Trapped at 37000ft With Germs

Last month, when a federal judge struck down the CDC’s mask mandate, some flight attendants announced to their passengers that masks had become optional. And in response, many removed their masks and cheered.

What a horror that must’ve been to any immunocompromised people who might’ve been on board these flights. Imagine boarding the airplane with the expectation that everyone’s breath-born germs would be kept to themselves. Then, suddenly, you’re exposed to an onslaught of germs spewed out from revelers. This announcement was irresponsible.

Meanwhile the COVID-19 positivity rate keeps rising.

Medium and Large and Nothing In Between

Look at the typical size chart¹ for men’s underwear, if you will, and tell me if you see anything wrong?

Size	Waist (inches)
S	28 - 30
M	32 - 34
L	36 - 38
XL	40 - 42
2XL	44 - 46
3XL	48 - 50

Well?

Here’s the problem. What do you do if your waist is 31”, 35”, 37” and so on? Fruit of the Loom tells you to select the next larger size. Hanes doesn’t even offer such advice, unless you ask customer service, and then they also advise the next larger size.

I am size 35, which is between M and L. So I bought the larger size, L. But they were too baggy, even after one washing in hot water. They felt like boxer briefs. M (which I bought next) was a better choice for me since I prefer a lower rise brief. M is a bit too snug, but aren’t they're supposed to be "tighty-whities"? So I'll continue to wash the L briefs in hot water each week hoping they'll shrink into the unavailable in between size.

---

¹ This size chart can be found on the following web pages:

https://www.fruit.com/sizeguide

https://www.hanes.com/shop/hanes/hanes-mens-briefs-120442?categoryId=21065#

#NaBloPoMo2019

The Ban on Plastic Grocery Bags

Plastic bags haven’t been banned yet where I live.  However, my favorite grocery store recently eliminated single use bags.  Other stores in my area have imposed the 10 cent per bag fee.

When the bags were free, I’d use them to line my kitchen garbage can and collect waste from the cat boxes.  Now that I don’t get them, I’ve resorted to buying plastic bags for the garbage can.  (Interestingly, the bags I now buy cost $2 for a box of twenty, or 10 cents per bag, the same as the verboten grocery bag.)  As for the cat waste, I’ve found that both newspaper bags and produce bags (which are still free) work well enough for this.

According to Wikipedia, an organization has formed to lobby against bans on plastic bags.

It all seems so senseless to me.  Is there really a good alternative to plastic bags for kitchen waste?  What else would you use to contain used coffee filters, spoiled food, and grease-soaked paper towels?  Would you expect a paper bag to remain intact long enough to be carried out to a receptacle at the curb?

Or perhaps I’ve overestimated human efficiency and resourcefulness.  Maybe I’m part of a very small minority that now has to buy the same number of bags that I used to get for free.  Maybe all along most folks have been buying garbage bags and would just fling the free grocery bags out a window when they got home.

I think a more ingenious solution would’ve been to somehow mark each dispensed bag with a means to identify the person who received it.  Then when it’s eventually removed from where it was snagged in a tree, officials would know whose bag it was and levy a penalty against that person.

Well, in fact, these bags do have identifiers.  But of course they don’t identify the bag recipient; they identify the manufacturer.  If the plastic industry wants to continue manufacturing the bags, and consumers want to continue using them, why bother to fight them?  Just levy penalties against the manufacturers whose bags are found littering the environment.

What do you think?

#NaBloPoMo2019

Too Much

On Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported on some conjecture about the cause of the Russian airliner that crashed in Egypt last Saturday.  The article begins:

"Russia’s top aviation official dismissed an assertion by the airline involved in a passenger jet crash in Egypt that pilot error and technical defects could be ruled out as causes."

Let me understand this more clearly.  A passenger jet flying at about 30000 feet suddenly blows up and someone still thinks it might be due to an error by one of the pilots?  What do you suppose happened?  Did one of the pilots accidentally press the "Self Destruct" button?

Dumbed Down Doctors

I had the most illuminating discussion with a doctor today.

My wife had been under his care since March for a condition that is slowly getting worse.  The condition itself erupted in June of last year.

We had gotten a second opinion from a very well-respected and experienced doctor.  One piece of advice from this doctor was "take four biopsies and send them to four different labs."  When we mentioned this to the regular doctor, he shook his head and said, "That doesn't make sense.  What if you get four different results?  What do you do then?  I think we should take just one biopsy."

