to get any orange juice -- until we asked the stewardess for it. She thinks this is outrageous in a state where orange juice is our best known product and growers are suffering from the results of NAFTA. Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson is firing off a complaint to US Airways. "I am disturbed that you chose to remove the most nutritious item you were serving," Bronson wrote. "If you are trying to lure increased traffic to Florida, then serve the very beverage for which Florida is world famous -- orange juice." For a while the airline also eliminated all the pillows and blankets on flights too -- to make it easier to check the planes, they said. This was a problem on a coast-to-coast red eye! It's the lack of a logical connection between what happened on Sept. 11 and the actions taken in the name of fighting terrorism that is driving me crazy. Taking tweezers away from elderly women or forcing men with hip replacements to strip to their underwear is going a bit far. Some things I can understand. I've given up nail files, the Swiss Army knife in my travel kit, a corkscrew, my little knitting scissors with a 1-inch blade and more time than I would ever have spent in anybody's airport. I would feel better about surrendering my possessions if the same folks in Tampa who took my knitting scissors had not allowed a guy with a gun to get past them a few days later. It's a painful waste of time to get to the airport hours before a scheduled departure, especially in a world where they are almost always late leaving. If I can take my knitting along, it gives me something to do, but in the name of security many of us are asked to give up knitting or needlework or anything else that might result in productive use of airport time. Airports work on a perverse schedule. If I am early, the guys at the metal detectors don't take a second look at anything. If I am running late, they will be certain to make me take off my shoes, paw through my purse, scramble my clothes and dump out cosmetics while looking for something "suspicious" spotted on the X-ray screen. Last month I was delayed because of a small marble paperweight given to me as a souvenir in St. Petersburg. It apparently looked dangerous on the X-ray and the search began. While the guards were searching I was trying to think of what could possibly look like a knife inside my suitcase. Then I thought of the marble stuck in a shoe and offered to help. They don't want help. They don't trust us. And many of them don't want to communicate at all. This week the culprit was a crystal ball I bought at an art shop in St. Petersburg and carefully wrapped in clothes for the trip home. When I offered to show the item to the guard who was pawing through my stuff, he rejected it like I was public enemy No. 1 and must be trying to divert his attention from a machine gun. If someone is going to paw through my possessions and make me miss an airplane, I'd at least like that person to be civil and speak English I can understand. And where is the logic of this? I am an overweight 61-year-old woman with a cast on one foot. I have trouble walking, let alone hijacking a plane.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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Times columns today Lucy Morgan Gary Shelton Sandra Thompson From the Times State news desk Lucy Morgan |
