Homeland Security: Do we need stronger lox?
Homeland security has struck close to home. I don’t mean terrorists have struck in my backyard. I don’t mean that Dick Cheney is wiretapping my phone, listening in on my calls to (800) NY-BAGEL, although that is possible too. Rather, the orange threat level -- orange for salmon, perhaps -- has just crossed into my personal space and caused what politicians are probably referring to when they talk soberly of “making the ultimate sacrifice.”
They took my cream cheese.
Let me back up. I live in the Pacific Northwest. The Pacific Northwest is home to a bounty of ingredients, some edible and some experiential, that make me content and excited to be here. We have mountains. We have water, replete with slow, patient ferry boats and exuberantly elegant sail boats. We have wild mushrooms and peaches and raspberries the size of a planet -- or possibly a dwarf planet (sorry, Pluto). We have expressively creative festivals, some of the best urban parks in the country, and countless ways to impress the hell of our visitors.
We, alas, have no bagels.
It’s true. And in some ways, I don’t mind. Lacking something is just as much a part of being alive as having things. It is the balance of emptiness and fullness that makes life complete and in balance. Just as the bagel is balanced by its circle of doughiness surrounding emptiness in the middle, so are we, too... Okay, never mind. I’d really like better bagels.
So, enter my parents. My parents are visiting me from New York. And, like the caring Jewish New York parents they are, they have demonstrated their love for me with the only form of expression higher than cautioning me on the many ways I could imminently die or encouraging me to go to law school: they brought me bagels. In their carry-on luggage (“Of course! The rates of lost luggage these days are horrendous”), they schlepped me eight New York bagels, two containers of Zabars cream cheese, hand-sliced nova, a chunk of smoked whitefish, and some slices of sturgeon.
So, there they were at Kennedy Airport, ready to get through security when the dreaded question came: “Is this bag yours?” and off the suitcase was whisked to be frisked. I can just imagine my mother, hesitantly but determinedly explaining what the salmon was, and the whitefish, and the sturgeon. She has to comply with FAA regulations of course, but maternal instincts are powerful when a stranger is trying to get between one’s offspring and bagels intended for said offspring.
In the end, it was not the bagels they were after, nor the fish, but the two containers of cream cheese, one scallion and one plain. This cream cheese is like no other: whipped to perfection, with a balance of garlic and salt and scallions that I still can’t quite replicate. Needless to say, it is not the kind of thing one can get on the west coast.
Perhaps cream cheese is a terrorist threat. Could terrorists lure civilians into dangerous traps by leading them with whiffs of a freshly-baked bagel with cream cheese? Could cream cheese be schmeared surreptitiously over the signs in the airport that alert us to the color of today’s threat level? What if cream cheese, tucked into one’s purse, leaked onto one’s credit cards, rendering them inoperable and thus limiting our patriotic duty to spend recklessly? Worst, what if terrorists tried to use good cream cheese to -- I shudder to think -- trick us into eating really bad bagels?
My roommate remarked sadly that the airport inspectors probably took the cream cheese to eat, but I’d rather that than the alternative; the image of two perfect containers of Zabars cream cheese - or Zabars anything for that matter - lying at the bottom of a black-plastic lined garbage can, never having had the opportunity to please a palate, is simply heart-wrenching.
Enough of all this. How long can it go on? What is security worth if it means losing what makes us who we are? They’ve taken our civil liberties. They’ve taken our sense of privacy, and any scraps of respect for government we had left. They’ve taken our justice system. They’ve taken a great deal that we value. And now, friends, they’ve taken our cream cheese.
So, it’s time to take action. I went home tonight and, armed with a countertop mixer, a block of cream cheese, a container of sour cream, and a bit of salt, garlic powder, and thinly sliced scallions, I made my own. It didn’t taste the same, but it’s a first step. Maybe, a step at a time, we can reclaim what has been taken away.
