NOTE: The Mojo City News is trying a new form of journalism. We figure most people have a TV and know what's happening. So we're going to provide some background on the events through conversations with Cody Barstow and Riley Collins over morning coffee. They meet at the Mo-Jo Shop (once called the More Coffee Shop, but shortened, "Bring me some Mo' Jo"). We will continue to report on the Clown invasion and other events as they warrant, however.
The New Anthrax Killings ...
MOJO CITY, Oct. 23, 2001 -
CODY: I watched that clusterfuck of a press conference put together on Monday ... trying to address the likely inhalation-anthrax deaths of two D.C. postal workers. Tried to deal with what looks like certain inhalation anthrax illnesses of two others, all from the Brentwood postal facility.
RILEY: You going to eat that donut?
CODY: It was a farce. This guy ... Postmaster General John Potter, said they were installing new technology to "eradicate and sterilize" the mail. You know something, Riley, I think these guys finally got it right ... I imagine eradicating the mail will get rid of the anthrax.
TV. It's all we've got to understand the madness. Oh, yeah. There's the Net, I suppose.
Previous
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The Gunman
Old Glory
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Travels with Fred
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Concert
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It's too damned late.
The weather sucks.
CONTACT:
Scott
MacGregor
managing editor
Cody Barstow
contributing editor
RILEY: He meant, eradicate the spores.
CODY: I know what he meant. It just wasn't what was said. Kind of like what they intend to do to protect us, but how good are they doing it?
RILEY: I saw some mail carrier ask why they didn't check out his location, that Brentwood, before these guys died.
CODY: You gotta wonder where this Postmaster guy was while his workers had to return to work ...
RILEY: Looks like it was the through-point for a lot of the mail going to Capitol Hill where they'd gotten some bad shit in the Daschle letter. And it seems they never checked it.
CODY: Then there was Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge ... the guy continues to fail to offer anything meaningful in terms of strategy and tactics.
RILEY: Never seen any ideas of his come up.
CODY: ... constantly pumping us up in this meaningless high-school coach style, appreciating the workers who continue to work, and the leaders who lead them. Rah-rah. And by the way, he's helping us all by asking that we don't use the term "weapons grade" in describing certain forms of anthrax, because it confuses the issue.
RILEY: Confuses the issue?
CODY: Go figure. And then someone, in a uniform, I think, said they hadn't checked out the Brentwood facility because they had tracked it back as far as the science would suggest necessary, or something like that.
RILEY: Whatever the hell that means.
CODY:
That's an old game. Pushing the blame onto something the public cannot
question when you can't provide a good explanation. Why has the stock
market tanked, asks a reporter? The economy, says the governmental spokesman.
Well, you can't interview the economy. And you can't interview science
to get any answers about why no one checked out the Brentwood.
RILEY: Screw science. Simple common sense says you've got to check the Brentwood. Seems to me we need to at least find someone responsible for that mess ... hold him responsible. If I screwed up in a job like that just 'cause I wasn't using comon sense, I'd be canned.
CODY: Dreamer. This is government. Everyone's covering their own ass by covering for everyone else. Everyone's ssaying that we shouldn't be looking to make heads roll. People are learning, they say. On a steep learning curve. No need for headhunting here.
RILEY: But they were supposed to have learned this stuff before it happens. Shit, Cody, that's why they get paid. It's why they've got the power. They were supposed to have planned intelligently for something like this. You need some cream for that coffee?
CODY: Seeing those guys on TV ... got me to thinking about the others.
RILEY: The others?
CODY:
Two government guys ... weren't at the conference, but ... you've got
that Health and Human Services director, Tommy Thompson, blathering that
we can respond to biological or chemical attack. Yeah. Sure.
Look, here's the thing. Prople have to die or get infected before the
government can see that a problem exists. That's protection? Someday,
I'll tell you about what happens if a plane lets a couple hundred kilos
of anthrax spores into the air. Can't see a plane, Riley. Can't know if
you've been exposed.
Christ, Riley, we kill hundreds of us every day with pistols and rifles,
and we can deal with it. We know that horror. It freaks the Canadians
badly, but we've learned how to live with it. But Thompson's trucks of
drugs do nothing to protect the public from the fear ... man, the fear
a biological weapon we cannot comprehend ... three deaths and even I'm
freaked.
RILEY: You really scared, Cody?
CODY: Not scared, Riley ... just that there's something so much larger about all this I can't put my finger on yet ...
RILEY: So, who's the other guy? I've got to get to work.
CODY: Transportation Secretary Minetta. Around the first part of October, some guy accidentally got a shotgun through security twice at the Colorado Springs airport. Ceramic knives can get through security. Airports, and planes are obviously not secured. The airports, and the offending airlines oughtta be shuttered as punishment and for rehabilitation for at least three days each instance.
RILEY: Shuttered?
CODY:
Sorry. I love the word.
To put it simply ... I'm angry, Riley. Furious. To my mind, these people
have proven they do not deserve our respect. This is the way things have
proven themselves out to me. Not only are people dying, but as long as
this kind of governmental incompetence is permitted to parade in front
of us on our TV tubes, our trust in our systems will gradually erode.
And that may be the greatest harm, in the end.
RILEY: Work'll wait a while. You want another cup? Some more talk-time?
Gimme your donut.
