Mr. Topp and the Big Bad Blog

Travel can be hazardous. While we might like to poke a bit of fun at the questions that we are asked when crossing international boundaries, these are moments where something can go horribly wrong and your plans can fall apart in an instant.

On one end of the spectrum, you can find yourself thrown in prison and charged with a crime. For instance, doing something as innocent as packing a poppy seed bagel to eat on your trip might get you a four-year jail term in Dubai. At the other end of the spectrum is the simple denied entry. For these reasons, before travel you should always review the rules for the country (or countries) to which you are travelling, no matter how many times you have visited previously.

This was driven home to me this week, in a quite personal manner. My mother and step-father have been spending a lot of time in Switzerland lately — they had rented an apartment there, and we spent Christmas with them there. They had just taken a short trip back to Canada, and after their return to Switzerland I received this e-mail from my mother:

Well – we arrived safely in Zurich this morning, and I am now back in Bern, BUT – Tom is in JAIL~! Or rather, being held at the Zurich airport by the security police for at least one more day.

The cause of this is the Schengen Agreement. In previous trips to Switzerland, the country had not signed the agreement, which provides a set of shared entry rules for European states. But on signing it in late 2008, the rules for entering Switzerland changed. And my parents, who were acting on information from time spent living there a decade earlier, were left out in the cold. Or one of them was stuck at the airport while they figured out what to do.

Being the nearest (non-Schengen) port in a storm, Karen and I now have some surprise guests while the issues are sorted out. If you see a dip in blogging, you now know why — the room from which I blog has been transformed into a temporary bedroom.

Borders, it seems, can interfere with blogs too.

observations and opinions

Saturday’s collection of links included one to a Telegraph article which accused the CIA of drugging a French town in the 1950s. This report is, not surprisingly, completely incorrect. Bread as a transport mechanism for a drug? Unlikely. LSD would not cause the insanity mentioned. And the chemistry behind the accusation is just wrong.

(by Adrian Pavic)

Apple has lost a court case. They do not own the letter “i”.

Have a beard? Want to go to Brigham Young University? You are going to need to apply for a beard waiver.

morning coffee

Several weeks ago, a man was taking a picture of his son. He was approached by a security guard, who accused him of being a pedophile for taking photos of his own son.

Let’s leave aside the ridiculous nature of the whole thing — the paranoid fear that anybody with a camera (ie, everybody) is a pedophile, and the idea that preventing the taking of photos featuring fully clothed children playing accomplishes anything in the fight against child pornography.

The failure of the policy to correctly identify pedophiles is evident. Instead, I would like to look at what the policy tells security guards to do once a “pedophile” is identified.

The big question becomes: Why did the security guard allow the shopper to leave the area with his son? In what world does somebody make a serious accusation of pedophilia against somebody for taking a photograph of a boy, and then allow that person to leave with the same boy.

In other words, mall policy is to allow those identified as pedophiles to leave with children, so long as they do not take photographs on mall property.

The guard called the police and tracked the shopper’s whereabouts, so allowing him to leave with his son has nothing to do with being convinced of the man’s innocence following their conversation. If you have a measure in place to identify pedofiles (however flawed), how can your policy instruct guards to stop said pedophiles from taking photographs but allow them to leave with children?

The answer probably lies in the knowledge that their definition of what makes a pedophile is lacking. If they started to detain parents and separate them from their children (rather than just accuse them of pedophilia), they would have a serious public relations issue on their hands.

This is the crux of the matter. If you have a means in place to identify a group of people, but that means of identification does not allow you to treat those people as they should be treated, find a new way to identify them.

(Photo from nickchan.net)

observations and opinions

In news that is certain to not go away, the Internet has been nominated for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. As the award winner will not be announced until October 8th, that means that we have nearly seven months of late night hosts wondering if Al Gore will pick up the award should the Internet win.

(A sculpture made from butter by Jim Victor)

People wrestle. In tofu. And there is photographic evidence. For those of you at work, there are boobs visible in the photographic evidence: Be forewarned!

Where fresh water comes from.

morning coffee