MANUEL BUENCAMINO | Jonah and the falcon

By: MANUEL BUENCAMINO
August 5, 2012 7:30 PM

InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5

The US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is the bane of travelers going through America’s airports. Its agents are pesky characters who frisk all suspicious-looking passengers. And when frisking does not do it for them, they ask “suspects” to walk through a full-body scanner, a machine that performs a virtual strip-search.

That’s what happened to 41-year-old Jonah Falcon at the San Francisco International Airport after TSA agents noticed a suspicious bulge in the upper left front of his trousers.

“They wanted to know if I had something in my pockets, and when I said no, they asked if I had some sort of growth," Mr. Falcon told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Falcon explained to the TSA agents that the suspicious bulge was his 9.5-inch penis. Flaccid, not tumescent, mind you. But they did not believe him so they frisked his crotch, ever so lightly. Speaking from experience, I’m sure that if they had frisked him in a more frisky manner, the “thing” would have reacted in such a way as to confirm without any doubt that he was telling the truth. But they did not do that. Maybe they were afraid the suspicious bulge would explode. So they played it safe and made him walk through the full-body scanner. Seeing is believing, I guess.

Falcon laughed off the experience.

"I've gone through it before, and I wasn't worried. What was the worst that was going to happen? I was going to have to whip it out for them? I'm used to that. Sometimes when people ask me about it, if I'm feeling up to it, I'll just show them."

To make a long story short, no pun intended, Jonah and his falcon--because calling it a bird would not do it justice, and calling it an eagle would be pandering--were allowed to board the plane and fly back to New York City where they live with his mother. End of story.

What does that rather curious incident have to do with the global economic meltdown? Nothing, except that I’m reminded of those people who are obsessed with proving that Daan Matuwid is not what PNoy says it is. They probe every nook and cranny in his body looking for libag that will show he is just as dirty as the woman they slept with for nine years. So far they have found nothing. But so as not to be deterred from their noble crusade, they created imaginary libag and called it “KKK.” Because if everybody is dirty, you know how that reasoning goes, then walang may karapatan mag-malinis. It’s really pathetic.

However, in fairness to those who believe that living clean is the work of Satan, nah, forget it, I won’t fight their battles for them. Besides, I rather enjoy watching the president whipping out Daan Matuwid and hitting them over the head with it. It’s like watching Jonah and his falcon versus the TSA.

Buencamino is a fellow of Action for Economic Reforms (www.aer.ph).