Romance of the Skies?
The Washington Post actually printed a column by Lisa Bonos entitled: “Pete Buttigieg is right. Airports are romantic.”
I’m amazed that those words were actually printed in a “reputable” newspaper.
I understand why Buttigieg said what he said: his relationship, his marriage is tied into his personal romanticization of airports, particularly the nightmare that is Chicago’s O’Hare Airport.
I don’t understand why Bonos followed up by writing this:
Let’s pause for a moment to consider that airports can, in fact, be romantic. Sure, travel is often obligatory and stressful. But when traveling for pleasure or to see loved ones — the kinds of journeys that are discouraged during the coronavirus pandemic — an airport is also a hub of possibility: the place we go to be transported somewhere where we’ll be reunited with people we cherish, explore a place we’ve never visited or make new memories in a favorite spot.
No serious person who has been on a plane in the last 25+ years has actually thought this. Maybe the only time that somebody has seriously connected “romance” and “airport” was during the opening and ending scenes of Love Actually.
Here’s my experience with airports…..really, most of the time:
Get to the airport two hours early, often at some horrifically early hour;
Stand in a long line trying to get through security. Sometimes even in the TSA PreCheck lane.
Waiting in a usually boring, often sterile room with uncomfortable seats for 90+ minutes, often trying to compete with others for an electric outlet.
Paying exorbitant costs for the most basic of things. One time I bought a 20 ounce bottle of Coke Zero at the aforementioned O’Hare Airport and it cost me more than four dollars.
Herd onto an airplane that is entirely uncomfortable. If you’re lucky, you get to fly Southwest and get a package of crackers.
Fly to another airport, often indistinguishable from another. Often, get off the plane, find a departure board, so you can walk at high speed through the airport four terminals away to try to catch a connecting flight to some other airport.
If you’re lucky, grab lunch from a restaurant of varying quality, where something as simple as a Subway footlong will cost you north of $10.
Herd onto another airplane that is also entirely uncomfortable.
Land at another indistinguishable airport. Find the baggage claim. Wait…..a long time potentially for a bag (maybe that’s just BWI).
Find the rental car counter. If you’re lucky, the rental car desk is in the terminal. If not, you have to catch a bus to an entirely separate building to wait some more.
Feel the romance. It’s no wonder that I drive instead of fly when I go on vacation…
But burying the idea of romance at the airport is not the point I’m making here. Even if it’s fun to pick on Pete Buttigieg.
For four years, we have been treated to piece after piece after piece that every person who worked for President Donald Trump is the antichrist. That anybody who served their country was evil.
Now, no doubt that Donald Trump picked a lot of losers to serve his administration. When you make political appointments based strictly on loyalty and not on character and skill, that happens. When a dope like Trump gets elected, this outcome was entirely predictable.
But now we’re already seeing stories like this one. We will be treated to piece after piece canonizing those in the Biden Administration. Four years of pieces from outlets like the Post they basically amount to “Aren’t They So Dreamy?” and “What a wonderful public servant.”
This is the political bias that people like I have been talking about year after year. The publication of this nonsense piece about Buttigieg, romanticizing the appointment of a failed Presidential Candidate with questionable qualifications for his new job, is a preview of the political puff pieces we’re going to be subjected to the next four years. And it’s maddening