Ready.gov Launches: Ready, Set...Terror!

Posted on February 19, 2003

Feeling bored? Filled with ennui? Need some more thrills in your life or a good scare? Then I recommend a trip to a website that is more frightening than a Stephen King novel, and more surreal than anything written by Douglas Adams.

Today the U.S. Government launched its terrorism preparedness website, www.ready.gov. The website loads incredibly quickly -- it's clear they have planned for millions of people to visit, and so have have put the site on dedicated servers with extremely fast connections to the Internet backbone. The site gives an overview of what you're supposed to do with all that duct tape you purchased last week. Ok, seriously, the site tells you what in the world you, Joe Citizen, are supposed to do in case of a biological, chemical, or nuclear terrorist attack.

So, what does all this mean anyway? Is this just Tom Ridge trying to justify his new budgetary allocation? I don't think so. After all, if you had told people in, say 1997, about what would happen on 9/11, no one would have believed you. This is America. That's too far-fetched to ever happen here. What makes this website all the more alarming is something we all know from reading all those Le Carre novels over the years: the stated policy of any government on almost any issue that might cause a mass panic is to -- you guessed it -- not tell us. Because, as soon as you issue a warning, people totally freak out. Like the guy who covered his entire house in duct tape and plastic (I am not making this up) after hearing Secretary Ridge's comments last week. If Osama bin Laden has access to cable, he must be laughing his head off.

So when you have the U.S. government actually recommending that all citizens purchase potassium iodide, which "may or may not protect your thyroid gland, which is particularly vulnerable, from radioactive iodine exposure," -- presumably from a dirty bomb -- this is Not Good. Especially since the site's writers don't even seem to know if this potassium iodide will or will not work. What I seem to recall from those horrible Hiroshima and Nagasaki films we were forced to watch in high school was that if you are anywhere near a real nuclear bomb going off (as opposed to "just" a dirty bomb) you are in Big Trouble. If you aren't immediately vaporized or burned beyond all recognition, you die of Really Horrible Things about 10 years later. The people who are instantly vaporized suffer quite a bit less, actually. Which leads one to ponder: how bad are things when getting instantly vaporized is the preferred alternative?

In California, most everyone already has an earthquake preparedness kit, with water, flashlights, batteries, food etc., and a plan to get in contact with family members in case the Big One hits. It's probably not a bad idea for all Americans to have a kit like that. That's just common sense.

I don't know about you, but I really long for the good old, pre-9/11 days. Remember the Internet boom? All those obnoxious 22 year-olds running things? The cover of Time magazine shouting, "Why Aren't You Rich?" Employee stock options being worth something? Anne Heche making the rounds of the talk shows to discuss her ever-changing sexual orientation, her alter-ego Celestia and the arrival of the Mother Ship? It seemed like the bubble would never burst. But it did, bin Laden launched his war and here we are in the America of today: broke and stressed out beyond belief. Now, where did I put that duct tape...?