Hamlet thought that he had a dilemma? He should see that of travelers going through US airports in this 21^st century. At least he did not have to decide whether to be groped, or be fried at an X-ray machine. The 72 virgins killers must be having a good chuckle, if chuckling is allowed in Hell, that place without air conditioning and minus the virgins. Here on earth, those who fly and ride in aircraft have been put through all kinds of inconveniences in the name of “flight safety.” I am all for “flight safety.” I do not want to be forced off of this earth, at least not until I have had a chance to visit all 50 states. However, why in the name of “safety” does it mean that once again, US citizens have to be humiliated and made to suffer? I am beginning to think that there is another agenda at work here.

Greyhound and Amtrak are suddenly looking very attractive, unless the conductors on Amtrak are going to be allowed a “grope a dope!” “Dope” is a very appropriate word. We in the US are looking like a bunch of dopes. We keep electing dopes to lead us. We keep accepting “dopish” laws. We are willingly allowing hands on our “junk.” Thank you Mr. Tyner, for the “junk” tag.

It is so ironic. The signs leading up to 9/11 were there. Experts, including Steve Emerson, sent out warnings as early as the 1990s, but those in charge then, were busy with affairs of a different sort. No heed was paid. 9/11 happened. As usual ordinary Americans paid the price. They continue to pay the price. Bureaucracies were created. Initially, most of us were in favor of whatever had to be done to keep us “safe.” Later as this all evolved, we began to be treated as if we were the perps, instead of the potential victims. Caucasian grandmothers with walkers became the chief target for frisking. Three year old girls began to attract attention. Then someone came up with the radiation theory, “one can never have too much radiation.” So the machines were installed, with the assurance that they are “safe.” With all due respect, I have reached the point that, most of what is told by a government agency, I tend to believe the opposite. This is coming from a woman who began life in the US with the utmost respect for government.

The bureaucracies were not finished. You do not want to be potentially fried? Open up wide – your groin. Although I am a female, I do not want any females groping my groin. If I am to be groped, I am requesting a good-looking, fit Marine, in full uniform. He must be able to do the cha cha slide, as he examines! I will be getting back in line, attracting attention so that I can get another examination, or two or three! My “junk,” although lovely junk, is not for viewing, unless I initiate the viewing party. Those are my terms.

 “Homeland Security”? I am feeling damn insecure. I am trying to banish the thought that just occurred to me – that someone or some in the ruling class and bureaucracy must have a fetish with people’s body parts, and the perfect excuse of “security” provides excellent cover. I hope that the members of the ruling class are not turning Roman Empire on us, “Caligula-ish”? Who owns stock in and who sold the government the full body scan machines? I think that I have found my answer in USA Today. The following paragraphs sum up very nicely the old “one hand washes the other” syndrome:

WASHINGTON — The companies with multimillion-dollar contracts to supply American airports with body-scanning machines more than doubled their spending on lobbying in the past five years and hired several high-profile former government officials to advance their causes in Washington, government records show.

L-3 Communications, which has sold $39.7 million worth of the machines to the federal government, spent $4.3 million trying to influence Congress and federal agencies during the first nine months of this year, up from $2.1 million in 2005, lobbying data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics show. Its lobbyists include Linda Daschle, a former Federal Aviation Administration official.

Rapiscan Systems, meanwhile, has spent $271,500 on lobbying so far this year, compared with $80,000 five years earlier. It has faced criticism for hiring Michael Chertoff, the former Homeland Security secretary, last year. Chertoff has been a prominent proponent of using scanners to foil terrorism. The government has spent $41.2 million with Rapiscan.

It appears that we do have the “synergy syndrome.” Let’s see. Mr. Chertoff moves from Homeland Security Secretary to a company that just happens to be involved in the “safety” business. I feel like Alice in Wonderland. However I am not too clueless to want "love pats." Senator McCaskill, in the spirit of Christmas, you can have mine. I was going to be flying, but I changed my plans.

One Senator’s “love pats,” is another citizen’s encounter with humiliation. I had tears in my eyes as I read this sentence:

Humiliated, upset and wet, Sawyer said he had to walk through the airport soaked in urine, board his plane and wait until after takeoff before he could clean up.

Those in charge should have brought out a copy of the US Constitution and dumped it in the urine, and complete the degradation.

My tears turned to fury when I pulled up this link about the trials of a flight attendant.

Cathy was asked to show her prosthetic breast, removing it from her bra. 

