Observation Deck

Notes from some recent travel over the Thanksgiving holidays:

Dear airline: changing my non-stop 4-hour direct flight into a three-legged route lasting over eight hours is totally not cool.

The express security lane at most airports is improperly utilized. Most people will opt out of the lane because they travel so infrequently that they assume they are not "expert" travelers. They give you the criteria for expert travel on the poster. The result is that no one uses the lane, and when the regular lane backs up, the TSA folks start routing everyone into the empty expert lane, effectively negating the purpose of the expert travel lane.

I finally experienced one of the cuisinart-style full body scanners, in Tulsa of all places - there was no such scanner on my outbound from Newark. They are no big deal. What is odd is that apparently, my double-timed trouser waist appeared as a belt, so I got a light putdown anyway.

My biggest complaints about how ridiculous airport security has become are based on what's already transpired. I normally carry a laptop bag, a purse, and a carry-on bag. In the winter, I have a coat. To pass through security I need no fewer than three trays, and sometimes more depending on the agent: laptop, shoes and coat, laptop bag and purse. If I'm lucky, my carry-on liquids can share a ride with my purse. The degree to which I have to completely disassemble my ensemble is ridiculous, especially if you multiply it out over the thousands of other travelers every day. At some point, we'll all be shipping our luggage priority mail and wearing sweatsuits and Crocs, modern-day monks with no real possessions.

The TSA needs to be consistent on whether or not we need our boarding passes out to pass through the security checkpoint.

My main complaints about security are not the security level required, it's that it is implemented so badly.

Jacksonvile Airport: you're supposed to put sinks in the bathroom. You know, for washing hands. It's all the rage at other airports.

Contrast

Two items in the NYT this morning stand in sharp relief to one another. First, there is a review of the latest Call of Duty video game, a first-person shooter in which the player takes part in any number of fictional yet historically-framed gunfights during the Cold War. In the other, Bob Herbert writes elegeically about Restrepo, a documentary released earlier this Fall about a USMC platoon holding a tiny outpost in Afghanistan.

Together, these two pieces touch on strong feelings, sometimes conflicted, that I have about the military.

For those who don't know already, I was an army brat. My dad was in the US Army band, but also trained to fight as a solider like everyone else. We lived on or near army bases, and I don't bat an eye at the sight of tanks, personnel carriers, artillery, or even a simple fighting man in uniform. That last one, of course, is the most deadly.

I also play shooting games, wandering through three-dimensional palaces of pop-up targets, throwing switches, dropping virtual grenades while carrying an arsenal of assault rifles, pistols, and the occassional target designator with which I can call in orbital bombardment.

I tend towards the more science fictional and fantastical games because they are far enough removed from reality that I can discuss them with friends as a diversion, like any other, as if I were watching a fantasy film or a Z-grade zombie masterpiece. When I try to play the Call of Duty games, I can't help but feel the tug of empathy, knowing that actual soldiers, guys the age of my baby brother, are in actual wars actually shooting and being shot at by other people.

I wouldn't go so far as to say there's a danger that I, a woman in her thirties, will fail to distinguish between fantasy and reality. It's not like I'm going to pick up a gun in real life and set out, bullets blazing. It's more like, I have trouble squaring my knowledge that the fantasy sets out to be realistic yet entertaining, and the reality is much more terrible than could ever be entertaining.

Then again, I know a lot of soliders play these games. They play to practice squad work, the play for fun, they play to get psyched up. the US Army happily provides Xboxes and a variety of games. Even my brother, a Coast Guard reservist, has told me his team plays a certain Call of Duty level to practice their vessel boarding procedures.

I decided a while ago I'd no longer delve into Manhattanite intellecual hand-wriging over the effect and interplays these games have on our culture and political direction. I'm also less concerned about being an outlier demographic - I play because Iam pertty good at these games and it's an outlet for my competitive side.

That said, I still feel a jar, a disconnect, something, when I see games that position themselves as realistic in tone if not outcome, and think about the thousands of people, men and women alike, serving overseas, whose perspective would provide the ultimately objective distinction between fantasy and reality.