Short Stories, Long Odds

Here’s to the confusion of our enemies! - Frank Sinatra

Dear Government:

I would like to ask you a question. If I were in charge of Homeland Security (or just if we were living in that fantasy world where everyone listened to me and believed in my righteous rightness), can you guess where I would put all the money? I would most likely give the majority of it to our largest ports and busiest airports, as well as major metropolitan centers, especially those with mass transit systems. That would be the terrorism money. The natural disaster money is something different.

But I’m curious, Homeland Security -why would you give most of the terrorism money to Alabama? I’m just spitballing here, and I know I’ve said it before, but how many terrorists are casing a joint like Alabama? Why would you give Kansas a million Congressional Funbucks, but deny all applications from Newport News, VA, America’s sixth busiest port and home to a major Coast Guard facility?

I understand that it is easy to sit back and point fingers, and to become an Armchair Despot. I get that. But this doesn’t make any sense. If you combine that with the State Department’s current Weapons / Jungle Warfare Shopping Spree, and you get Italian guys in your brain. They emphatically, yet coloquially, implore you to banish the consideration of such obvious oddities from memory