Dispatch from sardine class

Were it not for the vagaries that plague modern air travel—the periodic aerosols of respiratory viruses piped at facial level through the foul and thin cabin air and the annoying antics of clueless fellow passengers—the cramped seating of sardine class would otherwise provide a more or less tolerable experience for the contemplative sort. Time to read, to write and to enjoy, such as it is, a period when the only demands on one are those enforced by the occasionally officious and surly flight attendant.

I had been on the road for some time, back and forth across the country, “to confer, converse and otherwise hobnob” with brethren pathologists and chest physicians and to fly the Duke flag. On my scheduled departure day, my return to Durham was anything but certain. The morning had not started particularly well. Trying to clear security, I tripped an alarm and found to my chagrin I had neglected to remove seven cents from a trouser pocket. This earned me additional scrutiny, more time being irradiated in a scanner and finally a thorough and vigorous pat down by a TSA agent. And now my flight home is marooned in a holding pen for aircraft off the main tarmac at Dallas Fort Worth. All eastbound flights are suspended due to weather.

We have not been assigned a departure time, the pilot intones gloomily over the PA, and there are at least 30 planes in front of us awaiting takeoff. A low buzz and muttering commences among the sardines, and the flight attendants, sensing angst and unrest, attempt to soothe the restive passengers here in coach with orange juice and water. The high rollers in business class are presumably being treated better. We’re going to be here awhile. The book I was enjoying, so enthralling moments ago, has become unreadable, and my iPhone, a link to the outside world, clings to its last bit of battery power, so squandering electrons on Pandora or iPod seems ill-advised.

The period following the ides of March is often fraught with misery, especially if you’re trapped on a powered down aircraft in Dallas, with the only promise of some imminent relief to be found in the form of a few ounces of tepid bottled water and the vague hope that just maybe you’ll make it home sometime in the not-too-distant future. This year’s early springtime prompts one to take stock of mundane problems—like who the hell to root for when Kentucky plays Carolina in the NCAA tournament—and to notice too just how badly off course this country has strayed of late and how skewed our national priorities have become. As I contemplate my own financial situation, the upcoming financing of college educations for four kids and my own yearly rendering unto the IRS, I am reminded there are those who are still able to walk in the sun.

Conservative and liberal cease to be defining terms as all of us, regardless of ideology, are being parasitized by a cadre of corporate and banking maggots, aided by their lapdogs at the highest levels in Washington, D.C. The nation is too preoccupied with the latest celebrity pratfall, wondering how we’re going to hack it when gas reaches $6 a gallon and watching our 401(k) plans go down the toilet to ask why. Take the case of Mr. Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric. GE is the prototypical American company that outsources jobs and investments overseas, sits atop mountains of money and rakes in billions as they pay $0 in taxes. GE, the beneficiary of the government’s largesse, paid no federal taxes in 2010 despite billions of dollars in profit. And Mr. Immelt, no stranger to the White House himself, is now the chairman of President Barack Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. This is the new generation of swine that really run this country.

Things have only deteriorated in the Middle East since I left home. Can we possibly be involved in three separate foreign conflicts? Are we really aiding al Qaeda-backed rebels in Libya? Such an involvement can’t possibly be for humanitarian reasons, as we have been only too happy to countenance even more ghastly situations just south of there, with the slaughter of millions in both the Congo and Rwanda in recent history. The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama in 2009 seems more pathetic and laughable than its previous conference upon the dreadful Jimmy Carter. I really need to get home to Durham.

Dr. Thomas Sporn is an associate professor in the Department of Pathology. His column runs every other Friday.