April 27, 2009

A message to women in their long billowy summer skirts.

If you go through airport security, you will receive a pat-down search.

***

How do I know? It's happened to me 3 times. And yesterday, when I made a point of wearing pants to the airport, I saw 2 women in long skirts — there are some really pretty sundresses out there — and both of them got pulled aside for a pat down.

ADDED: I'm guess the government has decided to pat-down all wearers of flowing skirts as a general rule as a way to search all females in traditional Islamic dress. Any complaints about profiling will be easily met.

36 comments:

Peter V. Bella said...

If Trooper were awake he would say Lee Lee's Valise carries a complete line of sun dresses.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Great Althouse. Now you just told all the terrorists how we secure our airports.

With you blabbing our state secrets, who needs the NY Times? Heh.

AllenS said...

Security needs to be issued mirrors on a pole. Something that border guards use to look under vehicles. Then you wouldn't have to pat anybody down. This is what I espew today.

Wince said...

How about using blowers like Marilyn Monroe in the Seven Year Itch?

traditionalguy said...

Sounds to me that the Male Human Animals are in heat again this spring, sneakily selecting random women to test for weapon curves. The dedication of these Government servants is so noble. Why they will be the best men to transfer over to the new Government Health Centers where they can dedicate themselves to selecting women for random mammograms.

KCFleming said...

Billowy schmillowy.
What a waste of time.

We all know the real terrorists are at the tea parties, anti-abortionists, anti-illegal immigrationists, and among soldiers returning from Iraq.

Peter V. Bella said...

Pogo,
Do not forget libturd geeks and nerds with lap tops. Please, we must be inclusive.

Ann Althouse said...

"Sounds to me that the Male Human Animals are in heat again this spring, sneakily selecting random women to test for weapon curves."

No, they always get a woman to do the search.

American Liberal Elite said...

Men in shorts get a pass.

Ann Althouse said...

The guy seated next to me on the plane was wearing shorts. Presumably, he didn't recognize me (and know my anti-shorts writings), but wouldn't it have been funny if he did?

He was also wearing a t-shirt with a hole under the arm, which hole he displayed to me more than twice.

He was up to page 503 on his Stephen King novel. Those King books are clumsily thick, yet the print is quite large — to give readers a feeling of accomplishment?

hdhouse said...

Ann Althouse said...
The guy seated next to me...."

hmmmm a bit of separation anxiety here Ann?....as in damn I have to go home?

KCFleming said...

I am, I'll admit, a wearer of shorts. Pants are far too uncomfortable to wear when I am outside in the summer mowing the lawn or gardening or going to a baseball game.

I fear that I'll be visiting my son in Milwaukee or Madison and see Althouse but refrain from introducing myself precisely because of the shorts.

Maybe I should pretend to be someone else here.
But who??

rhhardin said...

Neighbor in shorts this morning pic.

Neighbor in shorts last evening pic.

Neighbor in shorts yesterday afternoon pic.

Neighbor in shorts yesterday noon pic.

That's four for four out of the last shots I took that had neighbors visible, and of course I was wearing shorts myself.

This Althouse crusade is going nowhere.

I wonder if . after /a is enough to avoid the newline disappearing bug.

Ann Althouse said...

Don't wear shorts on a plane. You're in an air-conditioned environment and sitting close to a stranger. It's bad enough that your clothed thigh may touch the stranger sitting next to you. Don't wangle the naked thigh near her!

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

You want to see something hilarious.

Keep a sharp eye (Rush lingo) for Napolitano crossing the Canadian border.

Napolitano is our new Jocelyn Elders. We are in for some do fun ;)

Kirk Parker said...

Pogo,

"Maybe I should pretend to be someone else here. But who??"

Meade????

Kirk Parker said...

Althouse,

"Don't wangle the naked thigh near her!"

That implies a level of dexterity that, as far as I know, exists only in teenage gymnasts and, perhaps, ballet dancers.

My thigh (clothed, mind you--I am definitely not a shorts-wearer unless I'm hiking or something like that) mostly just sits there.

KCFleming said...

Coming this summer to a theater near you: Shorts On A Plane, the new blockbuster with Samuel L. Jackson, a retired DC cop whose fateful flight is taken over by Men In Shorts, former US soldiers from Iraq, now rightwing terrorists on their way to staged Tea Parties and then to bomb abortion clinics.

traditionalguy said...

