Friday, January 21, 2005, 8:14
Friday, January 21, 2005, 8:14
Once again today at Ashland Station I notice the doctrine of ‘police presence’ as applied to the murky and amorphous undercurrent of our times. Yesterday an Ashland police officer wandered the south platform, all 6 foot 4 inches of him. Today with the weather hovering at zero degrees Fahrenheit, he made his presence known from a cruiser parked near the north entrance to the crossover tower.
The basis of the elevated attention is the release of an announcement from some alphabet soup federal authority, with poorly veiled motivations, in my humble opinion.
Today’s threat is described in the form of four Asian men — Chinese terrorists, we are told, bent on some action against Boston.
And the coincidence this time?
It happens the news comes splashing out on the very same day as the second inauguration George W. Bush.
To fan the well-timed fires, vague details were sent to various politicians in Massachusetts and even more vaguely leaked to the public – all to instigate a headless-chicken response right on queue.
Locating the threat in Massachusetts makes some sense as a nose-thumbing gesture aimed at John Kerry, as well as at the rest of the liberal establishment in this state.
But Chinese terrorists?
Perhaps they should hire a seasoned dart-thrower from among the old Soviet information ministries. Those guys knew how to make things up.
If this were only the first or second or third such coincidence, I chalk it up to happenstance. Yet lately it’s gotten bit harder to swallow after so much well-timed wolf-crying in response to dipping popularity numbers or the opposition landing political blows.
Both yesterday and today as our train pulled away, the Ashland cop was already heading off to other matters. Perhaps he returned for the 8:45 train. Yet no matter how vigilant and perceptive, an Ashland cop isn’t going to find any evil-doers among dozens of heavily bundled would-be passengers arriving from the terrorist havens of Ashland, Holliston, and Sherborn – all of us waiting and shivering in the cold.
He knows this. I know this. But he has his assignments, including those that make nary a dent.
Like the Ashland cops, the governor of the commonwealth (who is a member of the president’s political party) needed to show some local presence as well. In his case, he took one for the team by flying back from Washington. Here he read a reassuring speech standing conspicuously atop the statehouse steps. All politics is local, and no matter the professional value, Governor Romney couldn’t be seen in Washington partying the night away.
He, too, knows this. I, too, know this. But the governor has his job to do, including those parts that make nary a dent.
Mumbles Menino, the mayor of Boston, did his part in a hastily arranged and barely coherent enunciation on the matter, and everyone else tasked with local public safety initiated the usual robotic motions, however useless and performed for public consumption – doing something now so they can later say they were doing what they could.
Perhaps I am inured to the notion of terrorism, but it doesn’t help one bit when the boy cries wolf too many times. The story is worth recounting in detail at least one time in adulthood, and so here it is…
At the edge of earshot a shepherd’s son is left to tend the family’s sheep. Perhaps to calm his nerves, or more likely out of shear boredom, the boy sounds the alarm for an incoming wolf crying out “Wolf Wolf! Wolf!!” The boy’s father comes running. Yet the wolf is nowhere to be seen.
Once again bored, the boy sounds the alarm, then several times after that. Finally the father realizes the ploy and begins to come less quickly.
A pack of wolves then appear among the sheep and the boy, well-practiced in his alarm, bellows out “Wolf Wolf! Wolf!!”
No one comes to the rescue.
He calls out even louder, as loud as he can muster “Wolf Wolf! Wolf!!“
Still, no one comes to the rescue.
Soon the flock is shattered and the boy devoured as a convenient snack.
The father, too far away to notice, merely shakes his head in disgust at the boy’s inventive and realistic sounding screams.
Perhaps at my peril I ignore the pleas for vigilance. Yet at some point I simply had to ignore the shepherd boy for the sake of my dignity and humanity and personal liberty – all of which anchor a civil society that isn’t worth pitching aside for the sake of an amorphous threat.
Is there anything I can do about published threats, fictitious or real – other than to ignore the whole thing?
I am not a cop or soldier or politician. So the answer is clearly no.
This morning I’ve been riding on the south side of this carriage. For the moment I am afforded a pleasant view of Nickerson Field at Boston University. If not for the artic attire of those aboard this train, the bright morning sun might dispel some memory of the biting cold outside.
Soon past Fenway Park, frozen to a temperature too cold for baseball by at least 40 degrees, I feel the center of winter as much as anywhere I can imagine.
Only with news from Florida and Arizona rumbling of baseball spring training will the notion of winter’s grip begin to relax its icy hold on my bones. Until this week we had not seen much of the Old Man, and now it is likely he won’t be leaving anytime soon.