I was almost too aghast to respond.  Eventually I said, "If you really have so little faith in the results, why even bother doing one biopsy?"

But here's what I wish I had said:

• When dealing with large uncertainty in data, the proper method is to increase the sample size, not decrease it, and,
• What you're suggesting is that it's possible that at least three of every four lab results can be incorrect. That means the one result you get has at least a 75% chance of being wrong, and,
• Didn't you have to take statistics in order to become a doctor? I think you should get your money back.

But, as I said, I was too aghast at his ignorance.

I could've accepted the one biopsy response if he said that insurance won't cover it, or that hospital policy forces us to use our own lab, or some other bureaucratic bullshit because I've become accustomed to it.  But I never expected such blatant ignorance.

And this doctor was voted Best Doctor in his specialty in our region.

I'm beginning to think that we need to go to a doctor outside the USA or consult a Shaman.  I no longer have faith in AMA-bred medical professionals.

Why Are Shorts So Long?

I've been shopping for shorts to replenish my worn out summer wardrobe for years.  But every time I browse the racks I find "shorts" whose hemlines reach down to my knees.  Modern shorts resemble some sort of bastard children of Capri pants and Real Shorts.

The legs of Real Shorts stop three to five inches above the knee.  I like them that way because bastard shorts tickle my knees.  And besides, the long shorts give the impression that I'm wearing Real Shorts low on the hip and that underneath my shirt lies a bright gibbous moon.

I've examined a few bastard shorts with the idea that I could alter them to bring up the hemline.  Unfortunately they were cargo "shorts" with extra pockets that extend into where I'd place the hemline.  Either that, or the white inner lining of normal pockets would hang down below the new hemline.  Now that I contemplate this dilemma, I realize I could also alter the normal pockets to make them less deep.  But I shouldn't have to do this!

With the back-to-school season already in full swing in the world of retail, I'll make one last attempt to find something deeply discounted that I can alter into real shorts.  Or maybe I'll take a trip to the Salvation Army and find something from a few decades ago when shorts were Real Shorts.

Foodbook

The newsfeed I receive from Facebook is so cluttered with pictures of food, I think of it now as Foodbook.

Enticing pictures of food -- cheerful, colorful and sweet-looking food.  Food porn for a horny addict.

I like my cousins, and I want to keep in touch with them.  So I long for a way to filter out images by subject matter.  Pictures of people: OK.  Pictures of food: NO.  Pictures of people eating food? Uh...

These are my cousins, who, I understand, have the same general set of genes as me, with the same predisposition to diabetes festering silently inside them, like me.  The only difference between us is that they haven't realized just how deadly the food is that they're raving about.  Or they don't care.

I dropped my first hint a few weeks ago.  I posted "I think Facebook is turning into the Food Network."  And I got two Likes from that.

I relish thinking of other rebellious counterattacks to food porn.

First, I thought I'd start posting pictures of other addictive substances, such as shot glasses and sultry bottles of Jack, warmly glowing lit cigarettes, maybe even lines of coke waiting to be snorted.  Of course I'd have to find the images on the Internet -- I don't drink, smoke or do drugs -- so it won't be authentic.

Then I thought it would be neat to upload pictures of my feces.  I'd proudly state, "I made this the morning after a big bowl of three-bean chili."  Or, "Tacos yesterday!  Check this one out!"  I really like this idea, actually.  I've never seen any images of poop on Facebook yet, so the idea stands out on the basis of originality.  I like the extreme anti-social nature a poop post would represent.  And it would convey the simple but important message, "As goes in, so goes out."  The problem, of course, is that folks would be so revolted that they'd probably shut it out of their heads before considering any message.

So that leaves directly responding to food porn posts:

• "Love to eat that right before having my blood glucose tested."
• "I bet I'd completely lose my night vision after eating that."
• "That's the ticket to a wild blood sugar roller-coaster ride!"

Maybe I'll just start to de-friend the worst offenders and hope the others will fill in with the important goings ons of the family....

The Right to Drive

The mantra of the typical instructor of a driver's education class is, "Driving is a privilege, not a right."

While that may be true, it's a mistake.  The US constitution guarantees our right to "bear arms."  Yet it has no say in the matter of personal transportation.

Frankly, the fault lies with the men who wrote the Unites States constitution, those anarchists / terrorists, who were more concerned about defending themselves against an all-powerful government than with commuting back and forth to work every work day.

