Today’s color is suspicious purple. (Why purple? It just looks suspicious.) Our troops in Iraq and civilians here are being forced to become more suspicious of everybody. U.S. soldiers attacking our own troops with grenades, Iraqis pretending to surrender before they open fire, it seems you can’t trust anybody these days. Then we have the electronic highway signs telling us to report suspicious activity. This Washington Post article tells the story of a reporter who was detained because he was curious about a metal box set up near the Jefferson Memorial. A tourist saw him looking at it and taking notes, so she called the police. When the reporter had the chutzpah to ask the cops about the box, they called for backup, seized his notebook, and gave him the third degree. I’m a believer in “better safe than sorry”, but it’s a shame we’ve been reduced to this.
