Master Assassin, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise

October 17, 2009 Martha Thomases 7 Comments

Last week, I flew (in an airplane) for the first time since this happened.  For those of you too lazy to click on the link, a terrorist tried to blow up a Saudi prince by hiding TNT in his ass.

The attempt failed to kill its target, but it did make a huge mess.  I imagine that, if the bomber had tried to do the same thing in an airplane, it would make an even bigger mess.

And yet, when I went through airport security, no one checked my ass.  Even worse, no one checked anybody’s ass.

Since I am not a man and therefore have no prostate gland, there’s really nothing in it for me to get a government-mandated anal massage.  Nor do I want a security-induced enema before I get on an airplane.  At the same time, I don’t  want to sit next to anyone who has anything within his or her lower colon that is going to blow up for any reason.  It’s bad enough having to smell what’s already in there.

When Richard Reid allegedly arranged for his shoes to explode in the middle of a trans-Atlantic flight, he set in motion a chain of events that caused every air passenger to walk barefoot through a metal detector while a security guard inspected our shoes.

And, after rumors (which may in fact be true, as seen here) that one can combine grooming products to make bombs, we had to limit the amounts of shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste, lotion and the like.  We had to put the tiny bottles we were allowed to bring into clear plastic bags, which we had to separate from our suitcases so they could be more easily scrutinized.  When this happens at the same time the airlines are charging extra for checked baggage, this means the lines to get through security get longer and more clunky.

I can only imagine the scrutiny we’ll endure when a terrorist places liquid plastique in someone’s breast implants.

If any of this made us any safer, I might be persuaded that it’s worth the aggravation.  However, the selection of items to screen is random and mercurial.  For a while, you couldn’t bring knitting needles.  Now  you can (except, for some reason, on British Airways).  Knitting needles may be potentially dangerous, what with the points and all, but no more so than pens or pencils.  You can’t bring nail clippers or Swiss Army knives, but you can bring scissors with blades shorter than three inches, no matter how sharp.  None of these distinctions can keep us from harm.  A crazy person could do a lot of damage with a hard-cover book, if that’s what he wanted to do.

Which is really the point.  We won’t be safe as long as there are suicide bombers.  People who think they’ll get their reward in Heaven have no particular incentive to make this world better.  People who think they have nothing to lose, and God on their side, are exceptionally dangerous.

It has been my (entirely Western) experience that education and diversity reduce fanaticism.  People who live in the Diaspora are exposed to different perspectives and, often, learn something in the process. Those who believe in science, not superstition, value the joys of this life, instead of saving everything up for the next.

Last but not least, some of us believe in a Divine Power that had more pleasurable and entertaining ideas about how to use the areas around our asses than as weapons of mass destruction.

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Media Goddess Martha Thomases is, for the first time, grateful that no one has ever told her she has a dynamite ass.