Weathering the Broken Links

When I travel I tend to put all my electronic gear in one spot in my carry-on.  The TSA doesn’t like this.  I don’t care.

On my most recent trips involving family I had:

• Mini table computer + AC and DC power adapters + spare battery
• Fold-up portable bluetooth keyboard + spare batteries
• Camera + two camera batteries and camera battery charger
• Extra camera memory
• GPS radio + DC charger for it
• USB Cables
• USB Ethernet adapter
• Straps to secure tablet PC to seat headrest for my son to watch movies in rental car
• Plus I think a few more odds and ends

I’ve got a nice bag that holds it all in a very compact space and I put that inside a backpack with other essentials for me and the family.  I remove the tablet at TSA checkpoints, but leave everything else in the compact electronics bag.  This never fails to get the TSA screeners’ attention.

About 50% of the time, they pull me over to a table to do a bag screening.  They always ask whats in that bag, but then never put eyes and hands on it.  I guess they’re profiling me and not really worried about whats in it.  It seems a little pointless in my opinion; it really wouldn’t be too hard to put a dangerous item in there masquerading as a legitimate device.

I really don’t mind the extra stop at the table.  It’s a small price to pay for the convenience of having all my gadgets in one compact spot rather than scattered everywhere or in checked luggage where they might just “disappear.”

What I do mind is that the TSA screener doing the table check invariably tells me it’s not a good idea to clump all this stuff together.  Apparently, they can’t see the value proposition of a passenger or two spending an extra minute or two in screening as a trade off for having convenient and organized gadget access….i.e. the ease of doing their job should trump my convenience.

I almost always stay silent and sometimes nod my head.  I once tried to explain my rationale to a TSA screener.  He seemed unable to act like a human being and concur and instead started in about procedures and rules and whatnot.  I know he shouldn’t be winging it and potentially giving out bad advice, but c’mon, be reasonable.

What am I going to do about it?  Nothing.  As long as the TSA continues to be so casual in their inspection of my bags, I’ll continue to pack my goodies the way I’ve been doing so.  If they ever decide to get serious about checking bag contents, I’ll concede and make it easier for them to do their search.

I was recently at a park that I had never been to.  It was in, apparently, not so great an area.  My wife and son were with me.  They wandered of together to some playground equipment some 100 yards away leaving me eating my takeout alone on some rocks.  Not too long after, a scruffy looking guy comes my direction and at about 50 ft asks, “Hey you here alone?”

Having spotted him before he opened his mouth, I was already on alert.  I said firmly and loudly, “No, go away!”  When he replied, “huh?” I reiterated, “go away, get out of here!”  He changed course about 15 feet from me and started muttering something about me being a “whacked chracka” and being nuts.

No sooner than 5 minutes later, another scruffy guy came toward me looking to talk.  I gave him the same treatment and he quickly vectored away while telling me to chill out.

When the wife and son returned a couple minutes later, we left that sad excuse for a public recreation area and I did my after action analysis with my wife.  She agreed that there was absolutely no reason other than trouble for these guys to be approaching me; I’m that big huge, but at 200lbs with longish hair, goatee and stubble, I don’t look particularly cuddly to anyone but my family members.  She approved heartily of my use of simple, assertive, yet conceivably rude instructions to immediately dispatch with these trouble causers.

I recently came about a interesting thread (membership required) on a forum I visit a lot: DefensiveCarry.com.  If you opt not to get a membership on the side in order to read the thread, the synopsis is that a guy who claims to be just out meeting people and acting a bit odd, gets a little close to the original poster in his garage.  The poster indicates how his spidey senses are all on full, and when the unwelcome visitor reaches for something behind him, the poster postures for the gun he carries (he didn’t draw), and the visitor eventually beats tracks.  He never found out if the guy was up to no good or just odd.

What was very notable is the poster’s wife told him, “You scare yourself sometimes,” and “You’re not friendly.”

Leaving the issue of when and why to reach for a defensive weapon out of the picture, the main issue to focus on in retrospective analysis, is why so many folks, this poster’s wife included, are afraid of being rude to a complete stranger who is giving you unwanted attention.

I have to guess is that people are either in denial that something bad is present or they’re afraid of embarrassing themselves.  The poster’s wife certainly sounded like she was both in denial and embarrassed at her husband’s response.  I certainly feel his frustration at her naivety.

It’s really simple.  You’ve got a complete stranger who’s approached you.  You’ve ruled out that they don’t belong (e.g. they’re not a neighbor, a rep for someone you do business with, etc).   Unless they are clearly a sales person and you want what they’re offering, they have no value to you.  Tell them as much, clearly.

A good sales person should be able to understand that and realize their time is spent better elsewhere. Anyone else is simply unwanted and if they ignore your first request they’re dumb or up to no good.

If they’re dumb, you need to be more blunt with them; that’s the only way they’re going to get it.  If they’re up to no good, you need to be blunt with them.  Your resistance will demonstrate that you aren’t just going to roll over and readily be their victim.  Hopefully, they’ll be bright enough to realize you’re a bad mark and move on.  If not, well that’s another topic of discussion…

Regardless, a stranger is gone, and since they’re a stranger, does it really matter if they’re irritated with you for being rude?  I’d rather overreact and occasionally make a mistake that I can talk with others about afterwards than to fall victim to a criminal because I was too embarrassed to be assertive.

