Maybe Not So Great
With the recent subway-and-bus bombing and the heightened alert for a similar act in NY, I am rethinking the genius of the subway system. In a rational society where people are not trying to blow other people up, this seems like an excellent idea...you can get pretty much anywhere FAST for about $2. No stop lights, no traffic. And with gas prices well over $2/gallon this seems like a hell of a bargain! However, my (limited) experience with the subway and safety screening is that there is none. You pay your money, click the turnstile, and you're on your way. There is a posting, generally, requesting passengers to keep their eyes open for any suspicious items and report them to someone they cannot see by some means that I am unsure of. This begs the question: Is it a bomb, or just a lunchbag? And will New Yorkers (and the Brits) have to go through an airport-type screening just to board the train to get to work every morning? For once I am glad to be in middle-America where I can hop in my car and just go.
posted by ET at 9:35 AM
3 Comments:
See...there are SOME good qualities to living in a place where no one cares to be or bomb.
Agreed. WE are certainly not immune here, and we cannot go around being afraid all the time, but sometimes there is NOT safety in numbers. Numbers mean a larger target for terrorists to strike. I still remember the OKC bombing...my boss's wife calling in, the early speculation that it might have been a gas leak, then the cautions that downtown Tulsa might be the next target (where I was at the time). I remember attending the memorial at the fountain in Bartlett Square at the one year anniversary, and walking through the memorial (still under construction) when I went to take the LSAT in OKC...at the fence surrounding the memorial there were cards, letters, photos, stuffed animals, flowers...people would walk up to you and tell you where they were that morning, and what they saw. I also remember the heightened security at the Federal Courthouse from that day on, the removal of all parking meters from around the Post Office and Federal Courthouse (replaced by NO PARKING signs), and watching McVeigh as he was executed. My husband (at the time of the bombing -- I am now divorced and remarried) was sent down with the National Guard to secure the Murrah Building. And oddly, it was ALL predicted (down to the strange manner of the suspect's arrest) in a book called "The Final Jihad" by the governor's (?) brother. I know this because my other boss was an investor in the book at the time.
True. What I meant to say was that we SEEM less of a target than other places. Bad thought, but I have often thought that a mall or movie theater would be a "good" place for a bombing. It's just a matter of time. My dad thinks that a big one will be a little different. There is only one major gas pipeline that carries natural gas (or whatever) to heat houses in the winter. This pipeline is pretty much either only underground a few feet or exposed the whole way. Why not just wait until it's -50 and hit it?
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