On Second Thought for April 29, 2013

Politicians in Washington thought they could scare us with long lines at the airport. Ha! That’s like scaring Britons with fog.
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Inconvenience at an airport? This is news? That’s kind of like fruitcake at Christmas — inevitable, distasteful, hardly a surprise, but something you have to endure to get to grandma’s house.
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Besides, Americans don’t worry about canceled flights because they relish food vouchers for greasy restaurants and a night at a bad hotel without luggage.
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It was interesting to see how quickly Congress acted when airline passengers started complaining. If we could somehow tie rising air fares to the growth of the national debt, our problems soon would be solved.
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Federal officials, meanwhile, are trying to explain why they arrested an apparently innocent Mississippi man for sending ricin-laced envelopes to the president and members of Congress. At least his name wasn’t Richard Jewell.
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Notre Dame football star Manti Te’o wasn’t picked the first round of the NFL draft last week. Maybe coaches worried he would chase imaginary ball carriers.
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Given the questionable, and sometimes illegal, exploits of some athletes off the field, being true to a fictional girlfriend shouldn’t be a concern.
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Former president George W. Bush learned this week that his poll numbers are up. If the key to popularity is to not say much for four years, I don’t think a lot of politicians have it in them.
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Meanwhile, the approval rating for Congress fell to 13.5 percent. Apparently, not saying anything is not the same as not doing anything.
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Imagine bringing Alexander Hamilton back from the dead and trying to explain to him how a false tweet nearly started a panic on Wall Street last week.
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The market went into a brief selling frenzy when someone hacked into the Associated Press’ Twitter account and tweeted that the White House had been attacked and the president hurt. This happened because computers were selling in a sort of autopilot mode. Apparently, computers are not levelheaded in a crisis — something to remember in case your toilet overflows in sight of your laptop.
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Wall Street investors are really computers? So it’s true what they say about those financiers being heartless.
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In other aviation news, Boeing is set to begin delivery of its 787 soon. But unless Congress solves sequestration, they won’t actually get clearance to take off until some time in 2015.
Jay Evensen is the associate editor of the Deseret News editorial page. Follow him on Twitter @jayevensen.