I’m disturbed over this approach to policing.

D.C. police will seal off entire neighborhoods, set up checkpoints and kick out strangers under a new program that D.C. officials hope will help them rescue the city from its out-of-control violence.

Under an executive order expected to be announced today, police Chief Cathy L. Lanier will have the authority to designate “Neighborhood Safety Zones.” At least six officers will man cordons around those zones and demand identification from people coming in and out of them. Anyone who doesn’t live there, work there or have “legitimate reason” to be there will be sent away or face arrest, documents obtained by The Examiner show.

It’s not that I don’t think it could have a positive effect if applied very judiciously.  But will it be applied very judiciously?

More importantly, is this being done at the request of the community?  Or is it being imposed upon them as an alternative to other crime fighting measures?  If the former, I can stomach it.  But if the law abiding folks who live there don’t want the imposition on themselves and their visitors, then it’s really, really wrong.

The city attorney qualifies the scope of the program:

Peter Nickles, the city’s interim attorney general, said the quarantine would have “a narrow focus.”

“This is a very targeted program that has been used in other cities,” Nickles told The Examiner. “I’m not worried about the constitutionality of it.”

I really, really hope that this is a very short term dragnet and not a long term solution.  Better yet, maybe pressure from us will get them to reconsider.

Of course, one of the D.C councilman who’s turf is affected and sort of supports the effort has his own reservations about the implications:

The proposal has the provisional support of D.C. Councilman Harry “Tommy” Thomas, D-Ward 5, whose ward has become a war zone.

“They’re really going to crack down on what we believe to be a systemic problem with open-air drug markets,” Thomas told The Examiner.

Thomas said, though, that he worried about D.C. “moving towards a police state.”

He readily admits his concern about becoming a police state.

I’d like to think that there are better measures for combating crime waves in violent neighborhoods.  Please don’t even raise the, “well just legalize drugs and the problems all go away” route.

What about simply applying the law as it’s written as agressively as is possible to all the criminals causing the problems?  Lock up some of them and make it too inconvenient for the remainder to conduct their crimes in those neighborhoods.  A few might stop; a few will move on; things will get better.

What to do?

If you agree, please consider voicing your concern to someone whose opinion matters.  Call or write the following people with your concerns:

• D.C Ward 5 City Councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr.
• Office of the D.C. Attorney General
• D.C. Chief of Police, Cathy Lanier (or the department here)

I just started this blog recently and I’m still laying my cards on the table.

I believe self defense is a human right.  Efforts to disarm law abiding people infringe upon this right by reducing the individual’s ability to maintain primary responsibility for his own safety.

Governments and organizations all around the world stigmatize weapons by treating them as if they are solely for causing trouble.  Whether they ignore the constructive uses for weapons intentionally or not doesn’t matter because society has largely been conditioned to ignore them as well.

Instead, most folks blindly assume that they’re not at risk of anything bad happening.  Worse, a lot of them don’t consider what if something bad did happen?  They don’t have a plan.  At best many of them might try to comply when confronted with the threat of violence and/or call 911.  These reactions aren’t necessarily wrong, but they are unlikely to help if a criminal is intent on doing you harm; compliance gives them a greater opportunity to control you; if you call 911 when seconds count, the police are at best minutes away.

As I said, compliance and emergency responders are certainly useful to have as part of your toolkit for maintaining your safety.  There are situations where the threat is not as imminent and they can help.  However, if you have no other part of your staying-safe-toolkit, then you are simply at higher risk of becoming a victim.

Good additions are awareness and avoidance.  A large majority of people walk around in condition white, unaware of the innocuous and not so innocuous things going on about them.  If you are unaware, you are in denial that bad can happen to you.  If you are in such denial, you are less likely to avoid situations that can lead to trouble.

And any good self-defense advocate knows that avoidance is a lot less expensive than ignoring a threat or facing it unnecessarily.  You can pay with your health/life for ignoring it.  You can pay with your pocketbook (legal) and freedom if you don’t avoid it when you could have.

That said, not everything can be avoided and eventually tools of self defense will come up: guns, knives, chemical sprays, martial arts, etc.  Too many people think that these are crime causing tools or fashion accessories for the insecure.  Sadly, criminals use them as force multipliers and some people carry weapons for the cool factor.  But a lot of other people responsibly train with them and carry them as tools of last resort, for when awareness and avoidance don’t pan out.

I will, from time to time, be posting on issues surrounding self defense, firearms, etc.

Okay.  So NASA will let anything into Johnson Space Center.  But other organizations (BAA) won’t allow a picture of a gun on a t-shirt through a security checkpoint.

This man certainly did the right thing by getting the press to cover it.  But he should really file a complaint.  If enough people complain about the stupidity of the rules, the rules might just get changed.

Personally, I avoid most logo’ed shirts.  Partly, because I don’t like paying to endorse things, or even just endorsing things much at all.  And for sure, I avoid ones that contain messages that might upset others just to avoid unnecessary hassle.

Still, I really want to get this one:

It’d piss my mom off when she first saw it at a distance, but she’d feel better once she read the text.

Credits