To many, the color Orange symbolizes Fall, with the brilliance of leaves turning, or the harvest, enjoying the fruits reaped from hours of hard, but rewarding, labor.
To me, thanks to the fright mongers over at the Bush Administration, Orange means fear and paranoia.
Tom Ridge. What happened to you, man? I used to like you, dude. We could’ve hung out. You were my governor for Pete’s sake. You seemed like a moderate (read “non-scary”) Republican. But then you went and got all mixed up in the “Homeland Security” racket, and now whenever you mention a part of the rainbow or a Crayola crayon, things that should bring happiness and joy, people shudder with terror and flee to Canada.
I’m currently working near…very, VERY near…to one of the recently named specific terror targets. Let’s just say my building may have been on the cover of the New York Times, complete with an assault rifle bearing police officer standing in front of it. Awesome. I have two more weeks at this job, and they’ve been filled with policemen prepared for war and more canines than the Westminster Dog Show.
Sure, those things might be helpful when it comes to intimidation. That’s fine. I’ll accept them. What’s ridiculous are the increased security measures my building has taken in addition to adding cops, guns and bomb-sniffing dogs. Our own dear security personnel now check our IDs outside, before letting us inside the building.
Now, mind you, Secretary Ridge’s terror alert suggested that car or truck bombs might be the means by which terrorists next attack. So, we respond by having employees of the buildings that are most at risk line up outside, by the street, where presumably a car or truck bomb would be coming from. Employees line up outside, right next to the street, when the threat is from car or truck bombs. Seriously, let’s repeat that one more time. We’re lining up OUTSIDE THE BUILDING, RIGHT NEXT TO WHERE CARS AND TRUCKS ARE CONSTANTLY DRIVING!!! Who is running this sinking ship?!?! I mean, honestly.
Speaking of honesty, much of the “intelligence” upon which this recent terror warning was based is years old. Sure, there are updates from not too long ago, but I can guarantee you, these guys are conducting surveillance all over the place, not just at the five targets Tommy Toon named. During his press conference announcing the latest scare, Czar Thomas the Terrible said everything but “The terrorists are attacking at 11am Monday morning.” Even had he said that, he would’ve reminded us to go about our daily business as if nothing was wrong. Um, really? When I’m deciding whether rolling down the evacuation stairs or sliding down the bannister would be faster than walking so as to make it out before my building collapses or the building next to mine knocks mine over as it collapses, something is definitely wrong.
Going about our daily lives is not what it used to be. We all need to acknowledge that. Someone said to me Monday, as I went through my office-provided emergency kit to see if there really were three days’ worth of rations in there, that we need to adopt the Israeli mentality when it comes to terror. I guess this means that Israel is cool with truck and car bombs, and the people there have learned not to worry about terror threats. OK. I’m not there yet. But if we’re going to adopt their mentality, we also need to adopt their security measures and their police training techniques. Those guys are machines. Our police are, as the French say, fat from eating too many doughnuts. Don’t get me wrong. Some of our officers are badass, and I appreciate what every one of them does, as I certainly couldn’t do it. But, if I’m supposed to not be worried about terrorist attacks, then I need to have confidence in every last one of those guys. And, I think if we’re honest with ourselves, we all will admit that some of the police we have deployed to highly sensitive areas can’t catch up with an old woman in a wheelchair, much less prevent a suicide bomber attack. But I digress…
Back to my point about honesty. The Bush Administration has a warped sense of the concept at the moment. They tell us just enough to freak us out, but not enough so that we can rationally weigh all that’s going on. Like the aforementioned tidbit that much of the terrorists’ intel came from six years ago. Why the imminent attack warning now?
My office has been no better. Other than telling us about the increased security measures (did I mention that they had people lining up OUTSIDE, BY THE STREET, in anticipation of CAR and TRUCK BOMBS?!?!), no one’s really said much about this scare. That’s led to coworkers becoming amateur Nancy Drews. Yes, Raquel and Amy, I am talking about you.
Quick side note: was Nancy Drew actually a professional detective? Because I just referred to Raquel and Amy as amateur Nancy Drews. If she wasn’t a pro, but merely an overachieving and brilliant sleuth who solved crimes for the love of the hunt rather than for the money, then the “amateur” in “amateur Nancy Drew” is redundant. These are the debates I have in my head late at night that keep me from getting a decent night’s sleep.
Anyways, since no one official will tell us anything, rumor and conjecture have become the ways of our world. For example, when the avenue our building is on shuts down midday for a few hours, you’d expect some explanation. Instead, the private eye team of R&A have to track down e-mails from other companies, which suggest either “suspicious letters” or “suspicious packages” or “nuclear annihilation” at a nearby bank. Did I ever find out which of the above actually caused the traffic reroute? No. But I do suspect that it wasn’t the nuclear (by the way, it ain’t “nucular”) thing.
In the end, terror sucks, but I guess we’re all going to have to deal with it. Morbid jokes like “See you tomorrow…if there is one…HA HA…hmm…” might very well become part of the norm. We may have to have our IDs checked outside of every building on one side of the revolving door entrance, and then have them checked again immediately on the other side of said revolving door, another of my building’s increased security measures. What the hell was I going to do while in the revolving door. Am I an alien, shape-shifting terrorist? If so, we have a lot more problems ’cause shape-shifting aliens would be all but unstoppable as far as I’m concerned.
I guess all we can do is be vigilant and hope we’re given accurate information as often as possible, so that we can adjust our lives accordingly.
We might also want to rethink the whole “waiting outside for a car or truck bomb attack” thing…