By: Timothy W. Shire
Some idiot might put a bomb on a plane, capture hostages and hold them for ransom and it will not always be in India or Siberia but in fact the first bomb on a plane occurred right here in Canada.
We have learned to handle stop signs and seat belts and all those other measures that have developed to protect us from ourselves but there is something down right offensive about barbed wire and security fences. Just as there is with bars on convenience store windows in the ghetto areas of Regina and Saskatoon. All of these
For a very long time North
Americans have learned to cherish the freedom that comes with an endless
sky and the right and freedom to go and do what you want provided it did not endanger
others. We even cherish some restrictions like having to file a flight plan because
we know that if we are late some of us will go looking for a missing aircraft. MOT
(ministry of transport) was always sort of a gentle friendly guardian giving us the
weather and alerting us of danger but even that has changed as the Mulroney government
"privatised" aviation weather and air traffic control and "NAV Canada"
now is the company that pilots must give the trust and passengers pay $7.00 an airplane
ticket to support.If this is progress then we must instill some civility into it all and perhaps camouflage that barbed wire somehow so that we don't feel like we have moved to some dangerous "other place."
As I was doing these pictures I clicked one of the area that passengers
pass through and are gone over with metal detectors and their luggage x-rayed. A
security person spotted me and shouted at me, telling me I could not take pictures
as this was "a security area" to which I replied, but is this not also
a "public place". Though another guard snickered he was not amused. His
bad vibes must have been effective because the picture was blurred. Of course he
is right because we need that security and that protection from evil but no doubt
we all wish it were not so.