The office of Homeland Security spent the week warning us that Al Qaeda might be a serious threat this summer.
The FBI dispatched a bulletin to some 18,000 state and local law enforcement agencies warning of the threat. The Boulder Police responded immediately by performing an under-age drinking sting in bars on the Hill.
When international danger lurks, Boulder swings into action.
Believing that the current color-coding system of yellow, orange, and red alerts is insensitive to people of color, city council is re-naming the alert system for Boulder.
* An “Uncomfortable” Alert will mean that Boulderites should feel uneasy about the world situation and guilty about American consumerism.
* A “Be afraid, be very afraid” Alert will mean that we should stockpile organic vegetables and be on the lookout at for CU recruits.
* And a “Panic” Alert will mean all Republicans will be roundup and detained as enemy combatants. This was previously known as Thursdays.
It is expected that we will be at least at the “Uncomfortable” Alert level throughout the summer. Citizens are encouraged to prepare by having in every home: Perrier bottled water, re-chargeable batteries, books by Noam Chomsky and several back-issues of the Utne Reader.
When a “Be afraid, be very afraid” Alert is sounded, key areas of community-wide importance will be secured. Metal detectors will be placed at the entrances of Liquor Mart and Eads Smoke Shop. Cars will be stopped all long Broadway, although no one will notice any difference. And Boulder Valley School District teachers will protect themselves by using their students as human shields.
When a “Panic” Alert is issued, Boulder will immediately hold seminars explaining how America deserves to be hated, and how terrorism is somehow our fault. “Panic” Alerts will be coordinated with the Conference on World Affairs week at CU. Noam Chomsky will visit in person.
Of course all these elements are part of Boulder’s broader “It’s not you, it’s us” campaign on terrorism preparedness.
Taking a cue from the Independent Investigative Commission which found that the sins of CU’s football program were somehow due to a lack of racial diversity on campus, the city is concerned about the apparent lack of racial diversity of Islamic terrorists. The city is working on a program to recruit terrorists from “under represented” minority groups.
Groups such as the Islamic Rainbow Jihad will help encourage the acceptance of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered terrorists.
Boulder is also concerned that so few Muslim extremists call Boulder home. Just as one of our former mayors made national headlines by advertising that we needed to get more poor people to move to Boulder, the current council is working on ways to import Islamic militants.
Brochures detailing how the city quickly dispatches any signs of public acceptance of Christianity, like our fabled Christmas “angel tree,” from public display are being sent to the Middle East. It is part of the Chamber of Commerce’s “Boulder, it’s not just for ECO-terrorists” advertising campaign.
As part of the Jobs to Population social engineering program, certain tax credits will be made available to terrorists who live, and work, along proposed rail stops, in transit oriented developments. This way terrorist won’t have be auto-dependent when taking out trains.
First things first. Terrorists living in urban villages will get eco-passes. Terrorism may be a fact of modern life, but that is no reason Boulder should abandon its first goal of ensuring public safety by vigorously enforcing the Kyoto protocols.
None of this is to suggest that Boulder will go easy on terrorists. No, quite the opposite. The fallout of terrorism can be very harmful to the environment and our goals of reaching Kyoto compliance. That is why the city is working on terrorist retraining programs to help older, suicide bombing extremists learn new skills in non ozone damaging bio-terrorism and cyber-terrorism.
“Kyoto will be reached, even if it kills us,” is the mantra whispered in the halls of municipal buildings
Boulder is not nearly as ego-centric as many believe. In fact Boulder has offered its help in finding and bringing to justice known terrorists, such as Osama Bin Laden. Guaranteeing results, the chief of police has offered to lend out to the FBI the detectives working on the Susannah Chase and JonBenet murders.
City leaders assure us they will handle terrorists with the same lightening fast response they have shown towards West Nile carrying mosquitoes.
Sleep well.