When Real Life Sounds Like Satire

I just stumbled upon this JPost article:

"Personal mehitzas" marketed for haredim
by Adir Glick

Hareidi airline passengers are being advised to hang a new type of mehitza - a halachic barrier to separate the sexes - around the top of their airplane seats, to shield their eyes from immodest neighbors and in-flight movies.

The Rabbinical Council for Public Transportation, which is also representing the haredi community on the issue of gender-segregated "mehadrin" buses, is now placing advertisements in haredi newspapers encouraging the community to purchase the traveler mehitzas (more here).

Of course, this is only a product being marketed right now... no indication that it will ever catch on or that it will become standard. But still? A traveling mechitza? I mean, how is it that Judaism has come to this. There really must be better directions for innovative and creative people to focus their energy.

What got me most about this article, though, was the part of it that is already an institution. There's actually a Rabbinical Council for Public Transportation? That really exists? That, for sure, sounds like something you'd see in the Onion as a complete joke. But no, it's real! And more than a little disturbing if you ask me...