12 February 2003

Heebie Jeebies

There was another advisory this morning on the radio. The reader noted that there seemed to be an advisory every morning these days. This one dealt with snow squalls, high winds and plummeting temperatures. Some of the schools are closing. They say it might gust to 50-knots later on, which is good. Makes it hard to disperse aerosols or radioactive material with any precision. I glanced outside and felt moisture in the air and the trees were dancing around.

The Directors of CIA and DIA were testifying on the Hill and they had an advisory, too. Today they will be back for closed testimony. Carl Castle from another three letter agency, the NPR, says they will talk about the use of a radiological device, maybe here and maybe in Saudi Arabia. Osama was back late yesterday, his reedy voice calling on the Brothers to rise in a wave of suicide attacks. Our pals at Al Jazeera TV broadcast it immediately. People started phoning around, informing each other in all the buildings around town what was up.

It started early. I was sitting in a meeting and noticed a contrail, a stream of water condensation like a fat worm. Around Washington the air traffic is tightly controlled, and it was even before 9-11. Aircraft go from point "A" to point "B," no shilly-shallying around. The worm I was watching formed a long lazy curve and then arced around again, the aircraft maneuvering. I that it was a fighter on Combat Air Patrol. Later, someone who had been downtown said that there were green camouflaged mobile missile batteries deployed and large vans parked near some of the Departments.

I don't know what it means. Someone said that an attack always followed one of his tapes. But I am not sure. There is so much I don't understand.

Thankfully Vicki Barker is holding it together pretty well. She had the third piece on the global pension crisis, the one where fewer and fewer active workers are supporting more and more retirees. Today the focus was on Britain, and how they are working to augment savings to help ordinary young people get ready and avoid a polarized society. I listened with moderate interest, hoping I could get through this week and assuming that somehow the future will take care of itself. There was some ironic talk around the water cooler at the office. At least it would have been around the water-cooler if we had one. Water was a topic, though. The nautical term for the water cooler on a ship is "scuttlebutt," which as you know is where is the term for office gossip came from. Nowadays, it is the smokers exiled outside who talk, having nothing better to do while they suck down the nicotine.

The time of the DC Snipers was a big one for gossip at the smoker's corner. People in town drive in from all over, some as far as Pennsylvania and West Virginia. The topic was always where the shooters were going to attack next, north-south-east or west. It was all surreal, just like this. At least until they shot the lady at the Home Depot down the street. I suppose we will have a new term for gossip that comes in from outside, but for now scuttlebutt is surreal. Global attacks, they say, hundreds of them, all over. Here and there, hotels and apartment buildings and what they call "economic targets." Maybe that means the Home Depot.

Washington made the BBC this morning, along with word that London is bracing for something. Vicki commented on the preparations people were making here to get ready for terror attacks. I have been buying an extra couple cans of soup and chili each time I got to the store. I have crackers and peanut butter, just like the Talking Heads character on their song "Life During Wartime." It is a pulsing driving tune David Byrne sang at the cutting edge nightclub CBGB in the Bowery. The character is on the run from something, hearing ominous portents from the hills, vans loading, multiple passports, changed his hairstyle so many times now, don't know what he looks like.

I figure I can hold out for a week or two even if the food distribution system breaks down temporarily.

I stopped at the ATM and got some cash, and filled up the car with gas and bought two of those large water jugs with the handles. I staged one in the car and filled up the jugs in the 'fridge. Batteries for the radio, checked the inventory of candles. I Put a sleeping bag in the car and reminded myself not to get separated from my car keys.

The wrinkle that separates this from usual preparations for a snow day is that people aren't talking about eggs and milk. We may not have power to keep it from spoiling. And the other is the topic of duct tape. Someone in the hall was talking about it, the result of some meeting of the Security people and of course it started flying around the building immediately after. I understand the point is that we are supposed to seal up the window and door jams so that chem and bio agents can't get into our homes. I thought about riding out a Sarin or Ricin or VX attack at the house and laughed. Can't see it. So my preparations are complete, this is just like a now day.

The feast of the Haj, the pilgrimage to Mecca for millions of The Faithful, is over tomorrow. So that is when people are ready to get the heebie-jeebies in earnest. Not that Osama seems to pay much attention to specific days. We have prudently raised our national alert level on several holidays, both ours and theirs. Nothing has happened so far. They seem to enjoy watching us chase out tails, and Osama seems content to make new anniversaries of his own. I was thinking about that yesterday when I heard one of the smokers talking about duct tape and all the different applications for it. You can fix a leaking hose, strap things together, tape plastic mats together in the foyers of public buildings so that salt or whatever doesn't get tracked in all over the marble floors.

You can even use it for Civil Defense. I have a meeting downtown this morning. It should be OK. But I heard the smoker say to his buddy as they walked back inside: "Don't take the Metro."