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September 14, 2006
I'd like a little common sense with my security, please
Just when you think you've heard the most bizarre airport security stories... (WCCO.com)
(AP) NEW YORK British author J.K. Rowling says she won an argument with airport security officials in New York to carry the manuscript of the final "Harry Potter" book as carryon baggage.
Had security agents not relented, she said on her Web site, she might not have flown, she said in a posting dated Wednesday.
"I don't know what I would have done if they hadn't — sailed home probably," she wrote.
The author had participated in a book reading for charity on Aug. 1 with fellow writers Stephen King and John Irving. Security was drastically tightened after Aug. 10 when British police said they had intercepted a plot to blow up U.S.-bound airliners.
"The heightened security restrictions on the airlines made the journey back from New York interesting, as I refused to be parted from the manuscript of book seven.
"A large part of it is handwritten and there was no copy of anything I had done while in the U.S."
Eventually, she added, "They let me take it on, thankfully, bound up in elastic bands."
Would someone please explain to me how wrapping elastic bands around a book manuscript makes it less of a security threat? Couldn't she use the rubber bands as a weapon and take someone's eye out? Were they afraid that she might toss the loose papers in the air to create a distraction? What, I ask you, could possibly be the threat from a bundle of papers?
Unbelievable.
Posted by William Polley at September 14, 2006 12:04 PM
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Comments
Paper cuts. Absolutely deadly....
Posted by: Ironman at September 14, 2006 11:07 PM
I saw an expose on improvised weapons in prison. The inmates rolled paper into a tight conical cylinder to produce a pointed weapon suitable for chopping and hacking.
This particular author may be a practictioner of the "dark magic" and definately bears watching. The accent is probably fake.
Posted by: zinc at September 16, 2006 6:49 AM