Unearthing a life.....

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has been busy figuring all the angles on how to jack up the fear level of Americans for the remainder of the summer. Tuesday, Chertoff noted that he was experiencing a "gut feeling" about an impending new period of rising risk .... from the likes of al-Qaida, warm weather terrorists that they apparently are.

Now why is that?

What is there about these various middle-Eastern terrorists that makes them more agitated and dangerous as the summer advances? Does a low tolerance for heat drive them to violent extremes? One might be excused for assuming that, after populating the region for upwards of six thousand years, these folks had adjusted to the discomforts of summer heat waves and would have found some way to progress fairly peacefully into the few degrees cooler it might get during whatever passes for Fall there. Apparently not. Chertoff wishes us to worry. And to be vigilant ... "our edge is technology and the vigilance of the ordinary citizen," he said.

Now that last statement worries me a little. As an ordinary citizen, of mature years, I confess that I have fallen behind in the millrace of technology. In fact, I fell off my innertube and drown about the time cell phones became prevalent. So -- Secretary Chertoff should not bet his bundle on me being able to text message him reports of observed terrorism. I'll be coming through on land line, Qwest, and will likely have to study the phone book for a half hour with a magnifying glass just to find a number that will trap me with an endless automated response.

Secretary Chertoff also urged Americans to be watchful for suspicious activity. Okay. I am an American. I have one pretty good eye. I can be watchful. Maybe not during a Mariner's game, Big Brother, or a NetFlix movie, but generally speaking - big picture 'n all - I can be watchful. For suspicious activity.

Suspicious activity is, however, a level of difficulty harder to spot than those bald-faced acts of upfront terrorism that can be combated with vigilance and handheld technology. The identification of suspicious activity requires some significant iota of paranoia .... and I don't think my paranoia level is high enough to come to serious grips with 'suspicious activity'.

But I WILL DO MY PART! Although I am officially only on yellow alert, I will spend the rest of mid-summer pretending that I, like the airlines, am on orange alert. Granddaughter Rachel suggests that the friends she left behind in South Dakota have probably bounced up to 'purple alert' ... "a color even darker than red".