It's as true as anything else that political life is an ongoing process of (re)negotiating "normal." Policies and practices succeed and become part of society most often when they seem safely in the realm of already acceptable political opinion - what is tolerated depends on what is successfully sold as tolerable. Twenty years ago, equal marriage nationwide was unthinkable - today, it is quickly becoming business as usual. Meanwhile, US airports in the age of homeland security have assumed a new character, with carefully drilled experiments in choreographed security theater, as nonsensical as they are absolute. "Negotiations" of what is "tolerable" can take many forms.