The TSA -- the very face of obnoxious, ineffective, ham-handed government to anyone with the misfortune of commercial air travel "in the wake of September 11" -- has launched a blog. This'll be interesting. Smarter folk than I find this promising, but it's hard to see where this is going, especially since the bloggers profess surprise at the torrential commentary. What are the distinguishing characteristics of this institution that makes it a good fit for this communications medium?

	Blog	TSA
Structure	Networked, sharing	Top-down, secretive
User's Alternatives	Goof off elsewhere	Hitchhike
Characteristic discourse	Questioning, conversational	Pettily dictatorial
Liquids allowed?	Downright encouraged	War on States of Matter continuing unabated
Punitive Measures Available	Troll-rating	Extraordinary rendition

There's obviously a (largely pissed-off) flying public plenty ready to have "a conversation," but for that conversation to have any legs -- for the blog to have a life other than posting press releases -- there has to be give and take, and some whiff of potential for travelers to extract something other than a rationalization or the because-I-said-so that every airport checkpoint goon can offer with a cock of the eyebrow to suggest there's a rubber glove and a missed connection where that came from. Let's just nip that digression in the bud and say that anyone who's ever passed through the TSA's tender mercies will have their own anecdotal reasons to doubt the potential of this particular agency to evolve any kind of transparent, genuine, mutually-rewarding relationship with its "community". The whole concept seems antithetical to what the TSA is and does. I admit this is cherry-picking the least-promising so far, but of several threads, the one on the pointless liquids ban is drawing the most heat and some utterly tin-eared official responses ... enough that one suspects the "TSA Blogger" in the thread might actually be a troll. Hey, prove me wrong, folks. I'd be delighted. At the very least, though, the flamethrowing ought to give a little comfort to anyone who's ever seen their blog blow up in their face like a 4-ounce container of toothpaste probably might so we'd better take it just in case. There can never be even fractionally as much ill-will towards you, your organization, or your blog as there is towards the TSA. I'll be waiting on a Heathrow blog, personally. It'd be great to "have a dialogue" about why those gits take everyone in transit and still within the security cordon and frisk them again. They must have a brisk black market in captured duty-free liquor.