Times Square as it was, almost
A New York firefighter clearing a crowd in Times Square last week as he investigated a loud boom:
It’s not Disneyland, people. Get the hell out of the way.
The New York Times’s David Carr brilliantly describes the psychology of congregating in The Crossroads days after a terrorist tried to bomb it.
The increased police presence, which included one officer leaning on a squad car parked dead center on the broad median between 42nd and 43rd Streets, should have been a source of comfort but seemed more a reminder that this playground can become a cauldron in a heartbeat. I thought about what this remarkable evening tableau would look like if another terrible shoe dropped here, and then shook it off as prurient and unproductive.
My thoughts also. As I joined the throngs last week on my way to a reception at 3 Times Square, the place seemed unfazed in its normal madness. It was like nothing, almost, had changed.
Tags: New York City, terrorism
The scariest thing about Shahzad
The scariest thing about alleged Times Square car-bomber Faisal Shahzad is that his money troubles in Connecticut might be what drove him over the edge into the terrorist swamp. There are lots of people with money troubles these days.
A NYT item titled, Money Woes, Long Silences and Islamic Zeal, opens up that possibility. It speculates how an educated employee for Elizabeth Arden trying to cash in the housing bubble might have suddenly found radical religion: His dream suburban house went into foreclosure, and terrorism is how he dealt with the sense of failure.
This passage stands out:
People who knew them, both in Connecticut and in Pakistan, said he had changed in the past year or so, becoming more reserved and more religious as he faced what someone who knows the family well called “their financial troubles.”
This feeds into my long-held theory that terrorists are fragile people who politicize their personal problems rather than face up to their frailties.
Tags: personal finances, terrorism
