But, was he Cuban? You got derailed like an Antonioni movie.

She's an idiot. I'm so sorry for the continued harassment you go through at the TSA checkpoints. And Rosita, if you're reading this--suck my non-existent dick.

Actually, she was the one who was being racist, since the only one inferring anything negative about Cubanos was her.

Kate, I never believed in penis envy until now.

Amy, I think you name must be flagged somewhere. I fly pretty frequently, and have only been partially groped once when I was flying home from Tampa last year. The TSA good wasn't real happy when I insisted she change her gloves, and then only groped my top half, while I asked her if she enjoyed violating my rights for a paycheck. She never made it the bottom half, and the rest of the bullshit screening was truncated. Not to sound racist, but it really annoys me that most every TSA goon I've encountered has very limited English skills.

Kate, my youngest daughter loves to tell people to suck her dick. One time I reminded her that I gave birth to her and I was pretty sure she did not have a dick. She informed me she grew one, and a pair of balls. She's quite outspoken.

"I've had this happen to me at every airport I've been through"

"Amy, I think you name must be flagged somewhere."

It is completely possible and more than likely that Amy has been flagged due to her outspoken stance against the TSA.

After all, contrary to popular opinion, I'm pretty sure that some TSA agents are able to read, and have seen Amy's website.

They're giving you a problem to shut you up Amy. I would bring a hidden recording device, and secret it in a very private place. The only way to discover said device would be the offending groping, which would only bolster your cause.

Good Luck!

If anyone was going to complain, it should have been Mr. Quiroz.

But not because your question was racist; of course it wasn't.

The Miss Manners rule (there WAS a specific column about this) is that personal questions are not polite - and that that includes using the other person's appearance or accent as an excuse to ask "where are you from?" For all you know, they are American citizens who will tell you more only when they feel like it, not when you ask.

Just because SOME people don't mind such questions doesn't make such questions polite.

Found it (though not the date - it may be from last year):

Dear Miss Manners,
I love to hear different accents from different people I meet. However, my dilemma occurs when I try to think of a polite way of asking where they are from. It seems too intrusive to simply say, "You have an accent, where are you from?"

Gentle Reader,
That's right, so don't say it.

(Note that MM didn't suggest any other phrasing, either.)

And why should I read a book about manners from you, you anti-Cubano racist, you!

Just kidding. You know perfectly well I'll buy it.

However, my dilemma occurs when I try to think of a polite way of asking where they are from. It seems too intrusive to simply say, "You have an accent, where are you from?"

Heh. When we were (much) younger, my brothers and I would deliberately imitate other peoples' accents just to get a conversation going! My older brother and I were especially good at British/European accents, and used to talk to each other with an accent in a store or wherever. People would hear us and ask, "oh, are you from England?" and we'd have a little fun putting them on, until Mom would show up and say "let's go, we're leaving now!" and then we'd 'fess up. It was fun while it lasted! And more often that not, people would complement us on our "ability"! But I think it's just natural, when you hear someone speaking with an accent, that you would want to know where they're from. I especially like the Jamaican accent, which I'm not as good at, but have been trying to perfect over the years. And my Spanish accent is totally killer, I've been spoken to in Spanish by people who couldn't speak English! That's a little embarrassing when I have to explain that I really don't speak Spanish, but I've been told more than once that my accent is perfect. I actually said to one person at a wedding, in Spanish, that I speak very little in Spanish (Lo hablo muy pocito en espanol) and he told me I 'sound[ed] lovely', so there's that. I've found that when you make an effort to speak and understand another's language, that more often than not, they're encouraged by that and will try to teach you more.

I assumed Amy regularly gets felt up because she refuses to go through the scanner.

Perhaps she was stuck on an internet meme.

What scares me about that particular meme, Gog, is that this kid and others like him get indoctrinated to this shit, and they parrot it without even knowing or thinking about any other implications. It's what they're told and they blindly believe it, and grow up believing it, and race-baiters like Sharpton and Jackson just eat it up and prolong the agony.

If you aren't sneering at them for it but are merely interested, why would this be intrusive?
___________________________________

Maybe for the same reason it's never been officially polite (aside from children and teens connecting with their peers) to ask someone you hardly know "how old are you"?

Please don't tell me THAT rule is somehow "obsolete" just because some people don't mind and lots of people are nosy enough to ask.

