Per Atrios, we see that the Department of Homeland Security has slashed anti-terrorism funds for New York, having concluded that the city has No Icons, No Monuments Worth Protecting.
The formula did not consider as landmarks or icons: The Empire State Building, The United Nations, The Statue of Liberty and others found on several terror target hit lists. It also left off notable landmarks, such as the New York Public Library, Times Square, City Hall and at least three of the nation’s most renowned museums: The Guggenheim, The Metropolitan and The Museum of Natural History.
The form ignored that New York City is the capital of the world financial markets and merely stated the city had four significant bank assets.
The formula did note a commuter population of more than 16 million around the city twice struck by fundamentalist terrorists and twice more targeted in plots halted in pre-operational stages. It noted the more than eight million residents and the largest rail ridership in the nation – more than five million. It is those commuters and rail riders who are expected to suffer most from the cuts since mass transit is listed on most DHS alerts as the top terror target.
Now, a lot of people are upset about this, because they simply don’t understand the complicated formula the government uses to determined why, for instance, the Mall of America is far more likely to be the site of a major terrorist attack than the Statue of Liberty or the New York Stock Exchange. (Well, not the entire Mall of America, but there have been credible threats against Camp Snoopy.) These critics are superficial and uninformed, the type of people who look at a drum and simply see the skin, never realizing there is actually a complicated network of intricate moving parts underneath the drumhead that makes that thumping sound. The Department of Homeland Security spits upon idiots like you, but really more in sorrow than in anger.
Carpers and cavilers who rush to judgment are clearly unaware of the Department’s ongoing efforts, based upon the FBI’s Witness Relocation Program, to safeguard America’s irreplaceable cultural and historic treasures by transferring them from noisome and crowded urban conditions to the clean, bracing air and wide-open spaces of our vigorous Western states.
The Statue of Liberty, a piece of vaguely pornographic French bric-a-brac that seems to attract immigrants like a bug zapper without the corresponding virtue of electrocuting the wretched refuse as they approach, has nonetheless been admitted to the program. The DHS, concerned about the damage Lady Liberty sustains daily due to the briny air, rescued her from the island upon which she has been marooned, Gilligan-like for the past 120 years, and transported her to a dry, corrosion-free climate: Texas.
In addition to benefiting from year-round sunshine and low humidity, this overgrown lawn gnome now has a far better chance of attracting visitors as it basks in the reflected glory of a genuine American icon, the Cadillac Ranch.
But it’s not only brobdignagian representations of French whores that have profited from the Department’s tireless efforts. The United Nations, a social club for swarthy men who like to flout municipal parking regulations, has likewise been relocated. Plucked from the insecure shores of the East River, the General Assembly building and it’s dusky occupants now enjoy the comforting if symbolic protection of the Golden Driller, a Colossus who bestrides Tulsa Oklahoma and sleeplessly watches over its petroleum extraction industry.
Even kitsch artifacts from the distant past have been spared by the Department of Homeland Security, such as the Unisphere from the 1964 World’s Fair. The theme represented by this hokey chunk of pop art was “Peace Through Understanding.” What the Department understands is that if it were destroyed by Al Qaeda, our offices would be swarmed by hippies and t-shirt-sporting mothers of Iraqi war dead, and we’d never get the stink of patchouli and pot out of our nubby cubicle wall fabric. So the Unisphere has been relocated to a plot of pristine desert land set aside by the Bureau of Land Management for the exclusive use of off-road vehicles and giant leftist hood ornaments.
All significant icons and monuments, and all buildings of historic and cultural interest have been removed from New York City, and relocated to the economically and demographically vibrant Southwestern States. With the exception of the New York Times building, which we’re leaving behind as bait.
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