“We don’t want folks sealing up their doors or
sealing up their windows.”
— Tom Ridge, Sec. Homeland SecurityWhew, Tom, what a
relief! Until you spoke those words on Friday, Valentine’s Day, a
lot of people got the impression that is exactly what they had
better be doing, and they were doing it with a vengeance. Ever try
to wrestle a roll of duct tape out of a determined Grandmother’s
clutches in a crowded hardware store aisle? Ain’t easy, especially
with all those stand-around clerks rooting for Grannie.
While we’re on the subject of duct tape, that is what it is,
“duct” tape. But through the years it has gradually deteriorated in
public parlance, to “duck” tape. This is unfair to that AFLAC duck
which has refused to be silenced through many cycles of commercial
buys over recent months. Truth be told, the stuff is neither “duct”
nor “duck.” It is “gaffer’s tape,” as everybody in shipping
departments knows, and in the television production business.
Gaffer’s tape is the universal binder that has held everything
together, from camera cases to careers. It can’t be helped that
“gaffer” has a certain eponymous relationship to what happened when
your fellow government gurus began advising America what to do now
that the nation’s temperature had been raised to orange. And the
“chatter” picked up by listening posts grew more ominous.
We went for the tape and the plastic sheeting, and the bottled
water and the little masks. We got the last “D” cell battery in
America. And those with any foresight made the bathroom the safe
room. A couple of questions about that, Tom. When are you going to
tell America about the real danger of a dirty bomb, a radiological
job? When are you going to mention potassium iodide or iodate as
the preventative that goes to the thyroid before the other deadly
radioactive stuff gets there? Medication that saved thousands at
Chernobyl and never gets a mention here?
While you’re at it, Tom, ask why we are smallpox vaccinating
military service-people and some first response and health-care
workers but leaving the other 278-million folks at risk and in the
dark. By whom do we suppose the health-care folks, the nurses, EMS
crews and the like are likely to be exposed? Right. The rest of
us.
I realize that the government is working on a plan to answer all
these questions, Tom, and Homeland Security will announce it in the
coming week or so. It’s to be called the “Ready Campaign.” It may
deal with some of the unanswered questions. Spurred by a seditious
desire to know more now, before government gurus tell me, I asked
our local cable company if the Qatar-based al-Jazeera network could
be available on one of the 578 channels I am currently paying for.
That way I could listen to Osama right along with Colin Powell. “No
chance,” they said, explaining that all available channels will be
dedicated to repeats of “Joe Millionaire” or the latest installment
of the evolution of Michael Jackson’s nose.
I suppose this is out of Homeland’s purview, Tom. But I say
leave Michael Jackson alone: he has set an example for American
youth, a lesson for all: “keep grabbin’ your crotch, and your
nose’ll fall off.”
Of course, there is always duct….never mind.