Some adults also don't mind having strangers call them by their first names when doing business with them - but plenty still do mind, so managers would do well to make their employees stick to the old ways.

And I think it's obvious that something as hard to get rid of as an accent is far more personal than something you can get rid of whenever you please, such as a flower or a shoe.

Accents are very much like the face you were born with. Over and over, I hear stories of people with strong foreign accents being asked "where are you from" only to be told the name of an American city, so clearly it was an unappreciated question - or worse, when a person with NO accent gives the same answer and the other person says "no, I meant originally" - as if your ethnicity were more important than where you were born and raised.

There are other ways to be friendly with people you may not see again - or to make friends. Once you do, they'll tell you what they want you to know - even if it takes ages.

In short, I don't see how MM's answer in that column was wrong.

BTW, here's part of a column of hers from this month - it's in response to a black woman complaining about strangers' always calling her by her first name. (The writer realized, from what I could tell, that this happens to everyone these days.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/miss-manners-friendly-juggernaut-displaces-titles-of-respect/2013/06/19/6737cf88-d518-11e2-b05f-3ea3f0e7bb5a_story.html

MM says: "......And so when it was recognized that forms of address needed to be equalized, the solution that Miss Manners would have thought obvious — granting titles of respect to all — was bypassed. Instead, equality was to mean that nobody would be entitled to that dignity. Under the pseudo-friendship model, people were no longer allowed to choose their own friends.

"Well, that’s how things changed. But, as you no doubt gather, it is not an authorized change, and you do not have to accept it. You will, of course, be polite, knowing that the offenders are ignorant of the history, but you should be insistent. If the first correction makes no impression, you should say, "Excuse me, but I said I prefer to be addressed as Ms. (surname).' "

(end)

Oh yes, forgot to say - that column about accents was from msn dot com, and I KNOW I saw quite a few comments under it thanking MM for her response, but somehow, all the comments seem to have been erased - maybe because it's an old one.

It seems to me that there's more than one way to show interest, and if one is determined to find out a certain detail, there are far more subtle - if longer - ways to go about it.

Again, just because you think you're being friendly doesn't automatically mean other people will think so - they may just think of you as arrogant and nosy. (The comments I mentioned would seem to prove that - if you'd like to see the comments for the more recent column about first-naming, they're at the WP link.) They may well be thinking: "I wouldn't ask YOU any similar questions; why are you doing it to ME?"

The Golden Rule is not "moldy."

Here's an old joke about Brits, BTW - I have no idea whether it rings true in the U.K. today or not:

"Never ask an Englishman where he's from. If he's from Yorkshire, he'll tell you, and if not, it's unfair to embarrass him."

And the late historian Paul Fussell said he loved France because of the iron curtain of formality in that society. That is, not only is everyone, regardless of class, called Monsieur or Madame, but also, he said: "I've never had a French cab driver try to become my friend."

Of course, even the Golden Rule can be a bit complex. G.B. Shaw famously said: "Do NOT do unto others as you would have them do unto you; they may not have the same tastes."

So whether you're a friendly customer or a friendly employee, that's worth remembering. Modern isn't always better.

You should just do what a lot of other people do. Before you have to go through the machine, tell them you have an injury (rotator cuff, collarbone, etc) so you can't lift your arm. They've always just waived me through the metal detector without a second thought.

You should just do what a lot of other people do. Before you have to go through the machine, tell them you have an injury (rotator cuff, collarbone, etc) so you can't lift your arm. They've always just waived me through the metal detector without a second thought. -- Gabe at July 22, 2013 4:51 PM

Gabe,

A simple question:

,b>WHY SHOULD YOU HAVE TO FUCKING LIE TO ANYONE TO FLY ON AN AIRCRAFT?

Why should the pilot of the aircraft not be allowed to carry a metal butter knife?

Just asking.

It's been a while, but for all you regular readers of the Goddess' blog you can skip past this post. I'm going to post my regular rant about not needing the TSA. For all you new readers, please read it carefully and refute any statement or misstatement. ;-)

=================================================
The TSA was not needed one hour and one minute after Tower II was hit!

The paradigm, the norm, the expected, what everyone was taught to do was to sit down, shut up and wait for the plane to land and the negotiations happen. That was the model from Entebbe onward.

