The War on Terror

I was at the gym this morning and the gym is my main source of news.  I don't use headphones, I read the scroll so as long as the T.V. is within my sight zone, I get my morning news.  Some machines are too close, some are too far,  it's a Goldilocks thing.  This morning, as with many mornings, they were talking about the War on Terror.  And this morning, as with many mornings, I thought to myself, "You know, I don't really see any headway here."

Don't get me wrong, it must be a tough war to fight.  The more terror you experience, the more your resistance to it goes up.  In the last week I read two "Novels of Terror" to get myself in the Halloween spirit.  The first one was pretty good but by the third torture scene, I was all 'pfft' and flipped ahead to see it the dog survived.  The second one had potential;  good guys trapped on an island, evil medical experiments, and cannibals.  It also had a main character that carried around a baby in a sling through the entire book.  The kid didn't cry until page 297.  And it was a boy.  So really it was more a "Novel of Fantasy".   My kids and I would never survive the cannibals/aliens/nazis/zombies because they can't be quiet for 297 seconds let alone 297 pages.  "Be quiet." "You be quiet." "I am being quiet." "No, you're not." "Leave me alone." "Stop shoving." "I'm not shoving."  "I'm telling."  And, pow, we're all dead.  Anyway, by the second 'roasting alive' scene,  I was again flipping ahead to see if they ate the baby.  Terror is all relative.

And who decides if it's terror or not? If you asked me how to fight a War on Terror, I'd say round up Stephen King, Alfred Hitchcock, and whoever the hell is responsible for 'Insidious'.  That movie scared the hell out of me.  I had to pee in the middle of it and I made John walk me to the bathroom.....in our house.  Uncle Stevie has had me sleeping with the lights on more than once.  Alfred Hitchcock may be dead but crows will forever be evil little bastards who want to kill me.  You know what, let's round up Steven Spielberg while we are it because I still don't go in the water.  Even their music is terrifying.  Better grab the musicians too.  Oh, oh, and the American Horror Story people.  That show is creepy as hell.  Does that count?  It's so confusing because one person's terror is another person's creepy.  Who decides?

And air travel, talk about terrifying.   And I'm talking once you wade through all the morons in the terminal.  You'll never explain to me how that plane stays in the air.  It makes no sense. Half of that physics is made up and you know it.  Air pressure, my ass.  That plane is staying afloat with witchcraft and xanax.

Maybe there has been some headway made in the War on Terror.  It's the middle of October and the movie theaters are devoid of scary movies to usher in Halloween.  Guess I should have gone to see the 'Conjuring' when I had the chance.  A minor victory; very minor when you realize it will be On-Demand next month.  In fact, I can stream just about any horror movie out there and the books I read were downloaded to my Kindle in about 3 seconds.  I'm willing to bet that I actually have a greater access to Terror since this war began.  Maybe we should scrap the War of Terror and choose another emotion to declare war on.  How about Frustration or Apathy.

Now if you want to talk about the War on Terrorism, well, that's another story.....