There's also the incredible variety of ethnicity so that it is not only 'wrong' to try to act upon stereotype, it is also stupid. In my experience Americans also make these distinctions poorly and clumsily. Therefore, with all sympathy for Joe Offer and his daughter, and the umpteen million times, I, bearded Jewish male that I am, have been taken out and de-booted and scanned ('randomly'), I think overall TIA could be doing worse.

Not long after 9/11 my father and I were taking the off ramp to Logan airport via the long underwater tunnels that lead to the airport, we passed an old van full of bearded turbaned men who were all shouting incomprehensibly at each other and the world. Arabs? Pashtun? Hindi? Sikh? Costume Party?

That tunnel would make a heckuva target, but I did the Jewish equivalent of crossing myself and kept on truckin'.