The passengers on board did not really know what was about to happen on September 11, 2001 at 8:46:30 when Flight 11 struck Tower I.

Even the passengers on Flight 175 probably didn't realize what was about to happen when they struck Tower II at 9:03:02.

The Pentagon crash of Flight 77 at 9:37:46 may have been still a matter of ignorance.

At 10:03:11 on September 11, 2001, United Airlines Flight 93 crashed after the brave souls counter-attacked and caused the hijackers to crash the plane.

The time difference is 60 minutes and 9 seconds from Tower II being struck to the crash of Flight 93. The shoe bomber and panty bomber were taken down by fellow passengers as well. Recently, JetBlue's Flight 191 pilot was taken down by the passengers once he was out of the cockpit. Additionally how many times have you heard of passengers' concerns and diverted flights?

The TSA is and has always been a joke, no make that a total stupidity, that has wasted our country's fortune going down a rabbit hole.

If you don't believe me look at the 9/11 timeline.

There will never be another 9/11 style attack unless the attackers can arrange planes full of geriatrics, and even then it would be doubtful.

Oh, and someone brought bombs being an issue. If bombs were effective and simple then the Lockerbie bombing would have been repeated multiple times between 21 December 1988 and 11 September 2001. That's 4647 days or 13 years. Where was the TSA in that time? There was one successful bombing that was done in Colombia and two unsuccessful attempts in that time. The bombing in Colombia was a drug dealer assassination and not a terrorist attack.
=================================================

If I'm getting this wrong, please let me know. I would especially like a reply from Gabe or Jeff.

"It is completely possible and more than likely that Amy has been flagged due to her outspoken stance against the TSA."

I think the "flags" are out in front of her chest. I've been observing for the past several years that at "aggressive" checkpoints, attractive women get singled out. Us middle-aged guys sail right through because no one wants to feel us up.

"I think the "flags" are out in front of her chest"

So every female TSA agent is a lesbian?

"So every female TSA agent is a lesbian?"

Don't know about that, but I have observed that there are certain people who seem to enjoy feeling anyone else up, no matter what sex. I think it's more of a control and power thing. There are a fair number of women who will take any opportunity to embarrass any woman that they think is more attractive than themselves.

@ Cousin Dave;

I think you might be reading more into it then is actually there.

While I don't doubt there are women out there as you describe, I find it hard to believe they all work at the TSA. As for attractiveness, I will not disagree that Amy is attractive. However, with no offense meant to Amy, I think they prey on younger,less mouthy women, who aren't inclined to make a fuss.

If it were me, to do as you describe, I would prey on the 18 to 24 set who have a bigger chest size then IQ.

Amy can get pretty, um, defensive about the TSA, so she'd be last on my list if I weren't told to flag her.

Also, you say yourself it's a power trip, so if it is, why are they not detaining middle aged businessmen? Looks aside, if you wore Gucci and I was after a power trip, you'd be first in my sights.

Perhaps he wasn't all that friendly and talked to cab drivers as if they were lower class and not people.
_______________________________

On the contrary, he simply didn't like the American pseudo-friendly style of social intercourse between strangers, per se.

BTW, he was also an English professor.

From "The Portable Curmudgeon," ed. Jon Winokur:

Fussell: "Sometimes when I'm in a cruel mood and I'm in a cab heading back to Philadelphia, the driver will say: 'How about those Eagles?' I'll say: 'What the ---- is this Eagles stuff?' He assumes that because he has me in his cab, we share the same interests. I don't expect him to know all about 'Samson Agonistes,' yet he expects me to know all about the damn Eagles."

(I have to say, it IS refreshing to hear from a man who didn't believe that being male means that you HAVE to like sports - but that breed seems to be dying out with those men born before 1940 or so. I suspect it all started with the realization that gay men actually exist and therefore straight men "had" to do as much as possible to separate themselves.)
_______________________________________

I don't talk to people who don't seem like they want to talk,
______________________________________

And THAT'S the real issue. It only makes sense to err on the conservative side. As I said, just because some people don't mind being asked how old they are doesn't make it a safe question, if you want them to respond positively. (Same definitely goes for writing thank-you notes! I've heard of people who landed jobs because they were the only applicants to write thank-you notes. How else are the note recipients supposed to know the difference between someone who's grateful and someone who isn't?)