Practical Travel Safety Issues - A book worth reading

There's a book that's been on my shelf for a few decades that FTers might find interesting.

'Wasp' by Eric frank Russell

The premise? A single individual can tie up an entire world just by performing a series of small annoyances. Just as a wasp can cause the crash of a car, killing all the occupants merely by annoying the driver.

I think the dastardly terrorists are using this as their playbook.

A single success and a handful of pathetic attempts, shoes & underwear... And the entire world is cowering in their socks and bending over for their safety.

Billions spent and more to be wasted. Civil liberties flushed down the toilet and still a few more to be lost.

In a macabre manner - this is all amusing - but I find it difficult to laugh when I'm forced to submit to kafkaesque insanity or give up how I make a living.

First of all welcome to FlyerTalk.

For anyone interested this is a Sci-Fi novel and fairly interesting reading. Agree with the OP that a monkey wrench is often more distracting than brute force as this book makes a point of.

There's a book that's been on my shelf for a few decades that FTers might find interesting.

'Wasp' by Eric frank Russell

The Man Who Never Missed by Steve Perry covers some of the same ground.

Asymmetrical warfare. Extremely asymmetrical.

The point is that a few people can disrupt an empire. Something OBL and gang knew and used.

For amusement, Eric Frank Russell's Great Explosion is wonderful social commentary and satire.

I enjoy all of Russell's work - he was always thumbing his nose at governments and their way of 'thinking'.

Over the years I made a point of collecting all his work - I might be missing 2-3 short stories at this point - but not much more than that.

Interesting... Nevil Shute's 1938 novel What Happened to the Corbetts received some outraged reactions but was a fairly accurate portrayal of the upcoming Blitz and it did drive change at the government level.

I recommend the BBC miniseries 'The Last Enemy' as it reveals what could be just around the corner for a society so afraid of terrorism that people are willing to give up things 'if it makes us safer'. I believe that this program also played on PBS in America and is available for online viewing.

'Night' by Elie Wiesel

This book is riveting (and graphic) in it's portrayal of someone who went through the Holocaust. The reason I post it here is because he describes a set of layered restrictions over time that the Nazi's pile on that eventually lead to people being placed into concentration camps and gas chambers.

I find it particularly fitting in current discussions of the TSA, as it's akin to the 'frog slowly boiling' analogy.