Flying while bearded.

A little belated grousing about flying and the attendant security rig-a-ma-role.

So I'm flying home from Milwaukee, with a couple of smallish oil lamps with no oil in them, just glass, in my carry on baggage. Of course I get my bag searched at the security check, I was expecting that....

Then I'm waiting to board the flight, still looking a little sleepy eyed (6:40am flight), and this TSA minion keeps eyeing me up, then, right when I stand up to join the boarding line, he comes over and asks to search my bag again. Since he has the power to summarily detain me with meaningless questions and make me miss my flight, I assent. I tell him this is the second time I've had my bag gone through. He gives me some speech about if I've had the propaganda, I mean, training that he's had I would understand the tactics of OUR enemies. All the while, he's not even searching my bag. He barely even opens it.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have been profiled. Currently I wear a beard, some would call it an Amish style beard, that is no mustache, about three quarters of an inch long. Other than that, I'm wearing a plaid shirt and a hat that looks like a John Deere hat (it actually says John Moose and has a jumping moose). Other than the beard, I basically look like a farmer on holiday......

blah blah blah. people wonder why I don't like to fly. The total loss of the rights of personal privacy and free speech. And the right to wear a beard.

That is all.

W