Thursday, February 13, 2003
High alert, dirty bombs, safe rooms, gas masks, anthrax, nukes, emergency safe kits, fear. I’m starting to get the feeling I’m in the middle of the old Creature Double Feature movie showcase. It’s only a matter of time before the Godzilla warning reaches the red level: “Severe risk of massive destruction reigned down from an oversized lizard.”
Seriously though, this is getting a bit scary. I went from having a perfectly groggy train ride this morning to completely paranoid by the time I pulled into South Station, because I read the morning’s paper. Stories about people stockpiling duct tape and plastic in case we are hit with some sort of chemical attack and my respective city’s plans in the event of an attack permeated any sense of lucidity I had. Duct tape and plastic? Look, I realize duct tape might very well be the most useful fix-it tool around, but I’ll be damned if it and a few hundred yards of plastic are enough to create a barrier from a chemical attack.
But this is what the Office of Homeland Security recommends, to create an air-proof room in your house by duct-taping plastic over the window and doors. Even if this were to work, has anybody given any thought to the fact that creating an air-proof barrier to keep chemicals out will also prevent fresh air from getting in? Why don’t the just tell us to place a place bag over our head and tape it around our neck, it be much more effective and use considerably less duct tape.
I’m not sure if I can even give in to these warnings or if I even have a choice. It is scary though and I can’t help but wonder if this is what it felt like in the 1950s at the beginning of the Cold War? Are duct tape and plastic shelters the equivalent of fall out shelters? Can the reinstitution of air raid drills be far behind? I’m not ever one to give in to too much hype around anything, but I can’t help it, news of this is every where you turn. This real-time dissemination of information may be the exact reason why this fear may be more intense than the Cold War. Information traveled at a snails pace compared today, but the question remains, what spurns greater hysteria, instant information access or slow information gathering which allowed time for the human psyche to wander into dangerous paranoia?
Hysteria aside, I question the merit of getting the public geared-up for things like this. Duct tape and plastic, honestly, this is the best our government can come up with? I’ve already heard stories of people wrapping there entire houses with plastic and can’t help but wonder if the OHS has cut some sort of back-ally deal with plastics and duct tape manufacturers of the nation?
About the only thing close to the area of rational I can think of, is that this push to create survival kits was hatched as a psychological ploy to prevent people from feeling helpless. In other words, if we can physically touch, feel and purchase something tangible, it can give the illusion that we are truly not powerless against terror. Makes sense I suppose.
But for me, well, I can’t pray victim to it; this is what the terrorists want, to induce fear. I will say that I feel I can relate a faction of a bit more to what life must be like in Israel on a daily basis, a situation that must be the ultimate example of hell on earth. Survival mode has become second nature for them and I can only imagine what would happen to the American psyche if things started blowing-up with the regularity of things there. I still won’t be purchasing my duct tape and plastic anytime soon, but if those air rais sirens go off, you’ll find me hunkered down under my desk subsisting on whatever crumbs from a years worth of eating lunch at my desk has left me.
Seriously though, this is getting a bit scary. I went from having a perfectly groggy train ride this morning to completely paranoid by the time I pulled into South Station, because I read the morning’s paper. Stories about people stockpiling duct tape and plastic in case we are hit with some sort of chemical attack and my respective city’s plans in the event of an attack permeated any sense of lucidity I had. Duct tape and plastic? Look, I realize duct tape might very well be the most useful fix-it tool around, but I’ll be damned if it and a few hundred yards of plastic are enough to create a barrier from a chemical attack.
But this is what the Office of Homeland Security recommends, to create an air-proof room in your house by duct-taping plastic over the window and doors. Even if this were to work, has anybody given any thought to the fact that creating an air-proof barrier to keep chemicals out will also prevent fresh air from getting in? Why don’t the just tell us to place a place bag over our head and tape it around our neck, it be much more effective and use considerably less duct tape.
I’m not sure if I can even give in to these warnings or if I even have a choice. It is scary though and I can’t help but wonder if this is what it felt like in the 1950s at the beginning of the Cold War? Are duct tape and plastic shelters the equivalent of fall out shelters? Can the reinstitution of air raid drills be far behind? I’m not ever one to give in to too much hype around anything, but I can’t help it, news of this is every where you turn. This real-time dissemination of information may be the exact reason why this fear may be more intense than the Cold War. Information traveled at a snails pace compared today, but the question remains, what spurns greater hysteria, instant information access or slow information gathering which allowed time for the human psyche to wander into dangerous paranoia?
Hysteria aside, I question the merit of getting the public geared-up for things like this. Duct tape and plastic, honestly, this is the best our government can come up with? I’ve already heard stories of people wrapping there entire houses with plastic and can’t help but wonder if the OHS has cut some sort of back-ally deal with plastics and duct tape manufacturers of the nation?
About the only thing close to the area of rational I can think of, is that this push to create survival kits was hatched as a psychological ploy to prevent people from feeling helpless. In other words, if we can physically touch, feel and purchase something tangible, it can give the illusion that we are truly not powerless against terror. Makes sense I suppose.
But for me, well, I can’t pray victim to it; this is what the terrorists want, to induce fear. I will say that I feel I can relate a faction of a bit more to what life must be like in Israel on a daily basis, a situation that must be the ultimate example of hell on earth. Survival mode has become second nature for them and I can only imagine what would happen to the American psyche if things started blowing-up with the regularity of things there. I still won’t be purchasing my duct tape and plastic anytime soon, but if those air rais sirens go off, you’ll find me hunkered down under my desk subsisting on whatever crumbs from a years worth of eating lunch at my desk has left me.
