Airport Security

When asked in class on the first day to pick a broad topic that we would be able to write about for an entire semester I panicked a little bit. I had no light bulb go off, no AH HA moment. I was a complete blank. Then it came to me. Write what you know. Since I have traveled fairly often in my short twenty years, inside and out of the country, I figured that writing about travel for a whole semester wouldn't be too bad. Then I started to brainstorm idea's of all the different ways that I go with, "travel." The first idea that came into my head was 'safety.' Anyone who had ever traveled on an airplane knows the hassles of what you can and cannot carry through security at the airport, waiting in lines to go through security, and worse all the crazy liquid restrictions on bags being checked. I don't know about you, but because someone can't carry a 2 liter of Coke in their carry on doesn't make me feel any safer. Nothing about airport security makes me feel safer. Also, a big issue in this past holiday season was people getting full body scans. It is always interesting to see the profiling that goes into who is taken aside to be fully scanned and who is not. It is even coming into question now whether or not these scanners are producing harmful effects like radiation. CBS Boston answers some of those questions, and I will attach that article. http://boston.cbslocal.com/2010/12/15/airport-security-scanners-are-they-safe/. They said that there is some radiation used, although it is minimal. I just think it is crazy that even the smallest amount is allowed to be used. I keep thinking of when I go to the dentist and they x-ray your mouth for cavities. When they x-ray they always put that big lead vest over you to protect you. I mean I know that the point is to be able to see all parts of the body so nothing could be hidden, but I just think it is the weirdest thing that people aren't sewing anyone that they can (because people are a little sew happy these days if you ask me, but that's for another time).
Some other idea's that I came up with under travel were going into specific destinations people like to travel to and the main reasons of why people go there. I also had the idea to look at specific destinations and see how well United States citizens are accepted there. I had the good fortune to go to Hawaii over this past Christmas break. I noticed how all of the local people acted differently toward us as tourists. Although it is a part of the United States, but going there you felt like a minority among the natives. There were absolutely places in Hawaii that tourists should not go to because the locals do not accept them being there. For instance, I was visiting Oahu and the west side of the mountain is where tourists are not welcome.These places are normally residential places. There are obviously places where you can walk around as care free as you would walking through your own neighborhood, but those places are definitely more congested and thought of as tourist traps. I also thought that I could go into going to visit places other than the usual tourist traps, but I am a little concerned, due to safety issues, of telling people to go off the beaten path.