(Image by Kin, Bad Day LA concept art)
I am a frequent reader of a column by writer Fred Reed. His views on many things having to do with life, politics, and the world in general are usually spot-on, humorous, and very much in line with my own views. One of his recent posts echoed the tag line for Bad Day LA (“Are you prepared?!”), so I feel compelled to share it:
August 14, 2005
Washington, DC—It’s getting stranger, I tell you. Riding the subway from Vienna Station to Franconia-Springfield, at every stop the woman driving the train said in an over-elocuted voice, “A-ten-tion, customers. This is a Metro Safety Tip. Pay attention to your surroundings. Look up from your newspapers and blackbirds [it sounded like, though nobody seemed to be carrying any sort of bird at all] every now and then. Report suspicious activity to Metro employees immediately.â€
Then—I can’t stand it: “Let’s be pre-pared, not scared.â€
Seriously. Is this the world we live in now? I get the distinct feeling that no one in the Whitehouse has ever seen the film Brazil. It really is getting stranger.
Read the full article here.
You can check out Fred’s full site here.
4 responses to ““Be prepared, not scared.””
Down here in Australia. We got fridge magnets sent by the PM that stated we should “Be Alert, Not Alarmed!”
Well, I sometimes wonder about Brazil… I’m Belgian and I can tell you, we’re slowly turning into that kind of “American paranoia style” (to my point of view, that’s one of the first things you’ll think about if you say “Americans” – that’s sad). TV starts to bring up some bad news… well; to be honest, these are not news anymore. It’s mostly like useless facts, used to spread the good words: “be afraid, be very afraid!”… The matter is it’s working… and pretty quickly I have to say (it work efficiently with old people, maybe because they are always afraid anyway). Kinda frightening, hu?
(My English is awful sometimes… sorry about that)
Have you ever looked back at certain eras and sort of giggled?
Like the way we giggle at the 50s for some of their silly instructional videos. Or the way we can look back at the greeks and think its silly that they thought big titans lived on mountains.
I always wondered why its so easy to laugh at things from the past, but never critically reflect on your own time and question how it will be mocked in the future. Maybe if we just thought “hey … some day people will be laughing at us!!” then possibly we could shape the world up to something to not be laughed at … but i dont see that happening any time soon .
I am told my great great great grandfather used to spout the exact same thing about being wary of foreigners. But he was Sioux and they did have good reason to not trust all those white, brown, yellow, green, errr… whatever people.
Sorry folks, but I gave up on all the paranoia in the U.S and moved to Thailand.
PS, Has the Prez started mumbling about burning books yet?