Absurdity of Metro Bag Screening

I wrote this letter to the editor regarding Washington Post's recent editorial supporting the "necessary nuisance" of random bag checks on the DC metro system. It didn't get published, but here it is.

In your unsigned editorial “Metro's bag checks: Necessary nuisance for a real threat,” (March 7), you argued that because bad things happen, Fourth Amendment violations are a necessary nuisance. Tellingly, nowhere in the article is the efficiency or efficacy of the bag checks addressed.

Leaving aside the millions of commuters in the other cities mentioned, 600,000 people per day use the DC Metrorail. If Metro Transit Police stopped just one percent of them on any given day, it would take 50 man-hours to stop 6000 people at the “quick” 30 seconds per stop.

Of course, a terrorist could just as easily attack a throng of people lining up for the gates even before getting to security, as the Moscow airport bomber did in January.

Random checks are, by definition, indiscriminate. Given that these searches are occasional and dispersed, the number of riders stopped is statistically insignificant compared to overall ridership and thus these searches amount to simple security theater.

If WMATA believes this method will catch a terrorist, it should start diverting five dollars a week to the lottery to fix its budget shortfall: it has roughly the same chance of success and doesn't involve the pesky Fourth Amendment.


Jonathan Blanks
Alexandria, VA

The Wrong Way to Put Up Street Signs

This is a No Left Turn (during rush hours) sign at 10th and Massachusetts, NW here in D.C.. Out of context, it may seem rather innocuous -- helpful, even.

However, it's facing southward...on a one way street going south. The sign should read "Wrong Way."

BYU's Honor Code

For those of you who don't follow college basketball, Brigham Young University is coming to the end of one of their best, if not the best, regular seasons in their program's history. Earlier this week, however, they benched their leading rebounder, Brandon Davies, for the rest of the season and including the NCAA tournament.

Hmm. Since it was an 'Honor Code' violation and not 'conduct detrimental to the team' or anything illegal, the first thing I thought of was "What, did he sleep with a white girl?"

Yep.

Brandon Davies was dismissed from BYU's basketball team after he admitted to having sexual relations with his girlfriend, the Salt Lake Tribune reported Wednesday.

BYU's honor code forbids students from having premarital sex and instructs them to "live a chaste and virtuous life."

I'm sure every other football and basketball player at BYU has been chaste and virtuous.

Look, I'm not calling anyone racist and I don't know what happened. BYU has these rules and place and that's their business--and Davies knew it going in. But does anyone know how often BYU kids get busted for this sort of thing? How regularly is it enforced? And to this degree?

Something I'll be keeping an eye on. Hit me up if you know anything about the way this goes down or has gone down in the past. Will do some digging this weekend.

UPDATE: According to several sources with anecdotal evidence, this is relatively common at BYU among the general student population, though I haven't seen or heard anything about other star athletes getting burned.

My general problem was that such a rule is inherently subjectively applied. Maybe if the administration hears about anyone, they take them down, but I can't believe that he's the first star athlete at BYU who was known to violate the Honor Code that way.

Oh well. 

Mood Music Monday

Just saw this nonsense by Glenn Beck. I'm just in stunned awe of the irresponsible absurdity that he and the greater Fox News Channel has become. Just...flabbergasted.

Anyway, this came on my iTunes shortly after I finished the video linked above, so I thought it only appropriate: Arcade Fire's "Antichrist Television Blues."



PS -- if you were one of the people who'd never heard of Arcade Fire before they won Album of the Year at the Grammy's, get to know them. They are great. Got to see them live last year at Merriweather Post Pavillion--great show.

Hitting the Road...

About to pick up my rental car and head to Indiana. I appreciate all the emails and phone calls of support that have come my way. Thank you so much.

Mood Music Monday

My brother Philip called me this morning to tell me my father passed away. He was 83.

Among many other things, I developed my appreciation for gospel music from my dad. He was a huge fan of Mahalia Jackson, so I can't really think of a better song for today than "Soon I Will be Done."




Paul A. Blanks, Sr. (1928-2011) Rest in peace, Dad.

Housekeeping Note

I'm a little bored with my layout, so if you're not reading this in Google Reader or some other RSS aggregator, you may notice a few changes in the next few days or weeks. Indeed, I'll probably get around to moving to WordPress sooner or later, but in the meantime, I'll be futzing around with the layout. Hope it's not too disconcerting for you.

And for no reason whatsoever, a little Ray Charles.