These are weighty times. Some levity is in order. Meet Mikey Hicks.Hicks, a fair-haired 8-year-old New Jersey Cub Scout and junior black belt, who shares the name of a suspicious person on the Transportation Security Administration's No-Fly list, rarely boards a plane without hassle. His trials and tribulations, frisks and pat-downs, are featured on the front-page of today's New York Times.His mother, sympathetic up to a point, who understands the need for security, offered this jewel: "It's quite clear that he is 8 years old, and while he may have terroristic tendencies at home, he does not have those on a plane."For every person on T.S.A. no-fly lists, hundreds of others are stalled simply because they share a common surname. According to the Times, over the past few years, 81,793 travelers have asked to be struck from the Department of Homeland Security's watch list.Imagine what it's like to board a plane from one of these 14, mostly Muslim, countries.Photo via
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