IP: Memo to America: Get a grip!

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> From: Monty Solomon <monty () roscom com>
> Subject: Memo to America: Get a grip!
>
> Memo to America: Get a grip!
>
> Led by the neurotic teeth-chattering classes, once-brave Americans
> are in danger of becoming Cipro-hoarding, gas-mask-buying wimps.
>
> By Laura Miller
> Oct. 20, 2001
>
> New York -- I'm not the type to love a place just because I happened
> to have been born there, but I've always wanted, at the very least,
> to respect America, and mostly I have. If our nation hasn't always
> lived up to the ideals it trumpets, I believe that we get closer
> every year because the majority of us are committed to making this
> experiment work. What I've never questioned is America's know-how,
> resilience and fortitude -- our gumption -- even when I've had my
> doubts about how we use it.
>
> That is, I hadn't questioned our gumption, until about two weeks ago.
>
> In the days following the body blow of Sept. 11, my faith in our
> nation's ability to behave with grace under pressure seemed to be
> borne out. It wasn't just the firefighters and police officers; it
> was the volunteer rescue workers, the people standing in line for
> four hours to give blood at the hospital on my block, the citizens
> from other states who got in their cars and drove day and night to
> reach us here in New York so they could offer their help in any way.
> The corresponding slogans -- "United We Stand," etc. -- were cheesy,
> but they didn't seem outright delusional.
>
> All it took to explode that dream were a couple dozen contaminated
> letters. Now, doctors are besieged with requests for Cipro
> prescriptions by patients who have no reason to think they've been
> exposed to anthrax. The government is planning to blow a huge chunk
> of the public health budget on this probably unnecessary drug. The
> House of Representatives closed up shop in a paroxysm of what the
> media politely called "jitters" -- the New York Post was alone in
> calling them "wimps" -- after Senate majority leader Tom Daschle's
> office received an anthrax-laced letter.
>
> Columnists like the New York Times' Maureen Dowd and the Washington
> Post's Sally Quinn write of frenzy among the chattering classes (make
> that the teeth-chattering classes), leading to runs on gas masks,
> canned goods and of course, more Cipro. Paranoid Americans who think
> they've been exposed to bioterror are threatening to cripple the
> healthcare infrastructure that would be our first line of defense in
> the event of a serious attack. The thin, high whine of panic is in
> the air.
>
> ...
>
> http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/10/20/paranoia/index.html


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