Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Terrorism, empty gestures and other facts of life in the 21st Century
Last week’s happenings in the Loop are a testament to exactly how absurd Life During Wartime can be in the USA. The powers that be in Chicago organized a mock disaster drill to take place between the hours of 9am and 7pm in various parts of downtown. Now maybe I’m expecting too much from the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communication, but if I were planning a disaster drill, it would most certainly include the following:
1) Children lying on the ground in mock post-WMD agony
2) Frantic men in full hazmat suits
3) At least a shred of urgency, if not full-on hysteria
In short, I want a total Delilloian “airborne toxic event” type scene.
(Use of the term ‘Delilloian’, by the way, comes courtesy of my esteemed colleague Lloyd Prince.)
Wacker Drive between Adams and Madison were scheduled to be shut down at 3:30, and hundreds of pre-selected office workers in identical "Alert Chicago" white t-shirts were to evacuate their buildings and make their way westward on Madison and away from the imaginary disaster in a calm and orderly fashion starting at 4pm. And if this entire staged event was anything, it was calm and orderly. It was so calm in fact that it was completely without consequence. How, I ask, do people slowly walking in matching t-shirts and having water bottles handed to them by volunteers like it was some kind of goddamned 5K Fun Run while scores of cops look on and bullshit with each other prepare anyone for a possible terrorist attack or natural disaster? The only thing that seemed to be accomplished is that some cops got to block off three blocks of a major city street during rush hour and park their cars in total flashing light, small town badassness while the local news affiliates had an excuse hung out and smoked cigarettes. In typically American fashion, the disaster preparedness drill turned out to be another empty gesture and extreme waste of time and taxpayer money. God forbid, if some sort of catastrophic event were to occur in Chicago, last Friday’s events would have done absolutely nothing in preparing us for it.
If nothing else, the local media had the fake nothing well covered. The spectacle is alive and well, my friends.
Speaking of empty gestures, Monday of course marked the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The marketing wizards behind the 9/11-remembrance campaign tell us that we will never forget. Yes, we will. We already have begun to forget. Except for those directly affected – families of victims, first-responders with future health problems, those living in the vicinity – we will forget. In fact, many have already forgotten, except for in the most empty and superficial way. The next thing you know, 9/11 or Patriot Day or whatever people call it will be celebrated in the same manner as all other American holidays: with overeating, drunkenness and shopping.
This week: I am working through a temp agency for a company that a law firm has outsourced to more or less run their building operations. I don’t know either.
Current distractions
Movies/TV: Little Miss Sunshine, Mr. Show
Music: The Eraser by Thom Yorke, The Warning by Hot Chip
Reading: Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis, Chicago ’68 by David Farber
1) Children lying on the ground in mock post-WMD agony
2) Frantic men in full hazmat suits
3) At least a shred of urgency, if not full-on hysteria
In short, I want a total Delilloian “airborne toxic event” type scene.
(Use of the term ‘Delilloian’, by the way, comes courtesy of my esteemed colleague Lloyd Prince.)
Wacker Drive between Adams and Madison were scheduled to be shut down at 3:30, and hundreds of pre-selected office workers in identical "Alert Chicago" white t-shirts were to evacuate their buildings and make their way westward on Madison and away from the imaginary disaster in a calm and orderly fashion starting at 4pm. And if this entire staged event was anything, it was calm and orderly. It was so calm in fact that it was completely without consequence. How, I ask, do people slowly walking in matching t-shirts and having water bottles handed to them by volunteers like it was some kind of goddamned 5K Fun Run while scores of cops look on and bullshit with each other prepare anyone for a possible terrorist attack or natural disaster? The only thing that seemed to be accomplished is that some cops got to block off three blocks of a major city street during rush hour and park their cars in total flashing light, small town badassness while the local news affiliates had an excuse hung out and smoked cigarettes. In typically American fashion, the disaster preparedness drill turned out to be another empty gesture and extreme waste of time and taxpayer money. God forbid, if some sort of catastrophic event were to occur in Chicago, last Friday’s events would have done absolutely nothing in preparing us for it.
If nothing else, the local media had the fake nothing well covered. The spectacle is alive and well, my friends.
Speaking of empty gestures, Monday of course marked the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The marketing wizards behind the 9/11-remembrance campaign tell us that we will never forget. Yes, we will. We already have begun to forget. Except for those directly affected – families of victims, first-responders with future health problems, those living in the vicinity – we will forget. In fact, many have already forgotten, except for in the most empty and superficial way. The next thing you know, 9/11 or Patriot Day or whatever people call it will be celebrated in the same manner as all other American holidays: with overeating, drunkenness and shopping.
This week: I am working through a temp agency for a company that a law firm has outsourced to more or less run their building operations. I don’t know either.
Current distractions
Movies/TV: Little Miss Sunshine, Mr. Show
Music: The Eraser by Thom Yorke, The Warning by Hot Chip
Reading: Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis, Chicago ’68 by David Farber
# posted by workplex @ 23:27 
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