Originally, I was going to write about this other story on NewsOK. You know, the one about the young blonde lobbyist sleeping with State Senator who looks like your Dad's favorite uncle. But then I remembered we wrote about the topic last summer, way before NewsOK did, and did so without the boring political-controversy undertone.
But we're not writing about that, because the video above (and the accompanying NewsOK story below) are much more entertaining.
A woman in a wheelchair wearing only her bra and panties in hopes of preventing an intrusive search by Transportation Security Administration employees missed her flight Tuesday at Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City.
She said TSA told her she couldn't board her flight after a lengthy search and questioning.
Tammy Banovac, 52, said she chose to wear her underwear because of an unpleasant experience two weeks ago at airport security. She is typically hand-searched at airports because she uses a wheelchair, she said, and she felt violated by the more invasive searches employed at airports recently"¦
Banovac said she is a retired surgeon and was trying to board a flight to Phoenix on Tuesday when she was pulled aside at security for a more thorough search.
She said TSA employees told her equipment detected traces of nitrates, which are used in bombs, on her clothing and luggage. She said a TSA supervisor told her to leave the airport and "come back tomorrow" after more than an hour of hand searches and questioning.
Retired surgeon? Really? I don't know about you, but when I find out my surgeon goes by Precious, enters the operating room to "Pour Some Sugar on Me," and asks me to put a dollar in an empty beer pitcher for a "music fund," I'm finding a new hospital. Seriously, where does she work? Valley Brook General Hospital?
Anyway, I get what's going on here. Some retired surgeon/stripper wants to point out how silly and over-the-top the new TSA screenings are and get a little publicity out of the deal. That's cool, because I kind of agree with her.
Sure, maybe the screenings make us safer and can prevent a terrorist or two from blowing up a plane, but when you go overboard with excessive fear and paranoia, it's almost like you're letting the terrorists win. Let me get on a plane in peace. I'll take off my shoes and put liquids in a 3-oz bottle, but you have to draw the line somewhere, and I think we are at that point. If my airplane happens to be the one in a billion that gets blown up by a guy wearing explosive underwear, let me deal with the consequences.
Also, I wish I would have thought of this idea. Maybe we could have coerced Ashlynn Brooke to wear a bikini and set in wheel chair with nitrates all over it. If what Clark Matthews says about her and her movies is true, then she's down for just about anything"¦and we mean anything. Plus, we could have totally brought Cardboard Jim along. I wonder what the screener making $9-an-hour would do with him? I bet they'd pat him down. Who doesn't want to pat down Cardboard Jim?
