Boondocks 2-18-03: On Target
George Grattan
Thought today's strip was wonderful--I'm hoping this kicks off a week of
Grandad wrapping the house in plastic sheets and duct tape, succumbing to
war/winter/television sweeps period hysteria like the rest of us...
My wife and I have long referred to those TV news spots one sees during
sweeps as the "Something in Your Living Room is Killing You RIGHT NOW--Film
at 11" genre-- glad to see McGruder has glommed on to the fact that our
nation's leaders have decided the best homeland security information system
is one that borrows the approach. :-)
--
Shalom, Peace, Salaam
George Grattan
D Olz
When Homeland (heil) inSecurity told us to wrap our homes with plastic and
duct tape I figured that they hired Christo.
Olz
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety”
Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)
GI Trekker
want to UNDER-react? The first time one of these threats is real and right in
your backyard, you probably won't even have time to bend over and kiss your @$$
goodbye.
George Grattan
>
> When Homeland (heil) inSecurity told us to wrap our homes with plastic and
> duct tape I figured that they hired Christo.
To be fair to HS folks, they didn't actually tell anyone to go Christo
*now*, just that having the materials to do so on hand was a good idea--
something they'd had on their website for months, actually, before stressing
it again in a typically inept press conference during Orange Week.
Of course, they didn't bother to remind people *not* to go Christo now,
either, not until just a day or two ago after reports started coming in of
folks having sealed in their entire homes. (There was a guy in CT who
wrapped up his whole house, obviously going for the creepy
moonscape-suburbia aesthetic from the end of "E.T.".....phone home, folks,
phone home....)
I fully-- and joyfully-- expect Grandpa to go Off the Deep End on this...
George Grattan
In which case all the duct tape and plastic in the hemisphere isn't going to
save me. Glad to see we agree. :-)
Don't presume the attacks we've already experienced haven't been in "my
backyard," one way or another: all of them were. And I bade my ass a fond
farewell a long, long time ago, once I realized that one never knows the day
or the hour, etc. You're dying: get used to it. :-)
All that aside, however, I found McGruder's lampoon dead-on: the threat is,
of course, real, as are the ineptitude and counter-productive nature of the
simplistic responses generally (with some gratefully noted exceptions)
offered by The Powers That Be over the last few months. Wanna make me feel
safer? Start by getting my city and state the money they need for more cops,
firemen, and other first responders, especially now that some of them are
being called up for reserve duty. Wanna calm some of my fears? Talk to me
like you think I've got a brain. Wanna make me take your alerts more
seriously? Take them more seriously yourself, and stop using them for
political leverage.
But I'm off topic.
Klyfix
Trekker) writes:
Which is kinda why the threat colors are rather pointless, at least for Joe
Average in the street. There's really not that much you can do most of the
time; the risk thing pretty much just adds to the undercurrents of anxiety.
Those cynical about Dubya and his cronies can with some justification
figure that the real purpose for all this is to make the public willing to
accept whatever they deem is necessary for the National Interest.
V. S. Greene : kly...@aol.com : Boston, near Arkham...
Eckzylon: http://m1.aol.com/klyfix/eckzylon.html
A rodent with mad skillz, uh, no.
Hail
Chemical and biological attacks are not quite as potent as the TV news
and pundits say. Not something to ignore but definitely don't panic
over it.
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/realdeal.htm
"Overall preparation for any terrorist attack is the same as you'd
take for a big storm. If you want a gas mask, fine, go get one. I know
this stuff and I'm not getting one and I told my Mom not to bother
with one either (How's that for confidence?). We have a week's worth
of cash, several days worth of canned goods and plenty of soap and
water. We don't leave stuff out to attract bugs or rodents so we don't
have them."
John Duncan Yoyo
> When Homeland (heil) inSecurity told us to wrap our homes with plastic and
>duct tape I figured that they hired Christo.
Nope, it was Red Green.
-
John Duncan Yoyo
------------------------------o)
DD DEGG CO
>> you probably won't even have time to bend over and kiss your
>> @$$
>> goodbye.
>and From: George Grattan
>And I bade my ass a fond
>farewell a long time ago, once I realized that one never knows the day
>or the hour, etc. You're dying: get used to it. :-)
Or, as Pogo once said:
"Don't take life too serious, it ain't nohow permanent."
D.D.Degg
Geoduck
<john-dun...@cox.net> wrote:
>On 18 Feb 2003 21:20:47 GMT, do...@aol.commsn (D Olz) wrote:
>
>> When Homeland (heil) inSecurity told us to wrap our homes with plastic and
>>duct tape I figured that they hired Christo.
>
>Nope, it was Red Green.
Except that Red wouldn't bother with the plastic.
Geoduck
Visit The Mansion of E
http://www.olywa.net/cook/toons/toons.htm
kesi...@math.ttu.edu
: On Wed, 19 Feb 2003 09:03:26 GMT, John Duncan Yoyo
: <john-dun...@cox.net> wrote:
:>On 18 Feb 2003 21:20:47 GMT, do...@aol.commsn (D Olz) wrote:
:>> When Homeland (heil) inSecurity told us to wrap our homes with plastic and
:>>duct tape I figured that they hired Christo.
:>Nope, it was Red Green.
: Except that Red wouldn't bother with the plastic.
Uncle Red would have used an old tent instead.
==Jake ``remember, if the women don't find you handsome, maybe those
72 virgins in the afterlife will find you handy'' K.
George Grattan
>
> Main thing I don't get amidst all this "the world has changed"
> crud is, who on earth really didn't know you could get killed at any
> time randomly, before? Odds are low, odds have been low, but odds have
> ALWAYS been decidedly non-zero.
Yup. The world didn't change. Americans just woke up to what much of the
rest of the world had been like for a long time.
I agree with Jon Stewart, who opined that all future Homeland (In)security
alerts should be accompanied by remarks from some kind of Probability Czar
who would, essentially, advise people to remember to wear their seatbelts.
:-)
ronniecat
"Geoduck" <geo...@webave.com> wrote in message
news:3e53e000...@nnrp.atgi.net...
someone <attributions now murky> wrote re: The Handyman's Secret Weapon:
Duct Tape:
> >Nope, it was Red Green.
>
> Except that Red wouldn't bother with the plastic.
"If the women don't find ya handsome..."
ronnie