War on terror puts passengers in booties

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War on terror puts passengers in booties

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The war on terror has entered a new, dangerous phase which includes putting silly booties on passengers at the San Diego airport.

As passengers move toward the security check-in area, signs are posted directing their attention to a box full of paper "sky slippers", as they are being called.

The booties (aka "footies") are designed to make the process of getting through the security system in a more hygeinic way, the instructions seem to indicate. As most travelers know, ever since the ill-fated "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, who tried to light explosive material worked into the heel of his shoes.

Since then, the FAA has required airport security screeners to inspect passengers' shoes, which means they have to be taken off, which in turn means - you guessed it: foot disease.

According to reports last year, airport shoe inspection raises the risk of foot fungi, according to Dr. Cecil Fox, the retired director of the Molecular Histology Lab at the National
Institutes of Health.

"People are being told to take their shoes off and ordered to walk
through a morass of fungi," said Fox, who now lives in Little Rock,
Ark. "It's outrageous."

To the outrage, you can now add extreme embarrassment.

This reporter was the only passenger who dared to put the booties on. "The feeling of walking around with these silly booties on made me feel ridiculous" I said. "Others are looking at me like I am some weirdo - maybe I shouldn't even be allowed on the flight," I opined.

The move to put Sky Slippers on Americans may yet prove to be the deadliest measure in the war on terror, some believe, by subjecting its citizens to shame. It's extremely difficult to feel any measure of confidence when one is wearing this kind of protection, this reporter can attest.

The attached photos will give some sense of the difficulties in trying to be manly and casual.

Let us hope the terrorists do not invent exploding hair. If the FAA ever requires men to wear hairnets, the consequences might be too terrible to contemplate.