“Step…away…from…the…baby!”
The West Highland Free Press is a weekly newspaper I’ve enjoyed for 34 years. It’s a great example of principled journalism that stays principled — even after it’s become a success on its own patch.
Folks that write and report for the WHFP have as strong a knack for irony as for hewing to the meat of a story. I’d suggest reading the whole piece — after you wander through these excerpted lines:
Stornoway does not look or feel like a new front line in the War on Terror. President Bush, as far as I am aware, has not denounced the Isle of Lewis as part of the Axis of Evil. The Tora Bora caves are not in the middle of the Barvas moor. So, what is going on at Stornoway airport?
Last week I counted five — yes, five — security staff working around the airport’s small x-ray machine. It seemed excessive. After reaching Glasgow I had a quick peek in the security area. I could only see three staff. You will often find six people staffing the machines at Terminal One in Heathrow.
The security team is certainly very diligent. Standing at the end of the queue that was moving at a snail’s pace through to the embarkation area I watched as a smartly-dressed grey-haired woman was forced to remove her boots. Something had alerted the eagle eyed security man. They deserved special attention and a trip through the x-ray machine.
Tolastadh a Chaolais Taliban, I thought to myself. But, no, the boots were handed back after being scanned. Next through the detector was a younger dark-haired woman. No bleep. But the ultra-eager security man was not satisfied. She was also forced to remove her shoes and send them through the x-ray machine. How cunning, I thought. No beard. No veil. Was a member of the Airighabhruaich Al Qaeda cell about to be apprehended before my very eyes? Nothing so dramatic. Again the shoes turned out to be just that. Shoes.
You see where this is going. Many of us have suffered through the same incongruity — senseless, disproportionate rote behavior.
Stornoway is home to less than 6,000 people. It is the largest town in the Outer Isles. The airport is of a useful size and sort. The bureaucrats aren’t.
What made me laugh was to imagine the whole piece read to me with that deep Gaelic accent of theirs! LOL! British humor really IS something!
Airighabhruaich Al Qaeda…. 😀
Some of the 9/11 terrorist (mass-murderers) entered the screened passenger area of the airline system via a small airport in Maine. They probably did this in order to get weapons in through what they considered a weak point in the system.
So just because an airport is small does not mean that the they should let their guard down.
Security Theater, with a cast of buffoons. But it provides several valuable services at once: jobs for every politician’s retarded nieces and nephews (since all the burger-flipping jobs have been taken over by illegal aliens); playing directly into the hands of terrorists by appointing cretins to bully the public; and a gigantic porkchopping handjob.
I haven’t been near an airport in over six years. I’ll start flying again when
they let me bring a .45 and a parachute onboard., and Kip Hawley is back at his old job at Burger King.
That wooshing noise you hear — Ron — is the point going right over your head.
That “small” airport in Maine services a market 400 times larger than Stornoway. The comparison that Morrison made not only included the absurdity of a group of terrorists training on an island small enough to make a new car noticeable — but that Glasgow and London deal with traffic orders of magnitude larger than wee Stornoway Airport. Why have 5 peepers?
Oh, c’mon traaxx – there’s a difference between Muslims and radical Islamists. It’s the latter we should be concerned about. Having spent a lot of time in Egypt lately, I can tell you that on average, Muslims are as nice as any. Religious extremists are dangerous – no matter their denomination.
The current conflict in Sudan is a battle between Muslims, where the Arabic Muslims are killing off as many African Muslims as they can hack their machetes into.
It’s not about religion – it’s about power, money and control as always. Religion is just a handy tool to wave in front of the poor and uneducated masses in order to recruit “holy warriors”. If they could read, (or chose to interpret the texts properly) they’d find out that none of the Holy books advocate killing.
peace,
#5, Traax
I thought Ron was out to lunch. Then I read your post. You are so out of touch to reality it defies description. You make references that totally defy logic except in the mind of a total paranoid Bush sheep.
What you don’t realize is that YOU are the terrorist. YOU have taken away our freedoms. YOU make us fear what is under every bed at night. YOU have cost America all her international good will. YOU will be the cause of the next attack on Americans on American soil. Yes, Traax, I am blaming YOU and those that think and act like you. Because YOU, Bush, Cheney, Rove, and all the apologists are the terrorists. YOU make us afraid to fly. YOU make us fear our neighbor. YOU make us distrust and hate.
Not because we shouldn’t be vigilant against criminal acts, but simply in order to further your own agenda. The whole sense of the article is lost on you. The whole sense of America is lost on you.