Sending Up Security

People are highly tuned risk managers. Daily, we make decision about risky things like crossing streets. To do so, we analyze the speed and density of traffic, light conditions, our own physical skills, and myriad other factors to determine whether to cross in the middle of a block or at a controlled intersection.

Five years since 9/11, people are getting better at assessing the risks of terrorist acts. And people are growing increasingly skeptical of the risk choices being made for them by the Department of Homeland Security. The evidence? Their willingness to see security lampooned.

The writers at The Onion are undoubtedly finding a good reception for this send-up of the Transportation Security Administration's liquids rules.

And people are diverting themselves from their exasperation with airport security using this fun game. 

A basic indictment of government-provided security is in daily newspapers' comic sections this morning. Syndicated cartoon Bizarro by Dan Piraro is titled "Orientation Seminar at Homeland Security." It depicts a teacher at a chalkboard that says "Inconvenience = Security." (Available online here early next month). 

The funny bone is a highly tuned instrument, and it's showing the dissonance in air security today.