1998 november 23

weapons of mass destruction

after 23 years, the university of texas has decided to reopen their infamous clock tower. it wasn't closed in 1966 after mr charles whitman climbed it with his rifle and opened fire, taking out 16 and wounding 31, but rather in 1975, after a series of suicides. i guess it's okay to be a sniper's nest, but when all those nice little students are flinging themselves from its heights, well then someone's got to do something. anyhow, they are putting up a safety barrier and then opening the thing up to the public again. somebody tell the big fun gus, maybe he can take his extra y chromosomes to town for a little fun.

in other news related news, gene and i went to a funky little newstand this morning, looking at the foreign magazines and the international newspapers. most of the latter are about a week behind so it is a little strange to read the news that is by now oldhat, but there was one article that caught my eye. i wish i had bought it, because the more i think about it, the more i am disturbed.

it was in a london paper. the article on the front page was about weapons the israelis are allegedly developing, in response to the weapons of mass destruction that the iraqis are flirting with. this israeli weapon somehow, through biological or chemical or some other *icals, can target just those of arab ancestry, leaving those of jewish or aryan or presumably asian and african descent unharmed.

this scares the living bejesus out of me.

like most people of my age, i grew up in the shadow of the atomic bomb, and i have been plenty freaked out about it at one time or another. but with the subsiding of tensions between the usa and the former ussr, and the general feeling that no one is stupid enough to set another one off, i had somewhat relaxed. then came all this talk of biological and chemical weapons.

i am not naive enough to believe that the country i live in at the moment is not also developing these types of weapons. i am, however, naive enough to think that we have no real intent to use them unless first attacked with something similar. i have no such beliefs about the iraqis or the various terrorist groups that have previously been associated with assorted nerve gases and manufactured plagues. i think they will have absolutely no qualms about using them if they think it will further their causes.

i don't know enough about them to know just how i should be freaked out, so i of course make up scenarios to give myself the heebie jeebies. i think about christmas shopping in a crowded mall, and how one small canister of something could be carried in by anyone and then opened, poisoning the lot of our merrymaking selves. i think about the reservoir from which i get my water, and how easily someone could dump something into it. and now i see myself walking down the city street and hearing a swish and a small explosion and then seeing just those of arab descent collapsing on the sidewalks.

i need to find that family tree my grandmother was working on. i need to get one of those home water systems. i need to do all my christmas shopping from the safety of my living room.

thank god for catalogs. thank god for the internet.

hunkered down in my living room bunker, claire