No Pants? No Panic

I was reading the news this morning when I heard that this past Sunday was officially the unofficial day for No Pants Subway Rides. The concept (started by a group called Improv Everywhere whose charter is to "scenes of chaos and joy in public places.") is for participants to assemble at Subway stations or on trains and then calmly and quietly strip down to their undies an then act as if nothing unusual is going on. What started out as an event staged by seven people in one city (I believe it was New York) has become a phenomenon that has spread to many other cities around the world. Now what I find highly ironic is that while there were reports of people reacting with a bit of surprise at the actions of some of the folks who suddenly began stripping, there was no other negative reaction to the incidents.

I began to think about that. Here we are nearly three weeks after an incident on an airliner where a passenger was attempting to blow up a plane on Christmas Day by smuggling explosives in his underwear. When vigilant passengers realized what was going on, the would-be terrorist was set upon and his attempted attack was thwarted. That was simply the case of one man attempting a dasterdly deed but what about if dozens of people had attempted to do the same thing? Now I'm not saying that something meant to be a humorous and unexpected incident is a bad thing but you have to wonder why there weren't reports of people removing their pants being tackled and injured either by Police or other passengers? Perhaps I wouldn't have been the one to do the actual tackling on either the airline or on the subway (I have never been in that situation so I can't really say) but I wonder what made this situation anymore 'normal' than the other.

I mean think about it; sure in one case (the actual terrorist) was caught because his pants started flaming when he tried to detonate the explosive in his briefs but who's to say that up until that point no one was reacting simply because they thought it was another one of these types of incidents where rather than "No Pants Subway" it was "No Pants Airlines". Thankfully the terrorist attempt was thwarted before an actual explosion occurred but do you see what I'm trying to get at? Here we have a whole bunch of people taking their pants off for no other reason than to take part in a worldwide prank but what are the consequences? I'm not one of those who thinks that these people should be arrested or that there needs to be laws against removing your pants in public. I just think a little common sense should be exercised. Why potentially cause a panic if there's no reason to do so.

And while we're on the topic of panic, I have yet to read about people complaining that there was anything indecent or wrong in people participating in this 'event'. I am even more surprised given the current uproar over passengers being screened at airports using the full-body x-ray scanners. People are contending that they will inadvertently reveal more than the public needs to see even for the sake of security. If that's the case then what about people who are willingly stripping off some of their clothes in public? What about their decency or privacy? I suppose one could argue that people who took part in "No Pants" events are actually helping security rather than hindering it. After all, if you're only wearing your undies I suppose you can't really carry a weapon. Then again....