The 2013 Mazda CX-5 I Won't Be Seeing

I just got invited by Mazda to attend a press event for the 2013 CX-5 in CA. I used to attend such events regularly, and I’d love to attend this one- but am pretty much decided against because of the prospect of being handled by some TSA cretin (because I won’t be scanned). I feel obliged to stand on principle, but there’s also the practical reason that I know myself – and know I might mouth off or maybe even hit one of those sons-of-bitches. And I don’t want to end up in jail (or worse). I’m still trying to practice avoidance. I know someday this will probably no longer be possible. But for now, I am trying to stay out of harm’s way – even though I know harm is not looking to stay out of my way.

This is the dilemma of living in America, post 911.

If it can be called living.

It is no longer possible to travel by air without submitting to degradations unimaginable just 10 years ago. All of us are faced with the horrid choice: Either we constrict our lives as a form of quiet protest against those who are trying to degrade us – no more travel by air, which in addition to everything else also means not being able to see friends/family who live more than a few hundred miles distant without an arduous journey by car. Or we bow our heads (and spread our legs) and become complicit in establishing the new normal – and acceptance of those who degrade us.

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