The ludicrous, humiliating experience of passing through the security checkpoint at American airports: a long, winding queue through a corral of roped-off pathways initiates a form of scrutiny that often verges on absurdist theater. One shows a passport and ticket: fine; one gives up carry-on luggage to the x-ray machines: fine; one endures the (once controversial) process of standing at attention in a glass vestibule while being body-scanned by what resembles a gargantuan MRI machine: that too, fine. All of this hassle, while already constituting a patent violation of personal privacy, would be at least partially excusable given the pressing need to weed out potential threats. But on top of this, to be subjected to the partial disrobing (shoes, belt, various outer layers) that is de rigueur nowadays, pushes things deep into the territory of ignominy. The fact that others must share in this public humiliation (which is also awkward, rushed, clumsy) hardly makes it any more acceptable – if anything, it is the fact that this grim, pathetic spectacle must be shared, that the powerlessness and indignity engendered by these fascistically-enforced circumstances is public, that makes the isolation feel utterly, devastatingly complete.