We associate the number nine with extremes: highs (cloud nine), lows (the ninth Psalm, predicting the coming of the Antichrist), good luck and bad. Considering the spectrum of events we lived through in 2010-2011—from the greatest victories to the worst tragedies—the number nine seems a particularly apt symbol for the past twelve months’ happenings. On the plus side, DADT was repealed; on the minus side, a near-apocalyptic disaster devastated Japan. Last year, we opened our Annual Year in Review with the crisis in Haiti, which proves again that life is fragile.
29. AIRPORT SCANNERS: SAFE SEX?
Last summer, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) unveiled new full-body scanners in airports with the unsettling X-ray vision that comic book heroes possess. When humans walk through them, intimate body parts (even piercings) are visible to TSA monitors. People got riled over this “revealing” scanning technology, even claiming they represented an unconstitutional invasion of privacy. In the end, getting upset was all opponents could do, as homeland security trumps everything in this post-9/11 world.
What Do You Think?