Danger like popcorn

There have been a few changes in town since the elections. I’m not talking about Colin Powell and John Ashcroft leaving, either. For the first time since last summer the Homeland Security Advisory System was downgraded from Orange (High Risk of Terrorist Attack) to Yellow (Significant Risk of Terrorist Attack). They guards outside my work building were no longer checking ID in order to approach the building and they opened the section of Pennsylvania Ave in front of the White House to pedestrian traffic for the first time in years. I am a big fan of these changes, since it makes it easier to get into work. And the section of Penn. Ave. is a great place to walk and stroll around, as The Redhead and I did on Saturday when we took a tour of the White House. (Maybe I’ll get around to writing about that later.)

What really interested me is that we as a nation heave a collective sigh of relief when our terror rating hits “Significant Risk of Terrorist Attack.” Since when is a “significant risk” a good thing? This Homeland Security Advisory System is set up like the sizes of popcorn at the movie theaters: Large, Extra-Large, and Jumbo. You have to order a “Large” to get a Small. Or the soft drinks at fast-food restaurants: the smallest size is a "bladder buster." In some ways it’s fitting that our terrorism alert system is just as overstated as our meal portions: it fits modern America. We have successfully desensitized ourselves (and our stomachs) so that only a huge blow will get our attention. We could draw this analogy further to explain why the first World Trade Center bombing, the attack on the U.S.S. Cole and the African embassy bombings weren’t enough to get our foreign policy agenda’s attention in the 1990’s.

What a big bunch of idiots we are. It’s like today’s post on the Board: none of us is as stupid as all of us. The bigger the bunch of people you get together the lower the collective IQ gets, so that by the time you reach the size of this country you have a very low IQ indeed. I’m not really dogging on U.S. foreign policy specifically. I just think we Americans are so absurd sometimes. We like everything big. Big country, big importance, big popcorn, big egos, big terror threat, big waistlines, big whoop.