Dear Norm
Have you been following the national security news?
who'm I kidding: Of course you have!
As you have been leading it, making it,
spinning it, and looking into the
erstwhile private communications of
those who write it and read it.
Silly question.
But it was just the icebreaker.
Leading to the recent wire service item
about the 36-year old San Jose area man
with a backpack on an airliner,
"observed by his fellow passengers
as" having the handwritten phrase
"suicide bomber"
on or in a journal and
"acting a little suspiciously."
After arresting him on intoxication charges
and hauling him off the flight
for examination, it was determined
the words appeared to be related to music,
and the man was released.
Norm, I have scrawled the words
"suicide bomber" in journals, in rants,
in poems, on napkins and shreds of envelopes,
on the 3 x 5 cards where i profile my neighbors.
I have typed them in editorials, 'blogs,
bulletin boards, e-mails, webpages and
in letters to you, Norm,
reporting suspicious activities.
I have not been referring to music.
I have carried papers featuring those words
and others, like "car bombing,"
"terrorist cell," "nuclear,"
"sharia," "uranium," "Tehran,"
"al Qaeda," "American servicemen killed,"
and "hijack" on your subways, and
sat reading them among all the same
commuters reading the same newspapers.
I have watched all the president's talking heads
repeat these words over
like the rosary or a justification.
Suicide bomber, Norm: Suicide bomber.
Will you detain us all on charges of public intoxication?
Or worse?
Methinks such renditions are becomming all too ordinary.
/s/
Concerned