Intangible assets

I'm mulling over an assignment in my accounting course concerning intangible assets. As is often the case, any excuse for my mind to wander away from strictly accounting principles is good enough for me.

I was arriving at National Airport in D.C. for a flight the other evening and looking out the cab window, I got a really good look at the old-style original terminal building which still stands there. It's a monument to a time when air travel was special.

It's hard to imagine now that folks used to dress up for airplane flights. They were an event and an adventure. A lot has changed since those days.

I recall going with Mom in the family car to drop Dad off for a flight from Seattle to somewhere unimaginably exotic, like San Francisco. He wore a suit, as did most of the male passengers and everyone was polite and somehow expectant as we waited in the terminal for his flight to be called.

When the flight started boarding, he went out through the double doors with the rest of the passengers and walked over to the stairs leading up to what then seemed  a behemoth of the air. He turned and waved at the top of the stairs and we waited and watched as the plane started its engines and taxied off to the runway.

Air travel is somewhat different these days. No more friendly waves or smiling attendants.

Passing through security for my latest flight home, one of the TSA functionaries grabbed my crotch in search of what turned out to be an errant paper clip.

I've seen children and old ladies patted down and we all go through the turnstiles like a bunch of sheep. The folks who provide us with screening "for our safety" come from all stripes but of course, they all share the conviction that violating their fellow citizens' privacy day in and day out is an honorable profession.

The monsters who flew airplanes into buildings did more than kill people and knock down the Twin Towers. They started us down a path toward a different kind of America. One that is no longer based on trust or mutual respect. Or even civility.

We've taken the third grade bullies and constitutional incompetents (pun intended) and pinned badges on them. We encourage them to interfere in our lives in ways that would have drawn howls of protest even thirty years ago.

In old mystery and spy movies, the hooded glance from passport to face accompanied with "What is the purpose of your visit?" signaled that the protagonist was entering a foreign land where civil liberties were rejected and the right to privacy left at the door. Internal passports and sidewalk interrogations were things that happened in fascist or socialist states. Never here. Not in America.

I was asked the purpose of my trip last week by a badged young man whose future - absent 9/11 - would most likely have involved taking tickets at the local theatre. And this pipsqueak had the power to keep me from my work, to detain me and cause me to be searched for no other reason than my demurral in response to what I consider an impertinent question.

Of course, I didn't demur. Franklin was right about me, anyway.

We've lost something that I don't believe we'll ever get back. It was an intangible asset that we could ill afford to give up.