Business as Usual

Ever been stranded on a big ol’ jet airliner? Sat on the ramp for a loooong amount of time. If you’ve got long legs and worn out knees like mine and crave the wide open spaces like me, you remember every minute of such an event.
How about the six hour wait at the terminal because one connection missed another connection or a mechanical malfunction occurred or my favorite “we can’t find a crew.” Oh and then there’s the grandaddy of all terminal delays that sometimes makes you an overnight guest at a local hotel: “sorry, but we’re overbooked.” “but I made my reservation six weeks ago?!” Sorry, but we’re overbooked.”
Those are the times when you SWEAR you’ll never fly with that airline again. Well, time has a way of forgetting and we always seem to book the flight that is cheapest, easiest, fits our schedule, or some other convenience criteria.

Maybe if there were regulations and standards put upon the airlines for customer treatment. sort of a Traveler’s Bill of Rights. Some set of procedures for dealing with a customer who is traveling with a four year old child who is stuck for hours on a plane sitting on the ramp. Maybe time limits for such circumstances like ‘if the plane sits on the ramp for more than 55 minutes, and doesn’t appear to be headed out anytime soon, it has to taxi to a gate or close to a gate and let the passengers disembark.’ Makes sense right? In fact, a number of measures have been introduced into the legislature, but all of them were killed. Huh? Don’t the congresspeople and senators fly the airways?! Well, not alot of them. Remember, these are rich folks who pretty much stick with private transportation which includes private jets and when they can’t take their own private jets, well, let’s just say, ‘they make arrangements.’ But more revealing is the fact that (according to USA Today), the nine major airlines and the Air Transport Association gave 2.4 million dollars to “house and senate candidates, political parties and other PACs.” They also spent $15 million dollars in lobbying. Fuck these putos.

OK, let’s go over this again: Go to your computer and type in http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home maybe you can just click on this link.

Now find your senator and congress person and e-mail them the message that you are sick and tired of their greedy little hands taking airline money while you have to put up with the airline’s poor performance. YOU are the one sitting on the ramp in a stuffy cramped airliner and YOU are the one who sits in an airports for ten hours to travel on a ninety minute flight. while they fly private or first class and take big bucks from airline PACs. Let them know that YOU don’t like it and YOU vote. You do vote, don’t you?

While you’re writing your senator and congressperson, you might want to enquire as to why the folks who have been employed by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) are a bunch of knuckle headed morons. Yes, I said “ARE” a bunch of knuckle headed morons. These slack jawed, ‘I wish I were a real cop but couldn’t pass the tests’ buffoons have GOT to go.

You know, if you’re going to make air travel in this country into something that is painful and humiliating to the traveler, at least hire some folks who can do the job with a bit of dignity and respect for the otherwise innocent victims of the procedures. I realize it isn’t the fault of the overweight, creepy looking and dull acting TSA employee that I have to take my shoes off and be searched every time I get on an airplane (my kids say it’s the dark bushy eye brows that give me away as a “terrorist”) while thousands of miles of border between the USA and Canada and Mexico are wide open wilderness and thousands of huge cargo containers enter the country unchecked on a daily basis. It’s not the fault of these Neanderthalic knuckle dragging half witted imbeciles that I get my finger nail clippers or my Swiss army knife keychain confiscated while a guy with an obsidian blade twelve inches long and as sharp as surgical steel could slip through unnoticed. Naw, I don’t blame them for having the good fortune of getting into a position they are overwhelmingly unqualified for. None of that is their fault, but I’d like a few of the congress people and senators who went along with the gutting of the Constitution of the United States and has handed the Bushistas every little shred of power they asked for just who is responsible for this boondoggle called “TSA.” Could these experts of federal legislation that we elect to serve us not see the potential abuse of these things when they passed such horrid legislation? If not? Why? Who? When? I’m no expert at anything and they scared the holy shit outta me when they were proposed.

So why haven’t the fucktard liars we elected during the last cycle done something about all these things the American public mandated them to do? Oh never mind. I think I answered my own question.

Hope y’all are havin a good Monday. It’s still too hot and too dry around here.