Today a typical American has less of a need to use a gun than to drive a car.  In 2009, 209 million Americans had a driver's license¹, while in 2010 only 32 percent of the 115 million households (36.8 million) harbored at least one firearm^2,3.

We've been driving for over a century.  It's time that the constitution caught up with us.

---

¹U.S. Car Fleet Shrank by Four Million in 2009 - After a Century of Growth, U.S. Fleet Entering Era of Decline, by Lester R. Brown, January 06, 2010

²How Many People Own Guns in America? And Is Gun Ownership Actually Declining?, by Madeleine Morgenstern, March 19, 2013

³Total Number of U.S. Households, Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Research Date: 10.27.2012

Minefield in the Cafeteria

My workplace is a minefield of diet booby traps.

Each month, the company brings in a large birthday cake to celebrate that month's birthdays.  The cake arrives at the cafeteria in time for the 10am break.  I can resist it at that time.  But if there's still some left at 4pm, it's difficult to ignore.

The cake isn't as bad as the various surprise treats that sometimes appear.  When I know the cake is there, I can prepare myself to resist it or avoid the cafeteria altogether if necessary.  But an unexpected box of donuts, French pastry or home made fudge all bypass the more evolved portion of my brain, stimulating the reptilian brain into reflex action.  My hand darts out like the sticky tongue of a frog¹, and before I know it there's a morsel in my hand.

Coffee is like that, too.  Coffee causes fluctuations in my blood sugar, and it increases stomach acid, so I need to avoid it.  But it's in the cafeteria, too, just eying me in the sultry way of a temptress who knows the secrets of pleasure.  Even when I go to the cafeteria to get hot water for tea, I'll change my mind and take coffee instead if it's strong and freshly made.

An increasing number of employees are playing the hospitality game.  They display dishes of candies in their offices or on a central table in their departments.  The sales people are the worst -- they're so darned people-oriented.  Which is why I like to stay in the engineering department.  Food doesn't move,  or make a cool noise, or feature flashing lights, so it doesn't adorn our department.

Actually I tried maintaining a candy dish.  The hard candies were so unpopular, they started to undergo desication, so I had to discard them.  But the chocolate is both popular and tempting.  Unless my coworkers beat me to it, I'll finish it off myself after a few days.  It got to be expensive after several weeks, especially since I buy the higher-end stuff -- individually wrapped pieces from Dove or Hershey Bliss.  Even Hershey Kisses would be too low-end for my dish.

Yesterday was the day after Halloween, so I expected candy to be everywhere.  But I was disappointed surprised to find very little candy.  What little there was was the incredibly cheap stuff, like the obligatory mints you might find in a bowl on the way out from low-end diner, except sour and wrapped in faded paper.  They come with a small axe and a sign that says, "Break open in case of low blood sugar."

Is there a point to this post?  Yes.  It is, in fact, a rant against a society that fails to recognize food addiction.  You won't find cigarettes, alcohol or opium in the work place.  They're not even advertised in newspapers.  Why?  Because they're addictive.  But nobody considers food and beverages to be addictive, so those of us who struggle with food addiction have no respite.

---

¹ Yes, I know that frogs are not reptiles, thank you.

Shutdown

The clever blog post you were hoping to read has been postponed due to the shutdown of the U.S. federal government. 

Sorry for the inconvenience.

The Stool Post

During lunch one day, I came across something called the Bristol Stool Chart.  It was devised to classify the form of human feces into seven categories.

After perusing each of the seven stool descriptions, I had a flashback to when an autistic boy had come to our house for a visit and used the bathroom.

After his family left, I saw his stool in the toilet.  If it were not in our very own toilet, I'd've wondered not only what species produced it, but also what planet it was from.

It was the same size and shape of a toy football.  It's girth was similar to that of a mango, but it was longer and tapered equally at the ends.

It was not solid brown.  It was a conglomerate of shades of brown and tan, patterned like large-grain particle board.

I mention this because it under-girds why I think the Bristol Stool Chart is meant for simpletons.

False Advertising from the Cyber Mall

Earlier this week, on Tuesday in fact, two online retailers sent me special offers, which they later rescinded.

The e-mail from iHerb announced a "Complimentary $20 Credit."  All I had to do was shop as usual and the $20 would be deducted at checkout.  But just three hours later, I received another e-mail from them with the subject, "Please disregard last message and save 10% on your next order."  How dare they!

