Fear of Flying

As anyone who has had the task of sitting next to me on a flight knows, I have an unshakable, verging-on-methodical, fear of flying. My train of thought before and during a flight is a checklist of somewhat plausible to infinitesimally unlikely theories of how all 270 of us on board the death rocket will perish together in our identical rows of chafe-inducing, pretzel-crumb flecked, polyester seats with broken arm rests. I've considered wearing a parachute, but when I thought about the concern that might cause my fellow travelers, I studied wikiHow's instructions on how to survive a fall from 25,000 ft (note: it's the impact with the ground that's really the problem, not the fall). After reading about studies proving that sitting in the back of the plane increases your chances of surviving a plane crash, I've always booked my seat in one of the last few rows (which conveniently puts you closer to an emergency exit). As if mechanical, human, and weather-induced errors weren't bad enough, the (perceived) increase in terror threats has upped the number of potential plot lines and disaster clips reeling through my head. This is why I was particularly interested in reading a couple articles recently related to terrorism in the air.

In an article in the NYT, Liesl Schillinger raises a good point in saying the heightened focus on terrorism on flights has robbed people of their sense of freedom, and discouraged them from traveling to distant places and enriching their lives with the experiences that come with travel. Her solution is to simply stop "minding" the perceived terror threats that we believe to be lurking around us constantly. Other obvious effects the hassles and long-waits that come with "improved" airport security. An article on the Israelification of airport security takes an alternative look at the ways we could improve airport security and make our system more efficient by borrowing techniques from a country that has been dealing with similar issues for the last few decades. Looking for behavior that might be out of the ordinary - rather than liquids in bottles or devices stuffed into shoes - and training airport security officers to talk to passangers are methods that the Israelis have employed successfully to combat terror. I see the value in these techniques, butI wonder if preventing a passenger from boarding a plane due to "odd behavior" would fly - so to speak - in the U.S. How will "behavioral profiling" fit into a context where "racial profiling" has been such a sensitive issue?