Wednesday, October 12, 2005

That NYC subway terrorist threat...

By now, you have probably heard that one, possibly three Iraqui men were reported to be in the New York City, to push baby carriages filled with explosives down the crowded subway stations of New York City last Sunday, it being a Jewish holiday and all. 'Cept, none of it was true.

This had us waking up on Friday to a live CNN feed from Penn Station showing unidentified government security personnel wearing bright-yellow anti-bioterrorism hazmat suits while they prodded at something or other at one of the station's entrances.

Mind you, trains were apparently on schedule and train boarders just stood there with their morning coffee cups and bagels, staring non-chalantly at the bizarre scene. One thing is for sure, those New Yorkers certainly do their reputation proud: Logic would dictate that the lack of evacuation might mean that, dude, it was too late to evacuate! Then again, logic doesn't necessarily define Naw Yawker's attitudes. Bioterrorist threat? Fogettabaudit!

Yet, the reason why some of us were actually concerned - and this is something that I haven't seen mentioned in the developing bru-ha-ha about whether Mayor Bloomberg should have warned the public (despite the apparent flimsy evidence and on election debate night, non-the-less) - is that Bloomberg had always shown restraint in the past about similar terrorist warnings since 9/11.

While the nation as a whole was being terrorized by the Department of Homeland Security's fluctuating 'terror color code' scheme, Bloomberg kept calm and sometimes even contradicted some of the dire warnings coming from DC. So when Bloomberg decided to go public with the recent threats, he was banking on that sort of restrained credibility.

Some political consultants are 'shocked' that Bloomberg's Thursday press conference is being called into question and are using the ol' Bush trick of raising doubts about the patriotism of those who dare to ask.

Personally, I am glad that Bloomberg went public with the warning BUT he would have been better served if he had aknowledged from the start that the evidence was flimsy instead of 'credible.' As a result, any questions raised are totally on the mark. Specially since it appears the terror threats did wonders to increase the lead between Bloomberg and Ferrer as you will find out in this morning's newspapers.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i was in nyc this weekend, y que escandalo oye...
nothing happened, and i never got searched, i drove down from troy with a rolling maleta and my laptop and every electronic piece of equipment i own inside of it... i could have been a terrorist, y nadie me pelo...and i spent the whole weekend taking trains, good thing i'm a buena niña pero... i coulda been this misanthropic capitalist train phobic loca.. lol.. instead i used the train to go back & fourth between spanish harlem and the NYC faculty housing where i was hanging out with cool artists.... all weekend.... anyway, i had a lot of fun, and the scare worried me, and my mom was like, mija.. i heard there might be a bomb, no quiero que subas al tren, i'm like, ay ma.. nothings gonna happen.. then she's like, ok lets compromise mija.. quiero que cada vez que te subas al tren me avises, y en cuanto te bajes, tambien, no quiero que te pase nada...
i'm like, ok ma i'll call you... oops this reminds me i better call her and tell her i'm back up near albany in troy ny safe & sound it's already wednsday and i haven't called her back to tell her i'm vivita y coliando..
tee hee..
zulma