Rough goings, collections, and gatherings.

 

You think you have a rough road to travel. You have Mt. Everest as a challenge; he braves this towering fan palm.(© image)

What does flying on an airplane have to do with “Biometric Exit”?

Face it: creepiness. (And hypocrisy?)

Cozying up with airlines and airports, Customs and Border Protection/Homeland Security started snapping passengers’ photographs at their airport gates during 2017, and then cross-referenced the images of them with a “gallery” of images photos from visa and passport applications. This also creates a passenger travel record.

Smile! Oh, it’s for your own good. They can catch people who overstay their visas or have altered/questionable travel documents…

Trump says speed that up! With 100% snappings in top airports by 2021.

Privacy experts are raising red flags as it seems we moving from simple identity verification to a “world where the act of flying is cause for a law enforcement search” if those images are run through FBI data bases, outstanding warrants lists, those owing back child support, and – Leaping lizards – maybe even if you forgot your Mom’s birthday, wife’s anniversary, or overdue library items.

• “This conversation between a Jet Blue passenger and the airline should absolutely terrify you”   Scan her Tweets. Instead of a boarding pass, it’s smile…Homeland is checking its’ “extensive holdings” before letting a passenger board. (Final analysis by the Electronic Frontier Foundation: “You should be concerned. It’s unprecedented for the government to collect and share this kind of data, with this level of detail, with this many agencies and private partners.”)
• “The Department of Homeland Security wants facial recognition technology for 97 percent of departing air passengers by 2023″

OK, if matching faces to pictures, knowing people are who they say they are, is important for planes and airports, why isn’t it important when people vote?

Interesting.

The faceless crowd passé.

Wood stock. As they say, acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree. This oak tree has more children clustered around her knotty ankles than that Old Woman Who Lived in the Shoe. (© image)

Speaking of passé, crowds, and Woodstock, the 50th Anniversary Woodstock Festival scheduled for Watkins Glen International Speedway hoping to profit, I mean, hoping to rekindle the soul of the original Woodstock, may be heading for cancellation as key musicians are walking away.

The Bethel Woods Center for the Arts will be hosting a Woodstock Anniversary “pan-generational music, culture, and community event” for three days in August with concerts, TED-style talks, and a museum showcasing history of the original. Performers may include Elton John, Springsteen, and Santana among others.

Hmmm, which sounds better for music: speedway or natural location? That “speedway” rumbles a little close to Altamont and drags up images of the drug culture that torpedoed the hope of peace and love.

Smile and face the music.

Phil, the Philosopher Mouse of the Hedge

Another intrepid climber. The palm trunk is crowded like an interstate highway in good weather. (© image.)