Terrorism Ambivalence?

Reading the news today, I was just wondering something. Is it possible that as more and more terrorist incidents happen (or almost happen as the case may be) the less people will care?

Follow me on this one. We all agree that terrorism is a horrible abomination. No argument there. It is terrible and sad when people are killed by fanatics. However, reading about these recent arrests that were announced late last week and seeing what has happened since, I’ve noticed something.

On Friday, the stock market actually went UP. Granted, airline stocks got hammered, but overall, people weren’t all that worried (and if you don’t think where people put their money isn’t an indicator of how they feel, you’re crazy). Then, today I read that despite a “security threat level” of “severe” (whatever that means) in Europe, that European air traffic has rebounded to normal. Its been 4 days.

What I’m wondering is if the acts of terror will just sorta become ‘one of those things’. Not that killing people is ever just a non-event. I’m not saying that. What I’m saying is that they have already killed thousands upon thousands of people. They leveled 2 symbolistic buildings. Blown up trains and cars and whatnot. And, are obviously still attempting to do more. Yet, we are sort of paying little attention. Pretty much business as usual.

Maybe this is a good thing. I mean, the whole point of terrorism is to disrupt the larger society by commiting acts of violence. If those acts are diminishing in their impact, if we choose to not give the terrorist the ‘mind space’, don’t we win? Granted, this may push them to try bigger and bigger displays. But, I have to imagine that those are much more difficult and far more expensive to plan and execute than some jackoffs with box cutters.

I dunno… maybe I’m crazy. Maybe I’m just losing interest and failing to be as scared as I was in 2001. I do know that there is no way in hell another airplane in this country gets hijacked without every passenger going batshit and doing something about it. I guess thats why they’ve changed to just trying to blow planes up again.

Subway again

A while back I went to Subway in search of a sandwich (duh). Upon seeing they were out of lettuce, I left. Cursing off Subway until further notice. Well, a few days ago, I finally go back to Subway. I was craving a ‘spicy Italian’. So, I walk into a completetly different Subway at about 7:00pm. Nobody behind the counter… hmmm. I get up to the sneeze guard and what do I see? A printed 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper taped to said sneeze guard stating “We are out of bread until 7:30”.

WHAT!?!

I thought there was no way it would ever be more pathetic than to run out of lettuce. How wrong I was. Run out of bread? Pardont me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this a SANDWICH SHOP?! How do you run out of bread? Seriously. Explain that to me. At least, if you run out of lettuce, you can still sell some of your wares (meatball sub, for example). However, I’m pretty sure that when you sell sandwiches, if you run out of bread, you are done.

What the hell sort of 3 toed sloths do they have running these restaruants? At this point I’m pretty sure a drunken orangataun could probably be more successful. Not to mention, if they can run out of lettuce and run out of bread IN SEPARATE RESTARUANTS, what does that say about the people they have running the show? I don’t know about you, but I seriouly doubt I want these people handling anything I might ingest. And you thought ‘forgetting’ to wash your hands after using the restroom might be the worst… there is no telling what these people are capable of. “Uh… I spilled drain opener into the hot peppers? Is that bad?” Assistant Manager: “Nah… I think thats fine. The peppers are spicy anyway, right?”