NEIGHBORHOOD OF TERRORISTS

by Jim Reed

If, as some dictionaries suggest, a TERRORIST is someone who can be described as an INTIMIDATOR, a SCAREMONGER, a CRUEL or THREATENING person, someone who uses COERCION and EMBARRASSMENT to TERRIFY or ABASH, then we've got 'em on Southside.

Yep, there are terrorists all around us. Most of them are terrorists by omission--people who could act to protect their neighbors but don't.

Trouble is, many terrorists cannot be easily identified. They look more or less like each and every one of us. Since they look like us, how can we identify these TERRORISTS? Well, maybe by
their behavior:

HOW TO IDENTIFY URBAN TERRORISTS

1. If your neighbor drives recklessly through the streets unaware that children and elderly folk might be in harm's way--not to mention everybody else--that neighbor is a TERRORIST.

2. If your neighbor walks a dog to the edge of your lawn, watches blissfully while said dog poops to its heart's content, then walks blithely away, not carrying said poop away, too, that neighbor is a TERRORIST.

3. If your neighbor parties loudly and well into the night, thus disrupting your sleep and peace of mind, and does not respond to your polite protestations, that neighbor is a TERRORIST.

4. If your neighbor observes something suspicious going on at your house but does not pick up the phone to call you or the police, that neighbor might as well be a TERRORIST, an accessory
to the possible crime.

5. If your neighbor is robbed or vandalized or victimized and does not report said event to the police, that neighbor is a TERRORIST because they are not giving officials a chance to
better or protect the community.

6. If your neighbor is robbed or vandalized or victimized and does not let YOU know about it, thus making it impossible for you to gird yourself against similar attacks--and also making it
clear that they do not care whether you, too, are victimized--then, that neighbor might as well be a TERRORIST.

7. If you and your neighbor do not try to become cordial and mutually protective of one another, you both might as well be called TERRORISTS, for you are not participating in the war that
all neighbors must wage against those who do not care about our neighborhoods.

You are somebody's neighbor.

Now, re-read the above seven items.

I am your neighbor and you are my neighbor.

Let us protect and encourage one another.