So American Airlines next month is going to start charging $15 to check your bag! Other airlines are considering it. See Checked Bag Fees: Money for Nothing.

Have the airlines considered the unintended consequences? Customers who will now choose airlines that provide normal reasonable service? More unchecked luggage clogging up the security lines, crammed into scarce cabin space, and slowing down boarding? Even more rage at LOST luggage?

I understand that fuel prices and cutthroat competition are squeezing airlines, so that the only way they can make ends meet is by cutting out the free peanuts and the like. But airlines have always had trouble making a profit. Isn’t there a business model that would allow airlines to stay in business while providing good service?

Higher prices would surely be a part of that, but the pricing system seems out of joint also, with some passengers paying many times what others pay for the same flight. Is there a solution to this?

As we psych ourselves up for the release of the new Indiana Jones movie this weekend, read this discussion of the character and of why the first movie, “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” was so good. Note the good lines about how the evil archeologist dared to looked into the abyss of the Ark of the Covenant and “the abyss looked back,” the folly of looking into the face of God, how Indy somehow knew that sometimes one must look away.

This reminds me of the great theological message of that fun popcorn fantasy, which, for all of its lightness and entertainment value, conveyed back to our jaded and secularized imagination in an unforgettably tangible way that God is holy, as poor Uzzah learned when he so much as touched the Ark while only trying to help. We have so abstracted and sentimentalized and domesticated God that we sometimes forget why we need a Mediator to come into His presence.

I Tivoed “American Idol,” as is my wont, watching it about an hour late. I sat through the most tedious, hype-filled TWO hours, consisting of shameless plugs and product placements, embarrassing song and dance numbers, and a host of pop stars who could never have won “American Idol.” Finally, the moment came. . .Ryan Seacrest announced that the winner was “David ___” THEN MY TIVO CUT OUT! RIGHT AT THE VERY VERGE, WITH ONLY THE LAST NAME TO BE UTTERED!

I thought that I may have heard the beginning articulation of an unvoiced velar stop just before the “save or delete” message came on, and, sure enough, the web revealed that the winner was David Cook.

America got it right after all! He has the stage presence, the artistry, the originality, the voice to deserve it. Voters didn’t just vote for the cutest, as I assumed they would; rather, they went for substance.

This encourages me to think that the American people may also vote in larger numbers for the best presidential candidate. Maybe what we should do is let people vote as many times as they want to.