Two hundred eighty-nine people are not dead.

Two hundred eighty-nine people are not dead. No thanks to the exasperating, intrusive, time-killing, expensive "security measures" that have been incrementally making air travel into an even more unpleasant, wearying process than it had already been prior to 9/11. Remember when it was annoying that one had to arrive at the airport a whole hour before a flight? And, how irritating it was to have to remove your bangle bracelets and pocket full of change before walking through the scanner?

On Christmas Day, Umar Farouk Unpronouncable earned himself the comic names, "Undybomber"or "Pantybomber" by stuffing what he hoped would be a firey and unexpected death for a planeload of innocent people, lifetimes of pain, sadness and bereavement for untold hundreds of their family members and friends and shock, terror and a bellyful of sick helplessness for millions of Americans down his pants. Very cutsie, the names various pundits have come up with...would they have done so had he been successful?

He might well have been, but for the fact that his bomb functioned only slightly worse than the security measures supposedly designed to protect us.

Despite all those exasperating, intrusive, expensive "security measures" I just mentioned, your son coming home from college, your fiance coming home from a business trip, your coworker coming home from her honeymoon could still be dead if something hadn't gone wrong when the young Muslim man, whose own father was concerned enough about his radical religious views to report him to the CIA but who was still allowed on the plane, detonated the bomb he'd walked through the entire airport wearing.

Our government's response? Are we finally going to leave off confiscating any tube of toothpaste weighing more than 3 ounces, hauling random citizens out of the airport lines for extra harrassment and constantly blaring announcements throughout airports about not leaving bags unattended and focus our manpower, vigilance and financial outlay on identifying and scrutinizing Muslim passengers, particularly those that have been schooled in countries known to be terrorist hotbeds, who have come to the attention of authorities in other countries due to his connections with Muslim extremists and who, as early as their teens have spoken out to defend the Taliban?

Don't be silly. Why would we do what is practical and might actually work?

No, our government's response is to bandy about ideas for new tiresome, intrusive restrictions and indignities. Restricting the number or size of carry on luggage pieces. Um...the guy carried the bomb in his underwear. No bathroom use during the last hour of flight. Um...bombs can be detonated any time during a flight. No books, laptops or blankets covering your lap. Um...the bomb was covered by his pants.


The latest idea is "full body scanning." This, not surprisingly since it is expensive, is being suggested with some enthusiasm (wonder how much the manufacturers are spending for that enthusiasm?). We are offered the consolation that although this scanning will bare us quite literally to the view of an airport employee we don't know, it will not be the one looking us in the face as we step into the scanner and then turn from side to side as obediently as a trained terrier, and our faces will be blurred in the image actually seen by the anonymous airport employee.

Of course, if someone is well informed enough to know that such scanners are in use, they will no doubt click on the obvious solution as quickly as I did and shove the explosives into a body...er....opening, thus foiling the scanner. What then? Do we all drop our pants, bend over and spread at a wall opening so an anonymous airport employee can perform a cavity search on us?

Will it take the prospect of being literally rather than figuratively reamed before we demand that our government quit worrying about offending political correctness and start worrying about offending us?