The other retailer was Eastern Mountain Sports (EMS).  Their e-mail offered 15% off all full price items as a thank you for joining their rewards program.  This was puzzling to me because I already received and took advantage of an identical offer in September.  Sure enough, later that day, EMS sent a second e-mail with the subject, "Our Mistake is Your Holiday Bonus" that apologized for any confusion the first e-mail might've caused.  It offered me 15% off all full price items.  Well, at least EMS was decent enough to replace the erroneous e-mail offer with an equivalent offer.

Who knows how many more screw up offers I've been sent?  EMS and iHerb sell products that my family and I always need.  At EMS I scope out outdoor gear, hiking socks, gadgets, while iHerb stocks tea, supplements and some grocery items.  So I paid attention to those e-mail offers.  Yet I routinely ignore many other retailers' offers.

How are you faring at the Cyber Mall?  Are you getting false advertisements from your favorite retailers?

Stay in Balance

Every year as Thanksgiving approaches, I recall the "Allan incident."

Allan was someone I worked with more than twenty years ago.  He was the ultimate miser, the one for whom the "gluing a coin to the floor" practical joke was intended.  Allan would pry the coin off the floor. He would run out of gas going out of his way to find the cheapest gas station.

I didn't actually work with him, though.  He and I worked for the same small company, and he was in a different department.  At the time of the incident, the company was growing and starting to prosper.  One November it wanted to reward us for the hard work we did in earlier years when we were working overtime without pay and sometimes dealing with bounced paychecks.  So the company bought and distributed frozen turkeys to all of us.

It was a nice gesture, and even though I was vegetarian at the time, I accepted it and gave it to my brother and sister-in-law.  Allan, on the other hand, was indignant and refused the turkey because it wasn't kosher.  To mollify him, the company gave him $15 in exchange for the turkey.

John the machinist heard about this, and he knew how cheap Allan was.  So he decided to have some fun at his expense.

"Hey Allan," John called.  "I heard you don't want your turkey.  I'll give you twenty bucks for it."

Allan's eyes lit up at the thought of making a profit on the formerly disagreeable turkey.  I didn't witness the outcome, but I heard he tried to buy back his turkey in order to flip it to gain $5.

This is a true story even if the main character is larger than life.  And there are distasteful aspects of humanity demonstrated here: Allan's ingratitude and greed.  And John was reprehensible too, although perhaps he thought he would teach Allan a lesson.  It's certainly not a nice story for the season.  But hopefully at least one Allan-like person might read this and be motivated to improve.  After all, John easily manipulated Allan, pushed him off balance.

Do all of us, in fact, have a little bit of Allan inside?  Maybe it's not money that motivates us.  Maybe it's food, fame, love (or sex), or an overwhelming need to help someone.  Whatever it is, know that the Johns of the world can use it to push us off balance.

Stay in Balance

Not a Restaurant, But a Kitchen

Ever try to explain "Gluten Free" to a Chinese restaurant?  Neither have I, not when just getting a simple order called in correctly is a challenge.

It's at times like these -- when language barriers clash with dietary impeccability -- that I just want to push my way into the kitchen and prepare my own food.

Chinese food is the best fast food choice for Paleo dieters.  But it's not perfect, even if you avoid rice, noodles and the "crispy" (breaded) selections.  It's the sauce that will trip you up.  Even plain old soy sauce is a combination of soy (albeit fermented) and grain (wheat).  But Chinese sauces are the Marvel Mystery Oil of the culinary world.  Aside from soy sauce and fish sauce, they contain dyes to impart special color, plus even more starch for extra gloppiness.

I am blessed with a Chinese restaurant that offers steamed entrees, and when I feel the need to adhere strictly to my diet, I'll choose the steamed chicken and broccoli.  But I long for the variety that comes with ordering from a full menu.

Indian food would be a great choice, too.  But the one near my workplace is, first of all, expensive.  Their entrees cost twice as much as those from the Chinese restaurant.  On the other hand, many include lamb.  Unfortunately, they also include peas or chickpeas.  The former taste gross; the latter, induce gas.  And Indian chefs can't seem to make anything that doesn't include either potato, cauliflower or dairy (cheese or yogurt), all of which I'd rather avoid.  And of course their sauces are even starchier than their Chinese counterparts.  With all that lamb in their kitchen, I'd love to strongarm my way in and cook up something decent.