We may have to start some of it over from scratch. We may have to cross communities to talk to one another and build coalitions. We may have to travel and connect from one end of the country to another, crossing the fifty states to strategize about how to retain the freedoms, liberties, and foods that make our country great. And if, on these travels, you come out here from New York, consider bringing some cream cheese to us folks out West. All in the name of civil liberties and free expression, of course. Just don’t forget to check your luggage.
They took my cream cheese.
Let me back up. I live in the Pacific Northwest. The Pacific Northwest is home to a bounty of ingredients, some edible and some experiential, that make me content and excited to be here. We have mountains. We have water, replete with slow, patient ferry boats and exuberantly elegant sail boats. We have wild mushrooms and peaches and raspberries the size of a planet -- or possibly a dwarf planet (sorry, Pluto). We have expressively creative festivals, some of the best urban parks in the country, and countless ways to impress the hell of our visitors.
We, alas, have no bagels.
It’s true. And in some ways, I don’t mind. Lacking something is just as much a part of being alive as having things. It is the balance of emptiness and fullness that makes life complete and in balance. Just as the bagel is balanced by its circle of doughiness surrounding emptiness in the middle, so are we, too... Okay, never mind. I’d really like better bagels.
So, enter my parents. My parents are visiting me from New York. And, like the caring Jewish New York parents they are, they have demonstrated their love for me with the only form of expression higher than cautioning me on the many ways I could imminently die or encouraging me to go to law school: they brought me bagels. In their carry-on luggage (“Of course! The rates of lost luggage these days are horrendous”), they schlepped me eight New York bagels, two containers of Zabars cream cheese, hand-sliced nova, a chunk of smoked whitefish, and some slices of sturgeon.
So, there they were at Kennedy Airport, ready to get through security when the dreaded question came: “Is this bag yours?” and off the suitcase was whisked to be frisked. I can just imagine my mother, hesitantly but determinedly explaining what the salmon was, and the whitefish, and the sturgeon. She has to comply with FAA regulations of course, but maternal instincts are powerful when a stranger is trying to get between one’s offspring and bagels intended for said offspring.
In the end, it was not the bagels they were after, nor the fish, but the two containers of cream cheese, one scallion and one plain. This cream cheese is like no other: whipped to perfection, with a balance of garlic and salt and scallions that I still can’t quite replicate. Needless to say, it is not the kind of thing one can get on the west coast.
Perhaps cream cheese is a terrorist threat. Could terrorists lure civilians into dangerous traps by leading them with whiffs of a freshly-baked bagel with cream cheese? Could cream cheese be schmeared surreptitiously over the signs in the airport that alert us to the color of today’s threat level? What if cream cheese, tucked into one’s purse, leaked onto one’s credit cards, rendering them inoperable and thus limiting our patriotic duty to spend recklessly? Worst, what if terrorists tried to use good cream cheese to -- I shudder to think -- trick us into eating really bad bagels?
My roommate remarked sadly that the airport inspectors probably took the cream cheese to eat, but I’d rather that than the alternative; the image of two perfect containers of Zabars cream cheese - or Zabars anything for that matter - lying at the bottom of a black-plastic lined garbage can, never having had the opportunity to please a palate, is simply heart-wrenching.
Enough of all this. How long can it go on? What is security worth if it means losing what makes us who we are? They’ve taken our civil liberties. They’ve taken our sense of privacy, and any scraps of respect for government we had left. They’ve taken our justice system. They’ve taken a great deal that we value. And now, friends, they’ve taken our cream cheese.
So, it’s time to take action. I went home tonight and, armed with a countertop mixer, a block of cream cheese, a container of sour cream, and a bit of salt, garlic powder, and thinly sliced scallions, I made my own. It didn’t taste the same, but it’s a first step. Maybe, a step at a time, we can reclaim what has been taken away.
We may have to start some of it over from scratch. We may have to cross communities to talk to one another and build coalitions. We may have to travel and connect from one end of the country to another, crossing the fifty states to strategize about how to retain the freedoms, liberties, and foods that make our country great. And if, on these travels, you come out here from New York, consider bringing some cream cheese to us folks out West. All in the name of civil liberties and free expression, of course. Just don’t forget to check your luggage.
posted by Debs at
8:46 AM
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