A diary is on the rec list detailing all the things wrong with air travel in the wake of 9/11 and other incidents. As the other diary author said, nothing about air travel is glamorous or even comfortable anymore.
But I'm still flying.
In fact, I'm flying to Canada and back next week (and the week after, and the week after, etc). To clarify, I work as a software consultant and I travel to where my clients are. I've done this since well before 9/11, and I'll keep doing it long after the latest round of chicken littles are done telling us the sky is falling.
Just to clarify, I'm not criticizing the other diaries author or accusing him of fanning the flames of overreaction. He's making his choice and detailing the reasons why. I'm doing the same.
Why do I fly? I love my job, my company, and my clients. I took a local job for a while (for personal reasons), but as soon as my situation changed, I went back on the road.
Will the new indignities of travel be painful? Yes, and particularly because my current work is in Canada. My flight is only about an hour in duration, so if the rumours are correct, we'll be restricted to our seats for the full flight - get up and you're a terrorist, touch your carryon and you're a terrorist. Similar to the reaction after 9/11, it will be a great job of slamming shut the barn door after the horse is gone
Crediting another diary, if you treat the risk of a terrorist attack as somehow different than the risks you experience in everyday life then you will drive yourself crazy. Would it suck to get blown up? Sure, just as much as it would suck for my crazy cab driver to wreck on the way to the airport and kill me. Maybe I should call him a terrorist (he does have brown skin, after all). In both cases, I have little to no control over whether I will experience that catastrophe. My only control is whether I expose myself to the risk, and for alot of reasons I choose to do that. Life is inherently risky, and I personally refuse to cower in fear.
Going back to 9/11, I was away from home that day. In my case, I was lucky - I had travelled by car and was able to get home easily. But the ridiculous overreaction of the Bush administration (driven by the Cheney Doctrine) paralyzed our country more than bin Laden could ever have dreamed possible.
As we watched the towers burn and (to my surprise) eventually fall, my anger was not directed at al quaeda, or bin Laden, or the pawns who flew the planes. It was on the failed and failing policies of empire that our country has acted on throughout the 20th century and which came back to haunt us at the beginning of the 21st. A perfect illustration of this is contained in the book I'm currently reading - The Imperial Cruise - which should be required reading to understand the reality of 20th century American foreign policy. When I finish the book I'll post about it.
So to sum up, yes, flying is difficult and frustrating for many reasons, some of which will get worse in the wake of last week's incidents. But life will go on, and the reality-based community will continue to try making life a little bit better over time. We won a victory last November, but the fight against conservative fantasy won't be over anytime soon. I plan to keep fighting.