Reply #342: At this rate we'll all be flying Tom Friedman's Naked Air

[KamaAina]

http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200112/msg00320.html

December 26, 2001
Naked Air
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
<http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/26/opinion/26FRIE.html?todaysheadlines>

In the wake of the attempted bombing last week of the American Airlines
flight from Paris by a terrorist nut with explosives in his shoe, I'm
thinking of starting my own airline, which would be called: Naked Air. Its
motto would be: "Everybody flies naked and nobody worries." Or "Naked Air -
where the only thing you wear is a seat belt."

Think about it. If everybody flew naked, not only would you never have to
worry about the passenger next to you carrying box cutters or exploding
shoes, but no religious fundamentalists of any stripe would ever be caught
dead flying nude, or in the presence of nude women, and that alone would
keep many potential hijackers out of the skies. It's much more civilized
than racial profiling. And I'm sure that it wouldn't be long before
airlines would be offering free dry-cleaning for your clothes while you fly.

Well, you get the point: if the terrorists are just going to keep using
technology to become better and better, how do we protect against that,
while maintaining an open society - without stripping everyone naked? I
mean, what good is it to have a free and open America when someone can
easily get on an airplane in Paris and bring a bomb over in the heel of his
shoe or plot a suicide attack on the World Trade Center from a cave in
Kandahar and then pop over and carry it out?

Some of the flight attendants from recently folded Hooters Air may still be looking for work... plus that solves the problem of having to taste the baby milk: breastfeeding on board! :sarcasm: