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Traveling with a physical disability gives one a unique window on a society's mores and values. Often we are taught that places in Asia are less compassionate than the US. This is not true. But traveling with a physical disability--even a temporary one--also gives one insights into the quality of a place's transportation infrastructure. Malaysia and Taiwan are cleaning our clocks on everything from infrastructure to manufacturing. Having endured more than 48 hours of travel from Kuala Lumpur via Taipei to Los Angeles with a shattered collar bone and broken rib brought it home to me. All of their public investments are paying off. Mass transit is highly effective. Highways are clean, smooth and without potholes, this in places that get lots and lots of rain. Airports work and are incredibly efficient. But when I got to Los Angeles? It was a mad house of disorganization.

Also, the TSA seemed to go out of their way to make life miserable for me, forcing me to remove my sling--a sling of cloth and plastic rings mind you that had made it through the TSA x-ray detector with no problems while on my body--and run it through the x-ray machine on its own. They were rude and didn't care that I was in serious pain. They were unhelpful with my shoes, which are a bitch to tie one-handed. Then, the flight from LA to Austin the airline people seemed to go out of their way to make my life miserable. I had to request a supervisor's supervisor in order to pre-board due to physical disability.

All of this in contrast with the kindness of the South East Asians. Sometimes I can't help but to think we live in a culture that actively likes to cause pain to those already hurting.


Sean Paul Kelley November 12, 2011 - 8:20am
Sean Paul Kelley's diary | printer friendly version | digg
( categories: Agonist Travel Journals | Asia: South-East )

we

do

Ian Welsh November 12, 2011 - 9:58am
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Agreed

Over the past Generation America transitioned from a nation that looked a misfortune as something to overcome for the good of all, to one that views misfortune as something funny to inflict on others.

says something uncomfortable about the national psyche...I"m ashamed to see it happen in my lifetime

"It's no longer IOKIYAR....It's OK If You're A Republican, but IOKBYAR--It's OK BECAUSE You're a Republican." -- Me

justadood November 12, 2011 - 2:58pm
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Good luck with your surgery

Hope it all goes smoothly for you!

yogi-one November 12, 2011 - 1:09pm
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My last flight

Was on US Air. In the middle of general boarding this old couple showed up with the guy, coulda been 90 years old, in a wheel chair. His seat was almost in the back of the plane. They made him walk, slowly, very very very slowly, all the way there. No attendants did a thing. Coulda and shoulda given him an empty seat up there in first class.

Zman1527 November 12, 2011 - 5:48pm
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America, love it or leave it.

I went to Walmart today.
I'm ready to leave now.

Awake November 12, 2011 - 8:51pm
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I notice it every time I fly--

something like a majority of TSA employees are sub-human, and the rest of them are unemployable in real-world jobs. They have neither the ability, nor the skills, nor the judgment to do valuable work. They do not deserve to coexist with us. I think many of them get off on having their betters genuflect to them.

The last time I traveled cross-country, I took Amtrak. Sixty hours each way in a (thoroughly adequate) coach seat was still much better than the American flying experience. The staff was pleasant and cooperative; the service was straightforward and obliging; nothing about the trip was humiliating or sadistic. The only reminder that I was still in post-Bush v. Gore America was the paranoid propaganda blared over the PA and splashed across the walls in every station: "If you see something, say something."

I'll never fly again if I can help it. Fuck those people.

_______________________________________________________________

Please close any account you have with Bank of America, Chase, Citi, or Wells Fargo. Do it for your own benefit and that of your community and country.

chalo November 12, 2011 - 11:10pm
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Sub-human? Do not deserve to coexist with us?

"Their betters"? Really? What time is it - 1800 AD?

Raja November 12, 2011 - 11:48pm
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Have you really not observed

actual TSA personnel in action? It's like a live-action Victorian folio of mental and moral defectives. They are the dregs who have no place in regular society because they are broken at the firmware level. (This is excepting the language-impaired immigrants, who are not as conspicuously effed-up, but are sub-par by immigrant worker standards and therefore unsuited to the usual kinds of honest work.)

_______________________________________________________________

Please close any account you have with Bank of America, Chase, Citi, or Wells Fargo. Do it for your own benefit and that of your community and country.

chalo November 13, 2011 - 5:27pm
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I think we must use different airports.

I fly out of Logan (Boston) and TF Greene (Providence), and have not been ill-treated, nor noticed any particular deficiencies among the staff. They are people just trying to survive in a crappy, thankless job, far as I can tell. (Not to doubt that some small fraction of them are attracted to the position for the masochistic sadistic possibilities).

Raja November 13, 2011 - 5:35pm
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Same here...

I also fly out of Logan. No problems, other than the use of the porn scanners and the resulting crotch massage if you don't want to go through one of those. Seriously, nobody has ever treated me badly or unprofessionally. I usually dress casual elegant, perhaps that makes me not suspicious, dunno...

creativelcro November 13, 2011 - 5:42pm
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But of course, that's not why I responded to you as I did.

Such rhetoric as you used is that of the eliminationist.

You can't really believe that the majority of TSA screeners are sub-human? That they should be locked up (or worse) because they ought not co-exist with the rest of society?

I don't want to be the propriety police here, but really, that's the kind of talk I associate with the far right...

Raja November 13, 2011 - 6:08pm
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Next time you fly,

Take a good look at the overseers working at the security checkpoints, and ask yourself: Could these people get a job where I work? Could they get a job anywhere I would choose to spend time voluntarily?

If the answer to either question is "yes", you fly out of different airports than I have used in the 21st century, or you are exceedingly scum-tolerant.

I work in a job that brings me into contact with drug addicts, hustlers, hipsters, and drooling idiots, but I have no day-to-day contact with the likes of TSA personnel. For this I count myself fortunate.

chalo November 15, 2011 - 3:20am
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My cousin

is a TSA agent in Miami and I can assure you she is not subhuman.

Tina November 13, 2011 - 6:12pm
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Ask her for her opinion

of her coworkers.

chalo November 15, 2011 - 3:20am
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Don't worry

The plan is to have the TSA riding the rails and patrolling our highways, you'll have plenty of chances to interact with them in the future.

Lex November 14, 2011 - 8:26am
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US 'sorry' for frisking of India ex-leader Abdul Kalam

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-15711135

Tina November 13, 2011 - 1:52pm
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