Controversial TSA Pat-Down of the Day: This footage of a toddler in a body cast and wheelchair being frisked by a TSA agent was uploaded over the weekend by the boy’s father, Matt Dubiel.
Dubiel, co-owner of Chicago-based alternative radio station Q101, says in the description that he and his family were traveling to Disney World by way of O’Hare International Airport.
During the pat-down, three-year-old Rocco was “physically trembling with fear,” according to Dubiel. “I was told I could NOT touch him or come near him during this process,” he writes in one of the video’s captions. “Instead we had to pretend this was ‘ok’ so he didn’t panic.”
One can only hope that in the two years since this footage was recorded, the TSA has overhauled its “toddler pat-down” policy the exclude patting down toddlers. I am certain we will hear the official
excuseexplanation from The TSA Blog before long.[bi.]
Just another process we were all enraged with at first and then acquiesced to. I’m truly sad that I’m usually the only one that refuses the atom-smashing machines and opts for a pat down. I’m fine with it, and if we made TSA’s job nothing more than kneeling with their faces at crotch level, feeling strangers’ genitals all day, maybe they’d second guess what they’re even doing there in the first place.
Ever notice that if there’s enough people in line for the new screening device, they send you through the old-fashioned metal detector to move it along? Tells you just how important that thing really is. Imagine if everyone insisted on a pat down. They’d just send you through the regular metal detector. Because it’s all laughably the same thing, with glorified shopping mall security guards acting like they know what they’re looking for.
It’s not Occupy Wall Street. You don’t have to camp out in front of city hall all winter. Just opt for the pat-down instead of the screening. Make them realize how ridiculous and unnecessary the whole process is. Make them re-examine how they’re approaching this idea of security. That’s what everyone was going to do, remember? And then everyone folded. And now here’s a kid in a wheelchair being felt up by a grown man and I’m more fearful of my own government than any terrorist organization.
Kinane is the fucking man.
Cyanobacteria!Blue waves produced by bioluminescent phytoplankton: Vaadhoo Island in the Maldives, Florida Everglades, and Lakshadweep Islands off India.
Last year when I studied in Catalina, I was able to witness the amazing bioluminescence of its water’s phytoplankton. My group had swum out to sea at night and then turned off our lights. We dipped our heads below the water and “played” with the phytoplankton, then swam back to shore with the glittering lights billowing with our movements. It was a breathtakingly beautiful experience.
Got to see a bloom in San Diego. These are great pictures!
