Who’d A Thunk It?
December 30, 2009, 7:37 am
Posted by Robert P. Imbelli
Maureen Dowd composing a Newmanian period … make that “question:”
If we can’t catch a Nigerian with a powerful explosive powder in his oddly feminine-looking underpants and a syringe full of acid, a man whose own father had alerted the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, a traveler whose ticket was paid for in cash and who didn’t check bags, whose visa renewal had been denied by the British, who had studied Arabic in Al Qaeda sanctuary Yemen, whose name was on a counterterrorism watch list, who can we catch?
While the old gray lady (not Maureen) breathlessly catches up to dotCommonweal:
Let us be clear: the system did not work.
Though diocesan papers appear to be getting fewer and fewer or smaller and smaller, we do seem to be returning to the days when such journals proudly told how a Catholic cat bested a Protestant dog. Perhaps I am trading in the same by being a bit triumphalistic about the successes of Catholic education. Whatever one may think of Maureen Dowd’s opinions (including, it appears from reading this site, her blatant anti-Catholicism), she is a better than average writer. In grade school at Nativity, Washington, D.C., she was taught by the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, who taught in many parish schools on the East Coast. (They were my teachers at Our Lady of Lourdes in the Washington suburban town, Bethesda. They were excellent teachers.) Mauren Dowd later did a B.A. in English at The Catholic University of America. CUA has since the 1930s had a stellar Department of English. “Catholic Cat Bests Protestant Dog”? Well, Catholic Schools Week is coming next month. Let’s get ready to show our thanks.
Re “Let us be clear. The system did not work.”
Let us be equally clear. There is no foolproof system. Bemoaning that fact is just silly. One commentator on last evening’s Lehrer Newshour would have us spend $100 billion on looking for a foolproof system. Of course, that would put paid to any budget provisions for helping the poorest among us, reasonable foreign aid, etc. For some foolish people, it will always be “Whatever it takes, make me feel invulnerable.”
Thank you, Bernard Dauenhauer. Well said!
I agree with Bernard.
I thought NPR was right today that in this time when there’s little news, much focus on the incident for “shameless” political purpose, that’s part of the de riguer partisanship in which we live.
Undoubtedly human error was involved in the incident.
We also need to have cooperation abroad.
I see that a poll means more than half of us fear flying due to safety issues, but that is the world i nwhich we live and in which we try to keep making prudent improvements.
Those improvemnts would be better to be in place if we’d stop the poloitical posturing about national security -and health care – and the common goood, etc!
“she is a better than average writer.”
Yes.
Btw, I read the valedictory column this week from another very fine newspaper writer with whom I frequently disagreed but usually read: Ellen Goodman.
I certainly have to agree that there will never be a foolproof system. On the other hand that does not mean that we cannot have a reasonably effective system that is also reasonable. Forbidding passengers to go to the bathroom during the last hour of a flight seems to be a response that is both ineffective and foolish. It looks like in this case there was more than one human failing in the chain, but that is not an excuse to make life more difficult for passengers which is about all some of the new requirements are likely to accomplish
I am sick and tired of being inconvenienced when I want to fly and take everything I own on board with me and jammed wherever.
Oh, yes, if something happens to me while flying I’ll sue the butts off’n the airline, their insurance company, their grandparents and anyone else I can blame for not inconveniencing me enough in this particular case.