Then there's the Greek-owned pizza joint.  Greek is good because it means they have gyros, and that means they have lamb.  But everything on the menu is served in bread or on crust.  A few years ago I asked the guy for a gyro "without bread."  He was flummoxed to say the least.  It wasn't so much that he couldn't figure out how to make it.  His problem was that he couldn't conceive of someone not eating bread.  It was as if I asked him to suck out all the air from the restaurant so I could eat in a vacuum.  But then a dim bulb flickered on in the back of his mind, and he recalled another customer who can't eat wheat and brings his own bread.  "You could bring your own bread," he suggests.  "Oh, good idea," I say aloud with minimal enthusiasm, inwardly shouting, "I don't want any bread -- just meat and vegetables!"  Every six months or so he makes a breadless gyro for me, telling me about his other customer who brings his own bread.  Meanwhile my eyes wander longingly to that kitchen space 10 yards behind him, where a big glistening hunk of lamb spins slowly under the intense red glow of the grill.

One Sentence

One truly original sentence is better than an entire post of generic cliches. If you only have fifteen minutes, go for the one sentence, seriously! Then post it all by itself.

- from http://www.blogher.com/six-tips-writing-well-and-you-can-still-write-after-kids

Okay then, here's my sentence:

How come you can get a traffic ticket for not stopping when the light turns red, but the guy in front of you won't get one for not going when the light turns green?

Tired of Summer Attire

Every summer I see folks go out into public in appalling fashion.  It's as if they've just stepped out of the bath and threw on whatever they had handy.

It's the flimsy footwear that actually troubles me the most.  I just get the feeling that these folks are wearing some planks on their feet that are liable to fall off at any moment.  "How do they manage to walk?"  I wonder to myself.  What if they had to hike through some rough terrain, or scale a rocky cliff, or even chase after a haughty ice cream truck?

I guess that's the thing about summer.  It's the time of year that folks don't hike, don't scale, don't run.  They just indolently shuffle along like a five year old boy wearing his father's slippers.

If the saber-toothed tiger ever makes a comeback, these folks will be the first of our species to become extinct.

Blogging About Healthy Eating is a Criminal Offense!

Internet free speech is under assault in America, and a dangerous new trend has surfaced that threatens to throw nutritional bloggers in jail for advocating healthy diets on their blogs or websites. As you read this, a blogger who wrote about using the Paleo diet to overcome diabetes is being threatened with jail time in North Carolina, where the state Board of Dietetics / Nutrition claims his nutritional advocacy is equivalent to the crime of "practicing nutrition without a license."

His name is Steve Cooksey, and his website is http://www.diabetes-warrior.net

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/035691_dieticians_free_speech_nutrition_advice.html

Ruminations on the Northeast Power Outage

We were without power from 3:52pm on Saturday, 10/29 to 4:15pm Saturday of the next week -- seven full days. The power outage was due to a heavy snowfall that brought many tree limbs down on power lines. The snow collected on deciduous trees whose leaves had still not turned color and fallen. Since the trees were not accustomed to bearing that much weight, they broke. I have never seen such devastation up close in my entire 48 years.

Our home was not damaged. However the fixture atop the lamppost was partly smashed. But worse is that the nice wooded path I blazed many years ago is now blocked by dense tangle of heavy branches.

When we lose electricity, our furnace does not run, so we lose heat and hot water. Of course, we lose lighting, refrigeration and entertainment. Since we have well water, the electric pump would not run, so we also were limited to whatever water had collected in the tank just prior to the outage. We had to limit water use severely. Fortunately, I had prepared by filling the bath tub with water about halfway. This allowed us to fill buckets for flushing the toilets. I also did collect snow melt from a downspout for additional water for flushing. Initially, I hadn't planned to fill the bath tub until just before bedtime. But we lost power for a few minutes prior to the main outage, so I decided to do it earlier as a precaution.

Thank goodness for Chinese restaurants. The place that provided our supper on Sunday was able to cook with propane. We bought the food there and brought it over to the supermarket, which was powered with a generator. We lived like that for most of the remaining days. We were also fortunate that one of our daughter's close friends got power back early and invited us to shower and do laundry, as well as hang out and eat meals there.

This power outage was inevitable. New Englanders are proud and protective of their trees. Roads and power lines were after-thoughts in communities that were founded near Indian footpaths by early settlers. Couple this with a profit hungry power distribution company, and you have countless trees that overhang power lines that run parallel small roads. There are still broken limbs dangling above the restored lines (or lines that haven't been hit yet). Those limbs will come down during a wind storm or the next heavy snow fall.

