I haven't a lot of time to breathe this week let alone really think. It was a week of going from one thing to the next--one due date to the next, one class to the next, one event to the next, one meal to the next (and even the word <em>meal</em> might be generous at times).

So only today, did I realize that I'm going to be celebrating Thanksgiving for more than a week. In my mind that's pretty great.

I like cooking. I like eating. I like spending time with friends. I like traveling.

I am especially glad I am not traveling in the states this Thanksgiving. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see my family (but that's what skype's for) but I hate traveling over holiday weekends in the States. And Thanksgiving is notoriously bad.

On top of this, TSA has just issued new security measures at many major airports--full body scan or fully body pat down. It's been getting lots of attention in the two weeks before the busiest travel day of the year. <!--more-->

The issue is pretty well laid out on this Colbert Report clip--both the comedy and absurdity of the whole thing.

<a href="http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/365686/november-15-2010/tsa-full-body-scanners---jeffrey-goldberg?xrs=share_copy">TSA and Full Body Scanners </a>

Atlantic magazine correspondent Jeffery Goldberg makes two really great points. First that he's "against useless security that needlessly humiliates American citizens" and two, that "if you are fighting terrorism at the gates it's too late." Right on.

Jeffery Goldberg has seemingly hit the head on the nail with this piece: <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/10/for-the-first-time-the-tsa-meets-resistance/65390/" target="_blank">For the first time, TSA meets the Resistance</a>. Please make sure that you read the postscripts they may, just may, be the best part of the piece. I was laughing out loud.

Anyhow, there's been discussion about a national opt out protest staged by flyers at airports all over the US were the full body scanners are in use otherwise known as the back-scatter body imaging device.  In my mind it's not a bad time to protest but what a nightmare for both travelers and TSA gate agents who are clearly lowest on the totem pole and poorly paid.

It makes me wonder what I'd choose. And of course, I'll more than likely be confronted with this choice when I fly home for Christmas. Will I opt out of the "<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/11/tsa-opt-out-day-now-with-a-superfantastic-new-twist/66545/" target="_blank">privacy-invading, genital-picture-taking, radiation-delivering back-scatter imaging machines</a>"?

On principle it seems like the right thing to do--especially in combination with the novels that I teach in 10th and 11th grade which 1984, the Crucible, and The Handmaid's Tale.  The body as a sight of control, fear and power--it's nothing new, it's just a new take on the same old tactics.

So, while I am celebrating Thanksgiving here in Bulgaria and then again later in Spain, I'll be thinking about what's going on in American. This Thanksgiving it seems we are celebrating family and friends, the fall harvest, the freedoms afforded to us as Americans but that we've also got to stand up for these freedoms by opting out of the scans.

I'll be interested to see what happens this next week the new TSA policies as we close in on Thanksgiving.