My Flying Experience

I went on a short trip this week. I did my best to figure out how to make a tight connection with only carry-on baggage. I did the best I could to figure out how to handle my liquids, but I failed and had to abandon my Aveda shampoo (not on every phamacy shelf). So on my return I doubled my efforts, bought a box and packing materials and put everything - I thought - in the box and checked it.

Not good enough, I had forgotten that I keep my 50 ml Lancome SPF 20 Moisturizer in my purse for unexpected exposure to intense sun. Two guys intensely stared at my purse for at least 3 minutes, then out came the latex gloves and the younger one, looking decidely not-nice, started opening up my purse. Since it has six pockets, I suggested I could help him find what he was looking for. That wasn't going to happen!!

As I watched him paw through my purse my blood began to boil - a woman's purse is inviolate - not even your boyfriend or husband, even your girlfriend goes through your purse. Finally he found the offending item, and with an ah-ha tells me I have broken the rules of flying.

I consider myself to be both a rational and relatively emotional person, a bad combination these days it would seem. I expressed my dismay at the lack of logic of the situation and they threatened me with being told I wouldn't be able to "fly with" them, but they fell short of the ultimate punishment and my $30 moisturizer hit the garbage can.

In the waiting room, I took out my i-pod and tried to calm down. The music helped, and as I walked out to the plane I tried to put the less than pleasant experience behind me. As I entered the plane, I noticed there was no flight attendant. I watched people board the plane until it was all but full and then, when almost everyone was on board, the male attendant took his place for preparation for take off. To my astonishment and I must say rather intense annoyance, he started talking to the passengers as if he were a stand-up comic, saying how excited he was that he had only two more days till his month long holiday and then! he said, referring to his job, "13 hours on a Dash 8, can you imagine what that's like?" and then he asked the passengers the question again, "can you imagine what that's like?"

At this point, a swirl of thoughts were in my head: this man is in charge of our safety? this man is losing it and we're going to be in this plane with him for 2 hours? I get claustrophic as it is in that plane, do I need to be asked to imagine 13 hours in it; and finally, what the hell! I have just been treated like a criminal and the man in charge of our safety doesn't even know if everyone on the plane has a boarding pass and thinks he's a comic and wants us to listen to his complaints about his job.

The passengers were very quiet, so, since I was near the front, I answered him with "Do you think you should be speaking to us like this?" There was nervous laughter, then he said "Why not" and I replied "because it's not appropriate and I'm going to make a formal complaint." At which point he snapped out of it. Later as he passed by me and said sarcastically, "sorry you don't want to hear about my vacation." To which I replied "I just want you to do your job." And as a final remark, he said, "I do and I'm damned good at it."

As I said, I'm both rational and emotional, not a good combination when faced with being suspected of wanting to kill people with your make-up, only to board the plane to find a loose cannon in charge.

Arctic Oil and Our Canada Loving PM

Is this our Canada loving Prime Minister defending our territory or is this merely him joining the Bush/Cheney et al. project to dominate the world’s oil supply?

Imagine Arctic oil fields patrolled by Canadian ships (with maybe American helicopters a la Afghanistan) and a pipeline through Canada from an Arctic port to the US, but a pipeline controlled by Security and Prosperity Partnership regulations making all the land it passes through effectively controlled by the US and a submissive Canada. They are putting the pieces in place:

1. June 29 CTV reports that Russia’s explorations in the Arctic have discovered up to 10 billion cubic metres of hydrocarbons and that Russia is or will be claiming “wide swaths of undersea Arctic territory”.

2. July 9 CTV reports that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has confirmed that Ottawa will invest in new patrol ships and a deepwater port to protect Canada's arctic waters.”

3. In a June 2007 press release the Whitehouse announces that “President Bush will travel to Montebello, Quebec, Canada to meet with Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada and President Felipe Calderon of Mexico at the North American Leaders' Summit on August 20-21, 2007. The leaders will review progress and continued cooperation under the Security and Prosperity Partnership, as well as discuss hemispheric and global issues.”

4. After the previous meeting of the Security and Prosperity Partnership, President Bush, President Fox, and Prime Minister Harper highlighted the accomplishments at their trilateral meeting in Cancun on March 31, 2006, one of which being:

“The United States and Canada signed an agreement, which is a milestone in pipeline regulatory cooperation, to allow increased compliance data sharing, staff exchanges and joint training. The sharing of best practices will lead to a more uniform regulatory approach for cross border pipelines.”

5. And don't forget Mr. Prentice working dillgently to get those pipeline First Nations out of the way.