Brilliant and Tragic

Susan was on the phone to the phone company the other day. She couldn't verify her identity as the account holder, because the phone service in question was actually bought by me, as a gift. Because of this, the CSR declined to give her any information, not even publically available stuff like their customer service phone number. When gently quizzed about the rationale behind that, the CSR responded with a newspeak-laden pitch about the heightened-security society in which we live. It was like that moment in Fight Club, when Norton suddenly realises "Ah! I geddit! You're a moron."

Unfortunately, our society consists of CSRs like this. They are the people we depend on. They cook our meals, they haul our trash, they connect our calls, they drive our ambulances. They guard us while we sleep.

And they are being brainwashed by the current climate of terrorist hysteria, Kafka-esque security checks, idiotic travel restrictions, the TSA's Constitution-free zone, into believing that a security state (and an ineffectual one, at that) is a good and desirable thing. It just makes me want to break down and weep and go and live on an island somewhere.

And then - my ray of hope - every so often you find things like this...