Uncle Frank's
Diary
Number Sixteen
Drop the Almanac, Pal,
and Spread ‘Em!
Uncle Frank’s in trouble. He’s an almanac user.
Not that he wasn’t in trouble before, but now the fit is really
going to hit the Shan. Surely you’ve seen the news: On Christmas
Eve, the FBI alerted 18,000 law enforcement agencies nationwide
about the threat posed the Homeland by (gasp!) almanac users. The
geniuses at the Hoover Building want law officers everywhere to be
on the alert during traffic stops, donut breaks, and high-speed
chases on the Fox Network for people carrying these dangerous
weapons of mass statistics.
Especially worrisome are almanacs “annotated in suspicious ways.”
You know, the ones bearing idle marginalia along the lines of “lb
butter & doz. eggs,” or “Alice 231-5566,” or “Bush Sux.”
Talk about suspicious—and these people are.
“All right, Buddy, out of the car! Drop the book! Put your hands
on the roof! On the roof, I said!”
The paunchy, balding librarian does his best to comply with the
officer’s gentle encouragement. He knows his crime: driving while
almanacked. There’s no denying it, and no escape. The copy of the
World Almanac spread eagled on the passenger seat is all the
proof necessary to demonstrate his ill intent. And wait until the
authorities get a load of the annotations. God in heaven, and all’s
wrong with the world.
Roadmap to Ruination
According to the bulletin the FBI Seekers of Evil sent out,
“Terrorist operatives may rely on almanacs to assist with target
selection and preoperational planning.”
You bet. Practically any almanac has tons of info useful to those
of the terrorist persuasion. Just thumb through one at random.
You’ll see lists of big cities, sports stadiums, airports, data on
condom use, beer consumption, television ratings, best-selling
records, you name it: If it’s done in the USA, it’s all there, a
virtual roadmap to the destruction of the American Way of Life.
Small wonder that in his last address to the world, Osama bin
Laden gloated over capturing a cache of 2004 almanacs. Even now, his
operatives are busy distributing them to cells everywhere. Without
almanacs, these guys wouldn’t even be able to find North America.
With them, they’ll be driving truck bombs into your attached garage
while you’re concentrating on America’s Most Moronic Celebrity
Interviews on Fox. Count on it.
All right, all right, everyone knows this is ridiculous.
Everyone, that is, except the aforementioned bright lights of legal
intelligence at The Hoove, and John (Lost the Senate Seat to a Dead
Man) Ashcroft, and everyone else in the most feckless administration
since Harding’s.
But is this weird fixation on almanacs not also ominous? If the
Bush Gangsters are addled enough to believe that these annual guides
provide some uniquely valuable grist for terrorists—stuff, for
example, that they couldn’t look up readily with Google—why would
they not identify other publications as at least equally indicative
of menace?
Selections from the Terrorist’s Book Club
Like a good portion of the books in the reference collection some
50 feet from where I now sit, and that anyone could consult
simply by walking into the library and asking for help at the
reference desk. What could a terrorist do with the CRC Handbook
of Chemistry and Physics? How about the Encyclopedia of
Infectious Diseases, or the Handbook of Toxic and Hazardous
Chemicals and Carcinogens, or the Encyclopedia of
Guerrilla Warfare? I’m betting that a conscientious, thoughtful
terrorist could find some inspirational reading in any of those
books, among many others freely accessible in countless libraries.
And the FBI is worried about almanacs?
“The full force of Homeland Security all across this nation is at
work to keep you safe,” Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge
recently said.
Wow. It certainly fills me with a peaceful, easy feeling to know
that Sec’y Tom and the boys have caught on to the lurking dangers of
almanacs. I mean, these guys are doing a first-rate job!
And how long will it take them to catch on to the multitude of
other avenues that terrorists could employ to obtain worthwhile
information? Not just books in the reference collection, but like,
oh, daily newspapers? Can we really consider ourselves safe when
everywhere we look, we can see signs that people—strangers!—are
finding out details about what’s going on in our own hometowns
simply by shelling out 50 cents for the local newsrag?
Sooner or later, the agents of security will awaken to all
they’ve been missing: that free flow (although not as free as it
once was) of information that makes livin’ in the USA more fun and
better for your health than living most other places. When they do
wake up, and realize that the almanac scare is only a warm-up, a
practice toss, better keep your reading habits to yourself.
They’ll be watching you. And taking suspicious notes.
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Graphic by Karen McGinnis
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