As a sort-of follow up on the last post:
This weeks Mercury has a short article written by Sarah Mirk about the decision not to call the
Woodburn Bank Bombers terrorists, or to prosecute the Father and Son
team dip shits under any federal anti-terrorism crimes. It wouldn't have been a stretch, considering the Senior Mr. Turnidge had a stockpile of weapons, had previously cheered the Oklahoma City Bombing, and when police arrived to question him about the bank bomb went on an anti-Obama tirade. It was an interesting article and an apt comparison. Kudos, Ms. Mirk. Plus it touches on a long held belief of mine: Crazy white people are way better at terrorism than brown people. That's not to take anything away from high achievers such as John Allen Muhammad, aka the Beltway Sniper, but by and large I'm way more frightened by white-guys with fertilizer and anger issues than I am of wayward teenagers with an Internet connection (though any religious teen is pretty scary).
And then there's the sharp-eyed reporting from the
Oregonian:
Oregon's juggling two bombing stories -- one about terrorism and one about crime. The way people classify them may seem arbitrary or racist, based on the facts in each case, but maybe the public deserves more credit than that.
Maybe the stories, and our reaction to them, simply reflect the basic human struggle to figure out what to fear.
Dear Portland: Fear Whitey.
P.S. Fear may be a natural human state, but I'm not sure that "deciding what to fear" really classifies as a basic human struggle -- we pretty much fear everything without distinction.
