X-Message-Number: 27008
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From: David Stodolsky <>
Subject: Fwd: Terror in Tiny Town
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2005 11:22:51 +0200

Begin forwarded message:


TERROR IN TINY TOWN
Sunday, September 11, 2005
Greg Palast reporting from Southold, New York

In the War on Terror, we are all on the front lines. Now Southold has  
apparently been targeted by Al Qaeda. I'm not surprised.

Southold, if you look at a map, is situated at the ass end of  
nowhere. We are known for our Strawberry Festival and fire truck  
parade. According to the Census, this tiny place is made up almost  
entirely of inbred farmers, real estate speculators and volunteer  
firemen.

At one end of town is the "Brand Names Outlet Mall" and the water- 
slide park. At the other end, there's a ferry boat that takes those  
who feel lucky to the Indian casino in Connecticut. And in between,  
there's Main Street where we hold the Strawberry Festival. (The  
festival is a quaint and annoying white-folks' ritual, an opportunity  
for backstabbing, petty infighting and all-American small-mindedness.  
But that's another story altogether.)

Last month, Town Supervisor Josh, with powers granted him by the  
Department of Homeland Security, declared a "national security  
emergency." (Supervisor Josh Horton is called by his first name  
because he was elected at the precocious age of 26 -- based, it  
seems, on his stellar qualifications: he wears shoes.) In light of  
the clear and present threat of attack, Supervisor Josh ordered every  
one taking the ferry boat to the Indian casino to park in the dirt  
lot across from the Country Store and not along Route 25.

It was just after the London bombings and Supervisor Josh insisted  
this was truly a matter of preparing for terrorist attack, though  
some locals suspected it was less about Al Qaeda and more about  
zoning. Supervisor Josh had been trying all year, unsuccessfully, to  
change the zoning on the dirt lot next to the ferryboat launch from  
"farming" to "parking" to boost the town's take from the inebriated  
gambling tourists. To scare off both Al Qaeda and parking violators,  
Josh has posted, care of the federal treasury, an SUV at the ferry  
dock armed with two .50-caliber machine guns. I kid you not.

The ferry to the Indian casino is our officially designated town  
"terrorism vulnerability point" (TVP). If you don't pick a "terrorism  
vulnerability point," the town can't get its slice of Homeland  
Security loot from the federal government.

All ferry passengers are now asked for their home phone numbers,  
though if they are suicide bombers, they will not, after they strike,  
be able to answer the phone. No matter.

Homeland Security assigned three guardsmen, armed and armored, to the  
Vulnerability Point because the town police are a little shorthanded  
since the crime wave in the hamlet of Greenport a couple years back.  
It involved some petty theft, racial slur complaints and baggies of  
pot sold. The crime wave ended when the village disbanded its  
minuscule police force -- which had committed all the crimes.

Locals are taking the heightened security at the ferry with patriotic  
stoicism. Our local pennysaver printed a letter from John Wronowski  
saying, "National security and safety [must be] at the forefront of  
our efforts
since September 11, 2001."

Mr. Wronowski owns the ferry boat and parking lot.

The paper, The Suffolk Times, interviewed a passenger who bravely  
travels to visit his inlaws twice a week. He said, with true grit, "I  
am not afraid."

But I am. What if there's a sleeper cell in Southold? All they have  
to do is review the Homeland Security website for the town's  
Vulnerability Point and they'll know, "Hit the water slide, Ahmad!  
The casino ferry's being watched!"

And there's more here that scares me. There's a jug out at the  
Lickety Splitz Ice Cream Parlor on Route 25 for the Cennar Family. It  
seems that one of the Cennar kids has been diagnosed with some  
terrible disease. Undoubtedly, the doctor bills are killing the  
family, could bankrupt them -- and the community jug is out. There's  
always a jug out for someone who's ill or got crippled and whose bank  
account has been wiped away.

And I thought: this is a national security threat. With the lumber  
yard shut and the plastics plants gone to China, Al Qaeda could quite  
easily gain a couple of recruits in our town: all Bin Laden has to do  
is offer health insurance.


**********
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, The Best  
Democracy Money Can Buy. Subscribe to his commentaries at  
www.GregPalast.com.



David Stodolsky    Skype: davidstodolsky

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