"I did not take the name of the person at the time because it was just so horrific of an experience, I couldn't believe someone had done that to me. I'm a flight attendant. I was just trying to get to work."

She was on her way to work, for heaven’s sake! Good – I see that the backlash is building:

"After 9/11 people were scared and when people are scared they'll do anything for someone who will make them less scared," said Bruce Schneier, a Minneapolis security technology expert who has long been critical of the TSA. "But ... this is particularly invasive. It's strip-searching. It's body groping. As abhorrent goes, this pegs it."

“Abhorrent” is the right word. I had tears in my eyes as I saw the videos of those who have been subjected to the strip searches. If the little three year-old girl had been my child, I would be serving time behind bars, after punching out the person touching her! We teach our kids not to let adults touch them. Then they find out that it is all right for certain adults to touch their private parts. I would not be surprised if these kids grow up with even more problems than they already encounter.

It sure does not help to have my shaky confidence in the “safety and security” of those scans, shattered by this article:

Now it turns out that some police agencies are storing the controversial images after all. The U.S. Marshals Service admitted this week that it had surreptitiously saved tens of thousands of images recorded with a millimeter wave system at the security checkpoint of a single Florida courthouse.

This follows an earlier disclosure (PDF) by the TSA that it requires all airport body scanners it purchases to be able to store and transmit images for "testing, training, and evaluation purposes." The agency says, however, that those capabilities are not normally activated when the devices are installed at airports.

So I am supposed to be pleased that had I gone through one of those scanners, “likened to a virtual strip search,” my image, with its “precise anatomical detail,” could have been supposedly used for “training”? The head of DHS stated that we have a “collective role in our security.” I would stay away from that word “collective.” I am having visions of Germany in the 1930s.

I am going to be cooperative and lend a hand. Since we all have a role, I am assuming my self-appointed role of advisor and advising that we adopt the "Israeli Way." As the article states, it is “a system that protects life and limb without annoying you to death.” I don’t even mind being annoyed under the “American Way,” if the annoyance came in the form of waiting longer in line. It is the “invasion,” stupid. Maybe if the Israeli solution is not acceptable in the US, TSA could change its policies to have travelers who have doctors’ appointments for gynecological exams, have their doctors conduct these examinations at the airport – two searches with one “frisk.” If there is going to be this insistence on “invasion of the body, groin snatchers,” then pay half the airfare for the passengers – pay per grope. We, the flying public, should get something out of this, not just humiliation. Scratch that. Even if I got reimbursed for half of the ticket, I still do not want any strangers groping me.

As if the groping and “frying” are not enough, now we have "TSA horror stories," in the words of two TSA agents:

“It is not comfortable to come to work knowing full well that my hands will be feeling another man’s private parts, their butt, their inner thigh,” wrote one male agent. “Even worse is having to try and feel inside the flab rolls of obese passengers, and we seem to get a lot of obese passengers!” Another added that most of the travelers the agency deals with “have a problem understanding what personal hygiene is.”

There you have it, my fellow Americans. According to some doing the groping, you are fat and smelly. I really do not mean to add to your misery but there is also a report out that those gloves used to inspect you, are also being used to inspect many others, without being changed. You think that you smell now? Wait until you get the report of whatever diseases you could have picked up by “sharing a glove.” We have the injurious spectacle of Americans pitted against Americans. Was this part of a specific plan? Personally, I am very suspicious about the reasoning for instituting this procedure of groping Americans, from toddlers to the very ancient, in their private parts.

The US has become the laughingstock of the world over this “cop a feel” in the name of public safety. There has to be a more equitable balance, but unless an antibiotic is discovered for the ailment of political correctness, the rumble between TSA and the flying public will continue. The only winners will be the wannabe terrorists.

Maybe the attention that was paid in working over Americans, should have been paid to government documents that have now had their “private parts” exposed by WikiLeaks. The US government is beginning to look like the gang that cannot shoot straight, unless the target is the US citizen. Then, the aim and shot are secure. President Reagan, I agree with you:

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

We have seen the “help” which has the country’s innards – political, social, diplomatic, and financial – exposed for all of the world to see. I pray to God that this conclusion of Fredrick Douglass does not apply to present day America:

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

Well, my fellow Americans, your groins are in your hands, figuratively speaking. Do you allow them to be woman or manhandled? Do you leave your pants zipped and demand a stop to this intrusion, which I perceive to be the portal to more tyranny? You have a choice to make. It had better be the correct one, or not only the “groin” of the country will be ripped out – but also its heart. No pun intended, but the ball is in your court.