headlines in brief

Security The country’s airports have been tipped off on at least one occasion about secret… Security The country’s airports have been tipped off on at least one occasion about secret security tests, the Washington Post reported last week.

In an e-mail, the Transportation Security Administration provided airport screeners with information about the test day and descriptions of undercover agents.

laura: Ah, T.S.A, making airline transportation more irritating and less secure for travelers everywhere. I can honestly say that this new report doesn’t surprise me. From many past reports and from personal experience, I believe that T.S.A officials – while they try to do their jobs – are stuck in a no-win situation. If they do a thorough job, travelers will complain about lines. If they process passengers too quickly, screeners will overlook dangerous objects. So why wouldn’t T.S.A give screeners descriptions of undercover agents? They need to create a semblance of efficiency, at least, even if efficiency doesn’t exist.

Given the flow of passengers through airports every day, I’m not even sure that giving descriptions would aid the airport screeners much. Poor descriptions could even lead to unnecessary harassment of a passenger the screeners assume is actually an undercover agent. That hardly gives me confidence in the system.

Years from now, we’ll tell our children about our experiences with airline travel and describe standing in line shoeless with pockets turned out to shuffle past a grumpy security guard – and our children will laugh. To be honest, airport security is something of an oxymoron. This report just adds more evidence.

bethany: I’ve only been through airport security twice – to and from Washington, D.C. That was three years ago, so I am no expert on airport security now. However, I do know this: In 2004, security for the Senate gallery was tighter than anything I ran into at the Pittsburgh or Reagan Airports.

With this experience in mind, I’m not very surprised that the T.S.A is sending cheat sheets to screeners. Just last month, USA Today reported that 75 percent of fake bombs smuggled through the checkpoints at the Los Angeles airport were undetected. This only proves a thought that I’ve held for a while. The “heightened” airport security since 9/11 is more of an increased semblance of security than actual increased security.

Technology can only go so far. Metal detectors catch knives and guns, but they also catch the wire in my bra. I can’t threaten anyone with my underwire, but I get pulled aside for a thorough screening just the same. No method of screening, not by people or machines, is foolproof. Airport security is doing what it can. I hope that alert travelers do the rest. Nation A police officer walked into a doughnut shop in Philadelphia, Pa., while it was being robbed and was shot in the head.

The officer was the third police officer in four days to be wounded by gunfire in the city, according to the Associated Press.

laura: I think the scariest thing about this occurrence is not so much the fact that three officers were shot in four days – though that is, of course, frightening and tragic – but the fact that the officer shot in a Philadelphia Dunkin’ Donuts shop, the only one of the three to die, wasn’t even responding to an emergency call at the time of the shooting. In fact, he was only stepping into the doughnut store to buy himself a coffee, as he usually did.

It seems that police officers are often given bad reputations as being lazy officials who don’t really do anything to protect their communities – allow me to refer you to Chief Wiggum on “The Simpsons” if you don’t believe me. And, while the irony of the stereotypical situation of a cop in a doughnut shop isn’t lost on me, I think this tragic case proves the point that police officers, though they are often portrayed as inefficient, really do risk their lives just by choosing their profession. Of course, cops who are like stereotypes must exist, or else the stereotypes wouldn’t exist. But cases like these should show us that law enforcement officials should garner greater respect than they’re often given.

bethany: Everyone has the same opinion about this story, right? Words like horrible, tragic and unsettling come to mind. Since we’re all thinking the same basic thing, I find it difficult to articulate a thought that is more than a string of synonyms for the adjectives I’ve already mentioned.

I’m in complete agreement with Laura about the risk that police officers take and that it warrants respect. But this story means more than greater regard for our men and women in uniform. It demands a greater regard for life in general. The robber in the Dunkin’ Donuts would have shot whoever walked through the door at that time. In this instance, that person happened to be a police officer, but it could have just as easily been a friend of mine from Philly. We take risks everyday – crossing the street, lighting a gas stove and walking through a door – as this story shows. Whether we dress for class or the patrol car, life does not guarantee safety, but that’s no reason to stop eating doughnuts. In fact, I’m going to get a chocolate-frosted right now. Entertainment Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong and actress Ashley Olsen were spotted together at a New York bar last week.

“Ashley drank red wine, sat on his lap and they were making out all night,” said the New York Post’s Page Six.

laura: I don’t know what surprises me less about this situation: A celebrity couple in which one member is old enough to be the parent of the other, or the fact that Lance Armstrong has moved on to date someone new. He already dated Sheryl Crow, so I guess to change the pace he’s moving in on someone approximately 15 years younger than he is. But hey, if Demi Moore could do it, so can Lance Armstrong.

I don’t know what Olsen sees in him, though, since basically the only thing most people think of when they hear “Lance Armstrong” are overpriced yellow rubber bracelets. Maybe Ashley Olsen is trying to break out of her stereotype once and for all – although I think we all understand by this point that she’s not the cute little girl from “Full House” anymore – or if she just constantly needs someone beside her after being joined at the hip to Mary Kate all those years, but I think this is a pretty preposterous situation. I’m curious to see how long it will actually last, but I’m not holding my breath.

bethany: My first thought when I read this story was “Puh-lease. Where did these two meet, or did their publicists make this match?” I’d like to know. I have no objection to a 21-year-old dating a 36-year-old, but seriously, where did this cancer survivor and child star hit it off?

More to the point, what do they have in common?

Celebrity, ha, I forgot. It’s the magic glue that holds the most unlikely couples together just long enough to produce a sex tape, a marriage or a child – all equally newsworthy and destructive.

I pray that none of these will come out of this pairing. I’ve liked Ashley and her sister – I’ll admit it – since my own sister and I watched their video series when we were kids. My thought of Lance goes: “A seventh trophy? Great. Retire. Give someone else a chance.” Wait, maybe he is retired. He’s just replaced cycling with dating then. Ashley better get her thrills now before she goes the way of Tory Burch and Sheryl Crow.

Do I sound cynical? Oh well, to the new couple, I wish them a happy couple of months because – who are we kidding – this’ll be over long before Valentine’s Day.