Sunday, June 11, 2006

 

Straight Outta Kafka

Ask A Question, Go To Jail:

Like most travel writers, I avoid identifying myself as such. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle of journalism is that people tell different stories when they know that that what they say or do may appear in print.

Normally, that's not a problem. If people don't like what I'm doing, they say so by words or gestures, and I stop. I smile apologetically. They smile (usually), and in any case I go on about my business and my journey.

I've been asked to leave places where I didn't see the "off limits" signs (if there were any), or they weren't in any language I could understand. And I've been asked to stop taking photos.

But never, anywhere in the world -- including a fairly wide variety of police states -- have I been threatened with arrrest while travelling, merely for asking questions about what was happening.

Until last month, at Dulles Airport outside Washington, DC, USA.

posted by Michael 11:51 AM