Jay Peterson
  • Home
  • Acting
    • Headshots
    • Resume
    • Press
    • History
    • Reels
  • The Gruntverse
    • Three briefings before a crisis
    • The Preliminary Report of Marshal Bennett
    • So your kid turned out to be a mage
  • Jay at Play
    • Nonfiction
    • Other videos >
      • Just Blanks
      • Tommy That
      • Machine Gun Shakespeare
      • Igor
  • Blog

Not pissing off people in airports

3/17/2020

0 Comments

 
In Neil Gaiman's American Gods, the main character Shadow, while still in prison, listens to the story of another prisoner who happens to be a recidivist. The reason he's a recidivist is because when released on parole, he was taken to the airport. And at the airport he used his by-now expired driver's license as ID. And when the lady at the ticket counter did not accept it, he became somewhat belligerent, because letting someone disrespect you in prison is a bad idea.
Cue airport security kicking him out, him never catching his flight, him going on a drinking binge that culminated in an armed robbery and finally being right back in prison with a longer sentence. What said inmate learned from the experience is summed up thusly:
"And the moral of this story, according to Johnnie Larch, was this: don't piss off people who work in airports.
'Are you sure it's not something like 'The kind of behavior that works in a specialized environment, such as prison, can fail to work and in fact become harmful when used outside such an environment'?' said Shadow, when Johnnie Larch told him the story.
'No, listen to me, I'm telling you, man,' said Johnnie Larch, 'don't piss off those bitches in airports.'"
Five days after I wrote Coronavirus Nights, this is what my feed is currently reminding me of. Everyone's pet political theory, no matter how ridiculous, is being trumpeted as a way out of or at least through the pandemic.
Ammo's started flying off the shelves, and being ignored in favor of toilet paper. A small but growing number of folks are seeing bare supermarket shelves and reasoning their homes are next, and are seeking to defend themselves. I'm seeing reports from gun shops in California that buying sprees are well under way, though quarantines and lockdowns meeting mandatory waiting periods may leave several unarmed anyway. On top of that, a lot of these first-time buyers are Asian-Americans looking at renewed threats of racial violence.
And I'm seeing a lot of gunbunnies, tacticlowns, and worse, boomer fudds, sitting back on their prepper cases and proclaiming they were right all along.
"I'm telling you, man, don't piss off those bitches in airports."
Mitt Romney of all fucking people is talking about cash payments to every citizen. Which, given the sporadic pay structures of the industries hit hardest by all the closures, means that direct grants may well be the easiest and most effective way of providing relief in a case this big and this fast. Whether or not it's effective on a more mundane scale is... debatable.
"I'm telling you, man, don't piss off those bitches in airports."
Just saw an article flying by that claims single-payer systems are more efficient than a for-profit model. Not reading it, but no shit. Single-controller is more efficient when you're dealing with a plague. Doesn't mean it's optimal or unharmful if used as general policy.
"I'm telling you, man, don't piss off those bitches in airports."
I'm not even going to go into what my anxiety-riddled artist friends are posting to try to stave off panic.
Remember:
We're still in an election year.
Time in quarantine means time to panic and be jerks.
There's no crisis so fast it can't be taken advantage of to push whatever agenda you've got, and this one's bigger and slower than most.
And most of all,
"Are you sure it's not something like 'The kind of behavior that works in a specialized environment, such as prison, can fail to work and in fact become harmful when used outside such an environment'?"
"'No, listen to me, I'm telling you, man, don't piss off those bitches in airports.'"
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Jay Peterson

    Musings on violence, storytelling, and humanity in general.

    Archives

    December 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    June 2013
    April 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    April 2012
    February 2012
    February 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    August 2010
    June 2010
    August 2008

    Categories

    All
    2nd Amendment
    Archer
    Armor
    Barbarism
    Blades
    Blanks
    Boobplate
    Book Review
    Chainmail Bikini
    Fight Scene
    Film
    Firearms
    History
    Killology
    Military
    Reality
    Safety
    Set Life
    Shakespeare
    Teacupping
    Theater
    Tucker Thayer
    USMC
    Viking
    War Stories
    Weapon Of The Week
    Workshops
    Wounds

    RSS Feed

Certa Bonum Certamen

Picture