Women do the search on women...Sorry, said Rosanna Rosanna Danna. There's no fun in that. Or is there?

MadisonMan said...

I think men wearing long billowy summer skirts might also get frisked.

rhhardin said...

It's bad enough that your clothed thigh may touch the stranger sitting next to you. Don't wangle the naked thigh near her!

Would she avoid this horror if she wore long pants herself?

rhhardin said...

I believe I myself started the tradition of shorts on a plane, in 1973, ahead of my time as usual.

I was then a pretty regular air commuter, owing to a distant girlfriend.

Darcy said...

I am very pro-men in shorts.

(Pics please, Pogo? :))

save_the_rustbelt said...

Professor Althouse:

Never ever visit a Boy Scout Jamboree - 50,000 men and boys in shorts might be too much for your system.

I do however look great in knee socks.

Shawn Levasseur said...

So, what's the policy on kilts?

Anonymous said...

Don't wear shorts on a plane.I dated a guy once who was a supervisor for an airline (at the airport). He wouldn't bump men to first class if they were wearing shorts or sleeveless shirts. He said the other passengers didn't want to sit next to that person.

BJM said...

As men well know, most long billowy summer skirt are translucent in backlight, so modesty is already compromised to a point.

Were I to wear one on a flight; I'd wear color-matching, opaque French cut briefs, hike up the skirt and be done with it. I wear less on the beach with strangers, so no biggie.

I'm hoping you aren't referring to to athletic shorts, Althouse. That is too icky to contemplate... eeeeewwww!


In Sth Florida people of all ages, sizes and shapes wear shorts every where, so you get over it. Tommy Bahama and Kahala, for example, make longer cargo shorts that don't expose the thigh when sitting.

However, athletic shorts are totally inappropriate outside the gym or off the court/field.

One wonders just what sort of ensemble would be turned away from a flight as inappropriate?

@Peter- Is that a field clipped Springer or a Pointer?

traditionalguy said...

It is true that most men have hair on their legs. And who knows how long it has been since a man has been cleaned, much less disinfected and deloused. Therefore all men should wear long pants, unless they are really good at playing Bagpipes. Pres. Obama is above such quaint American traditions.

MadisonMan said...

I recall, once in O'Hare, seeing a rather overweight women with an enormous bosom who was flying wearing just a one-piece PINK swim suit, and her body was severely testing the engineered strength of the suit. It could have been worse, it was a swim suit with a skirted bottom.

Well, I assume she was flying, she was walking around the Concourse. I was very glad that she didn't get the seat next to me on the flight to Munich. That would've been uncomfortable.

Freeman Hunt said...

I recall, once in O'Hare, seeing a rather overweight women with an enormous bosom who was flying wearing just a one-piece PINK swim suitWow! Possibly the biggest fashion faux pas I've ever heard of.

KCFleming said...

MM

That sounds alot like the effects of Ouzo. ;)

Maxine Weiss said...

Probably be easier to just buy two seats.

At least then you wouldn't need to inject yourself, like a busybody, into what your neighbor is wearing and doing.

Or how about this: If you have a problem with the public, don't fly on the public airlines ?


Love,

BJM said...

Heh.(h/t Rachel Lucas)

Jeremy said...

If you can hide a turkey between your legs...you can hide a bomb.

*A large woman tried to steal a 15 lb Kretschmar Baked Ham from the long-closed Foodland supermarket on Jefferson Avenue in St. Louis MO's Lafayette Square neighborhood by putting it between her legs under a housedress and trying to shimmy up towards the exit.

It failed miserably.

Peter V. Bella said...

"@Peter- Is that a field clipped Springer or a Pointer?"

Llewelyn English Setter.

former law student said...

From an Irwin Shaw short story:

"When I think of New York City, I think of all the girls, the Jewish girls, the Italian girls, the Irish, Polack, Chinese, German, Negro, Spanish, Russian girls, all on parade in the city. I don't know whether it's something special with me or whether every man in the city walks around with the same feeling inside him, but I feel as though I'm at a picnic in this city. I like to sit near the women in the theaters, the famous beauties who've taken six hours to get ready and look it. And the young girls at the football games, with the red cheeks, and when the warm weather comes, the girls in their summer dresses . . ." He finished his drink. "That's the story. You asked for it, remember. I can't help but look at them. I can't help but want them."