In Spring, one of our trees broke from gusts of wind. The part that remained stood a few feet from the power lines in front of our house. I called the power company out to have a look at it. I was certain they'd be concerned that it could fall and take down the lines. The representative was tactful in that he himself did not laugh. Instead, he explained that if he were to call in a request to have it removed, they'd laugh at him. "There are a thousand other trees much worse than that one," he said.

But the limbs that fell appeared healthy. And there are dead limbs on our trees that are still intact. So even if the utility had made an effort to remove damaged trees, the power outage would have been just as widespread as it was.

Evolution of the Stick Deodorant Package

The most cost-effective container for something is a cylinder whose height is twice the diameter of its base. You learn about this in first semester calculus class -- it's a classic "max/min" problem. Ask any engineer or engineering student. You can maximize the volume for a given surface, or minimize the surface of a given volume.

Indeed, for many years, the cans and bottles used to package products were designed to have roughly those dimensions in order to minimize packaging costs.

But at some point, marketing people took over the design of product packaging. They had results from research that showed how sales correlate with how a product looks on the shelf (and where it's placed, but that's another matter). They first changed labels (colors, fonts and images) to make the product more appealing.

Eventually packaging technology improved. Cans and bottles could be made cheaper and in a greater variety of shapes. Marketing folks realized they could make more money by putting less product in a package while keeping its appearance the same. Perhaps they sold it for 30% less than before, whereas they were selling 50% less product. Thus, products such as stick deodorant appear in shallow packages in which the base is a skinny oval instead of a circle. But they're just as tall and wide as before. They trick consumers into thinking that they're getting the same amount as before when in fact they're getting a lot less.

This practice annoys me for a four reasons:

1. It's a waste of packaging material. The plastics that packages are made from come from oil. I want oil to be used for gasoline and home heating oil -- things I can actually use -- not something disposable that's designed to trick me.
   
2. I resent being tricked. I'm not tricked by this, but I resent the attempt, nonetheless.
3. It's a waste of product. Every time you get near the end of a stick of deodorant, you leave behind some inaccessible portion. This happens more frequently when the package has less inside it.
4. The energy used to make the excess plastic is wasted.
5. The damn things are unstable. Once you've used more than half of a stick deodorant, the container becomes perilously top-heavy. Merely opening the medicine cabinet door suddenly can generate enough suction to cause one of these partly-filled things to topple off the shelf and crash onto a pair of eyeglasses near the sink. Who needs that? Not me.

I'm generally opposed to government interference and excessive legislation. But if a government can tax the gasoline I buy so that I can drive to work and be productive, it should also tax the oil that's used for making plastic. They probably do tax it, but apparently it's not enough. The tax should be so painful that packaging companies will need to revert back to sensibly-shaped cans and bottles. I would even welcome a government specification on the dimensions of cans and bottles. Anything not meeting the specification would be illegal if sold in the USA.

Trip to the District of Columbia -- The Capitol

Last week we drove to Virginia to spend a week with a cousin. Two of our goals was to ride into DC to visit The US Capitol Building and The National Zoo.

Unfortunately, this didn't pan out. The high heat and humidity made even the thought of strolling among large smelly, furry, panting beasts unfathomable. I'm referring to the zoo, now, not the Capitol.

Yet, the heat deterred us at the Capitol, too. Or rather, it was the security guards that deterred us, the ones that insisted that we do not enter with the bottles of water we carried with us for survival. It's not clear that we could even bring in the empty backpack owing to the size limit of 12" by 14" on bags. And we couldn't simply leave our possessions outside the door since that was a security risk. Their suggestion was for one of us to stay outside with our belongings while the other entered and explored the building. I didn't mind staying behind, but my wife's usual confusion about directions was made worse from the combination of high heat and pain meds. And I had no interest in going in alone.

We tried to explain how it took us an hour and a half to get there by way of driving, subway and walking, and it would take the same amount of time to return home, and that the water was vital for us to prevent dehydration and to take prescription medication. The response was, "Please step away from the entrance."

The fact that security at the Capitol is even higher than at airports suggests that Congress is behaving in a manner that invites retribution. Maybe if our lawmakers felt less isolated from the water-bottle-wielding general public, they'd act more responsibly with our tax dollars.

I wouldn't be surprised if security later insist on having us remove all our clothes before entering the Capitol. After all, a tourist could easily throw a shoe at someone, or use a belt as a whip, or use a bra as a garrote. Of course, we wouldn't be allowed to leave our clothing on the premises -- we'd have to undress at the Park & Ride and ride the transit system naked.

Anyway, you can find the official list of prohibited items here.