CARRY ON.(airplanes)(Brief Article)

There are things you can carry onto an airplane, and things you cannot. Since September 11th, various objects, and not just knives and guns, have been banned from the cabins of commercial flights: hockey sticks, corkscrews, cricket bats, toy transformer robots, and so on. For a while, knitting needles were on that list, but the Transportation Security Administration decided that they could not be considered weapons. In some airports, however, security personnel do have some discretion and must decide occasionally whether an item on your person or in your carry-on bag--say, an Emmy Award--poses a risk to captain and crew.

The Emmy statuette is a formidable instrument. Like the Oscar or the Golden Globe, it is quite heavy (four and three-quarter pounds) and would be effective as a bludgeon. What distinguishes it from other potentially weaponizable awards is the pair of wings that jut straight up from its shoulder blades. The wings, which measure six inches, are sharp-tipped and shaped like unserrated steak knives. The tips are about an inch and a half apart. By gripping the Emmy at its legs, a man could--and we're talking hypothetically here--do some serious stabbing, or threaten to do some serious stabbing. You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who, in a gladiator-type situation, would not choose the Emmy over a corkscrew or a toy transformer robot.

Here's another thing about Emmys: not everyone who wins them lives in Los Angeles. A few Emmy-winners even live in New York. Since the ceremony is held in Los Angeles (this year's was the weekend before last), the elements would seem to be in place for a showdown, orat least a bother, at the terminal gate. But airport security screeners are learning that discretion requires context. "What they're concerned about are weapons and things that could be used as weapons," Brian Jenkins, an adviser to the RAND Corporation, who served on the Clinton White House's Commission on Aviation Safety and Security, said last week. "If someone can't come on the plane with tweezers, can he come on with something with two sharp six-inch points? You have to find some other basis for what is an entirely reasonable exception. That could be 'This is a statue, an object of art, which is given out in a public ceremony and carried by a celebrity.' "

Among the winners flying with their trophies back to New York was Robert Smigel, one of the twenty-three writers at "Saturday Night Live" ...