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I'm a business journalist and a fiction author. My novels "Mute" - "Silence the Living" and "Famous After Death" are available now from Silver Leaf Books.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Airport Security Check

What's up with the increased security checks at airports? Full body scans? Invasive pat downs? Next time I finish clearing security, I'm going to get tested for STDs.

I heard that the sexual offenders who lived under the causeway in Miami had all cleared out. They applied for positions in airport security. Is there a better dream job for a perv than at the TSA? Their background checks better be top notch.

It's not like criminals are ever busted working at Miami International Airport. Well, none besides the cargo handlers and the fuel distributors and the...hey, this is South Florida.

Don't the officers who "privately" look at the full body scans of passengers in the buff have camera phones? I know a lot of travelers are cringe inducing, but if the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders are lined up for the scanner, you can bet that the officers on the other end are excited.

If there's a merger between the Airport Security Employees Union and the Pornography Directors of America Union, there's reason to be worried.

Oh, it's all because some terrorist tried to smuggle a bomb inside his underwear. Right. He was probably taking one for the team on behalf of all peeping toms. What's next, the exploding bra? The thong sling shot?

The "Don't touch my junk" guy has a great point. Do passengers really need to feel like they've just worked the champagne room at a strip club? They're telling us to let them see beneath our clothes or they'll feel us up. Oh, and they've got guns and handcuffs if we don't like it. Does pimping count as a qualification on the resume?

So how can we avoid getting fondled? Try being ugly, but don't resort to a Mrs Doubtfire mask because that will make it worse once they rip it off. Maybe try not showering for a week before the flight. They'll keep their distance.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Famous After Death - update

The writing of my fifth book is moving along with gradual, yet deliberate progress. I've got Famous After Death all plotted out and I just finished the third chapter.

So what's my inspiration this time? Not a bottle of scotch, if you can believe it. I decided that I absolutely had to start writing after I read Leonard Pitts' column on web cam harassment last month. He said, "There is always some video going around whose calculated effect is nothing more or less than humiliation on a global scale. Technology, it seems, has unleashed an ugliness in us."

That in essence, is the story I had been crafting for months up to that point. Thanks, Leonard, for sparking me into action.

In Famous After Death, three outcast teens in South Florida set out to play pranks on people and post the videos online when something goes horribly wrong and a police officer is killed. Undeterred, they post the video and the response from the cruel souls in the web world is overwhelming. Sick of being ignored by their parents and classmates, the teens have found that they can capture global attention...they just have to keep creatively murdering people.

The blood lust displayed online by the killers' fans has the police officer assigned to catch them questioning his Christian faith. With so many people craving death and sexual depravity as they unmask the ugly sides of themselves online, do the masses truly deserve saving?