I hate moving. I hate moving so much that when I left Manhattan in 2003, I hastily shoved everything in storage near Chelsea. ItÂ’s still there.
I think my reluctance to pack a suitcase might be related to the sheer panic and anxiety I experience whenever I have to move. Something about carefully folding and arranging items in boxes freaks me out, man.
This is the explanation I gave my long-suffering Mummy last week when I was at home in California. I was scheduled to leave for the airport at 7pm and I hadnÂ’t packed as of 6:15. Of course, I ended up hastily tossing everything in, cringing at how my clothes were getting abused, how my jewelry would be a tangled mess by the time I got back to DC, how I would surely forget something. I threw everything on my bathroom counter in my cosmetics bag, zipped it and hoped for the best.
8pm. Security. IÂ’ve padded through the gate barefoot and I’m trying not to think about what sorts of germs IÂ’m walking on while I wait for my bag to leave the X-rayÂ…
“Ma’am? Would you mind coming with me?”
Nope. I donÂ’t mind at all. IÂ’m brown, but I have nothing to hide. It’s been years. I know to just expect this routine. I grab my prrrecious iBook and follow him to a table. HeÂ’s poking my carry-on gingerly, a worried look distorting his face. “Is there anything in your bag which would harm me?” he asks, and I shake my head negatively. That’s a new one. Never been asked THAT before. Weird. He asks again and finally, a third time.
“This is your chance to tell me,” he elaborates. He almost sounds menacing. I’m thinking, wtf?
He declares, “I think there are scissors in here.” matter-of-factly. I start to laugh; I suddenly know what he might be referring to– my tried-and-true Shu Uemura eyelash curler. The bottom part of it does look scissor-y. I start to explain this to him, giggling all the while when he stops rummaging and yanks out a pair of scissors. Oy. So much for packing in a hurry. The scissors go in the trash and I sheepishly skulk to my gate, cheeks ablaze.
I really shouldn’t have been so mortified; sometimes, you just end up accidentally packing shit you shouldnÂ’t.
An Oklahoma man told federal investigators he forgot a pipe bomb he built for fun was in his luggage when tried to board an airplane, according to court documents released on Thursday.
Charles Alfred Dreyling Jr., 24, was charged on Thursday with trying to carry the bomb aboard a Delta Airlines flight from Oklahoma City to Atlanta on Wednesday, according to the documents. [Link]
The pipe bomb was filled with gunpowder, its detonator was created via parts for model rockets. Using a ubiquitous object– the battery from a mobile phone–it would have been easy to set it off.
The University of Oklahoma student apparently makes bombs for gits and shiggles. He
recently set off several devices with friends in rural Oklahoma, according to the affidavit. [Link]
I can’t stop thinking cynically about how this story would’ve been reported if the perp involved had been more swarthy. Furry. Brown.
:+:
A bit too late for you… According to today’sWaPo:
“Edmund S. “Kip” Hawley, an assistant secretary of homeland security, directed his staff to propose changes in how the agency screens 2 million passengers a day. The staff’s first set of recommendations, detailed in an Aug. 5 document, includes proposals to lift the ban on various carry-on items such as scissors, razor blades and knives less than five inches long. It also proposes that passengers no longer routinely be required to remove their shoes at security checkpoints.”
Hey, Anna, I was going to send this in because it pissed me off too. There is another article that said he has to stay at his parent’s house and has 10 pm curfew. Gee, they haven’t even brought any charges against Jose Padilla and all he did was LOOK on the internet for bomb information.
It’s amazing how many times I get randomly selected for airport screening. Random? Really? With my brown skin and my very Muslim name. I believe the only thing sort of in my favor is my gender.
I wish they were honest, for god’s sake. If I really believed my name was picked at random so often I would definitely buy a few Lotto tickets.
If he was brown in London he would be dead by now.
So why is everyone here getting bent out of shape over this? The dumbass was arrested. He was charged. His case has yet to work its way through the system. Would you prefer some sort of summary judgment instead?
I think it would be evidence of a double-standard if he had managed to get the bomb aboard the plane because the security personnel were only looking for brown people.
So why is everyone here getting bent out of shape over this?
Because even though you and everyone else won’t admit it, when you read that this dickhead makes bombs for “fun,” there was a part of you, like the courts, that looked at him & his college-sweatshirt and said “Huh, maybe that’s the case.” I think we can agree that there’s no way in hell that would happen for one of us and that’s the shit-end of the stick; griping is good for the soul.
And that’s why he was let off with a stern warning, right? Oh wait, that’s not what happened… he was arrested and charged instead.
Well one of two things either your trying to get a rise for giggles or you seem not to understand.
1) I’m not upset that his dumbass got caught. 2) I’m not upset that he was arrested and charged. 3) I’m not upset that his case is working through the system.
Would you see the same steps in the case of Muhammed, Sanjay, Carlos, or Leroy with a pipe bomb from Oklahoma? I doubt it. And there has been more than ample evidence of this over the past few years. Profiling does work — if you consider every man, woman, and child to be a potential terrorist.
Would the mayor of the town come out and say what a great guy he was?
Would the same individual be actually allowed to go back to his parents(if his parents lived here) house with just a curfew?
Would the pipe bomb be considered a ‘glorified firecracker’ by the media?
By the way, the AP or UPI, version of the text has gone out without any form of modification or further investigation by any other reporter. Just take a look at google.
That wouldn’t be a double standard that would be dangerously incompetent. Besides you didn’t read the story – someone inspecting the bag in the xray machine saw something suspicious in the bag, I doubt they knew who the person was right away.
The way this case, as in many domestic cases involving a white individual, is being handled is the double standard.
Hi, I just read your post, and I liked how you related a story about yourself with Dreyling forgetting to unpack a pipebomb. Sometimes you just forget where you put those things! Anyway, I live in Oklahoma City, and I have done some research to make an interesting post on my own site that you might want to check out:
http://www.zackscott.net/2005/08/12/charlie-and-the-explosive-device/
Anyway, thanks in advance for viewing it. I’m trying to spread the news.
charged.
Link
He was released to the custody of his mother, Vicki Dreyling
Well, Mr. Jury, there’s your evidence.
wow anna, i feel famous.
I love the way you can tie any media story directly into your life … even stories about wannabe-bombers in oklahoma =)
With my very Muslim name, I’m honestly quite offended if I DON’T get pulled aside for additional screening.
The other problem with brown suspects making headlines and others, such as this, being relegated to some middle section is that it feeds this lopsided perception of brown being bad. It’s a pretty frustrating self-perpetuating machine – “Brown people with b*mbs” sells more news, so they get more coverage, so people’s fears of B people mount, so it sells more news.
Blows chunks.
Can you believe it MSNBC is actually taking a poll on this issue: “Do you believe the Oklahoma man’s story that he had made a pipe bomb for fun and forgot that it was in his luggage when he tried to board a plane?” http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8918964/
If the guy was brown, you know there would be no need for a poll.
89% don’t believe that the guy ‘forgot’ the pipe bomb in the luggage.