Part 1 of a multi-part series: Notes From a Wayward Mauian

By Maui Curmudgeon

Leaving Maui is always a treat, not only because from time to time everyone needs to escape the lonely rock in the middle of nowhere, but because, more than nearly anywhere else, it’s too easy to become complaisant about how life flows.

Take, for example, after shave lotion.

I have a small bottle – or rather I had. It passed through no less than 12 TSA screenings at airports on every island in Hawaii. It went through TSA on Maui five times in just the past eight weeks. It was taken away from me in Phoenix because it was bottle larger than 3.4 ounces. (It was 3.6 ounces.)

Yes, we have become a nation afraid of 0.2 ounces of after shave. Yes, the terrorists have won.

We need to put aside the logical falacies TSA routinely lives by. TSA screenings are notoriously inconsistent and unreliable, and the organization has failed its own internal tests by as much as 80% (this means TSA personnel at airports let in parts of bombs onto planes 80% of the time internal security agents tried to smuggle such contraband).

We can’t expect logic out of an organization that sucks more than $100 billion dollars of borrowed money each year for no other purpose than to pretend it works, and gives a false sense of security to the patsies (i.e. American citizens) who fall for this crap.

What we should be able to expect, and sadly can’t, is consistency. Since it’s all a game anyway, can we at least all play by the same rules? The TSA will tell you that the rules are the same for everyone, but the TSA can’t win this argument, and not just because it’s a failure. Clearly the rules are not enforced evenly throughout the system. Either the TSA trains its personnel badly (this is the case) or TSA personnel don’t give a shit and haphazardly apply the laws as they know them (this is not the case).

Compounding the TSA joke is the appalling hypocrisy of the Feds in charge of these stupidities. How important is it to prevent an airplane from killing people in buildings, etc? I think pretty important. So, let’s by all means pay the people on the front line trying to prevent this from happening a starting wage of $17 an hour. $680 a week, gross (and it is gross). At the same time, let’s give tens of billions of dollars to Goldman Sachs to save its sorry ass, and then, when it turns a profit, let’s let it give out billions of dollars in bonuses to dweebs in suits, whose work is, evidently, far more important to this issue of security than the TSA ever will be.

My uncle had an expression for this kind of work – half-assed.

In short, the beginning of this trip is a kiss to Hawaii, which seems to at least try to keep its head out of its ass and approach life with some common sense and community spirit. As one TSA agent on Lanai said when handling my “lotions bag”, hey something in here smells good!