Day # 158 On a clear day

Once again I have taken to the skies, leaving and returning on a jet plane.  The more I go through the TSA lines in US airports, the more I get the giggles.  I am relieved, however, that the TSA screeners are still cooking up little tricks to trip up the evil-doers.  Thursdays it seems, at least at SeaTac, are the days when shoes still come off of our feet but they don't go in the convenient plastic bins.  On Thursdays the shoes ride down the conveyor belt and into the maw of the x-ray machine all by themselves.  That will show the bad guys!  I can only imagine the consternation that will occur in a well trained terrorist faced with the prospect of sending his possibly deadly footwear down the conveyor.  In the infidel manufactured box or no?  The ensuing confusion will surely cause a breakdown of the bad person's will to do harm, leading to an immediate surrender.  Hallelujah!

In an even more confusing move, the Office of Homeland Security has revised the way that they communicate the daily threat level to the populace.  I did not have to watch the news to know this.  People talk, I listen.

             The old system looked like this.  Why does Red always get the bad rap, anyway?

I cannot remember what the terrorist alert level is.  I don't think about it.  I don't think about it at all.  In fact, one of the last things I worry about on any given day is the possibility that some fanatic from another country will hurt me.  I wish I had my own cool alert system so that the things that actually worry me could be neatly categorized so I would know just how much energy to expend on each.  Should I be worried about my son's education, or just concerned?  Should I be guarded about the possibility of squandering, before he has the chance to do it himself, the natural resources of the world that should be his legacy?  Is there an elevated risk that some over-zealous Teflon-coated bullet toting maniac with an NRA card in his wallet will bring about a sooner-than-expected end to my temporal existence?  A simple to use tool for prioritizing my daily concerns would be so handy.  Alas, I ain't got one.  I guess I will have to worry free-style.

Now, instead of the confusing colour chart that denotes the threat levels, there is the much easier to use descriptive system.  It goes like this:

Imminent Threat Alert

Warns of a credible, specific, and impending terrorist threat against the United States.

Elevated Threat Alert

Warns of a credible terrorist threat against the United States.

Sunset Provision

An individual threat alert is issued for a specific time period and then 

automatically expires. It may be extended if new information becomes available or the threat evolves.

What is remarkable is that there is nothing else.  There is no non-threat, only a level of assumed threat.  The threat is either elevated, or worse, imminent.  Either of these levels may have a sunset provision to provide specific parameters.  That's clear right?  

In my life, when something is a constant threat, it ceases to become a threat and becomes a daily part of living.  It has no immediacy.  When I ride my motorcycle, people make it a point to try to kill me.  They usually do this while talking on a cellular phone which is illegal unless it is a hands-free device.  Either way, if they succeed in killing me, they won't spend a day in jail over it.  It is a daily, elevated and imminent threat without hope of a sunset provision.  As such, this threat has ceased to be anything more than a fact of life.  If I am riding a motorcycle in America, from the moment my ass hits the seat I know, without a doubt, that everyone is trying to kill me.  It is not a threat or an abstract concept.  It is daily life.

Terrorism, in the sense that the Department of Homeland Security describes it, is a threat of violent action directed against the citizens, legal or not, of the United States.  Despite a colour coded system or vaguely worded threat alerts, I do not feel threatened in anyway.  I think that the Homeland Security folks should come up with a new system.  I could perhaps offer suggestions.  Here is what I think the levels of security should be:  Ring Number One, Ring Number Two and the Center Ring.  Watch out if the action gets frantic in the Center Ring.  That will be the time the Circus is most trying to distract your attention from what is going on in the clown-cars.