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Pastimes : My House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lazarus_Long who wrote (2905)	10/20/2002 2:36:55 PM
From: E	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7689

There actually is logic to equal opportunity searches at airports and vehicle stops in DC. As soon as terrorists or this guy notice that some group is exempt, they will either find people of that group to do their dirty work or turn into that group. However, police resources being limited, it also makes sense to concentrate them on the highest probability targets. That's true. Random searches are necessary for that reason. But really, it is so annoying when you're on line to see harried Irish-looking mothers with their little kids and frail old men with canes being pulled out of the line. It's not just annoying, I can't help feeling that it's completely insane. Another thing about profiling. I'm sure that the people with white vans who are being searched are mostly cooperative and understanding. They want to be safe, too. I was once questioned by store security because I was near the cigarette machine for a while in the supermarket and apparently someone had been robbing it. I was cooperative because I feel bad for merchants getting ripped off. And once when our son was very little and N and he had been play-wrestling on the carpet at my inlaws house, my son's head hit the floor, and carpet notwithstanding, it hit it so hard that there was a frightening moment, and we rushed him to the ER, and when we explained that he and his father had been "fighting" and he'd hit his head on the floor and we wanted him checked out, the doctor spirited our son off fast to question him. When he came back, having learned that the "fighting" involved was the fun sort, he apologetically explained the reason for the questioning. But we weren't at all offended, we very much approved of the policy of questioning parents if there is any suspicion about their abusing their children. Once in Johannesburg we arrived late at a hotel and got a room in which, oddly, there were no knobs on the bureaus. Just holes where they were supposed to be. We didn't care, we just needed to sleep. We had to be on a plane early the next morning. (Actually, I hadn't even noticed their absence, though N had.) But as we checked out, some officious hotel woman stopped us and accused us quite nastily, as in "Gotcha!", of stealing the knobs. Courtesy is all in these cases, because I'd have been entirely sympathetic (imagine running a hotel and people go off with everything that's not nailed down, even your bureau knobs); but her rudeness wasn't a good idea, especially on a morning when I was so short on sleep. I emptied all our luggage out quite dramatically, spilling even the contents of my purse on the floor. Rather a scene. She didn't enjoy it. So all profilers should be really really polite and apologetic about the inconvenience to the innocents who have the bad luck to fit the profile. And the innocents should accept the apologies and understand that it isn't personal, it's statistical. You know you've been on SI too long when you realize you've already told a story about hotel bureau knobs....