The evolution of fear

I still have no update for you on the car-door-dinger. He's been hard to catch up with the past few days. When I have an update, I'll post it right away.

In the mean time, check out this story about a young man in Homestead, Fla., south and west of Miami, who was arrested on March 27th after making threats over the Internet to carry out a Virginia Tech-type massacre.

So police went to his home and they found a stash of more than a dozen guns, including several AK-47s, and more than 5,000 rounds of ammunition. Authorities are looking into whether the guns were purchased legally. Either way, 20-year-old Calin Chi Wong, who threatened to light things up like Va. Tech was released on $7,500 bond the very next day. He's free. On the street. After making that kind of threat.

There was a time people would have reacted in pure fear to that sort of threat. But what I found interesting about Wong's case is people around here - especially news consumers - sounded pissed off, not scared.

One Friday or Saturday night when I was like 17, I had the evening off from my part-time job at Belk, selling women's shoes. Yeah, go ahead and laugh. I made a mint on Nine West. Anyway, I had no date this night, so I was at a gym on a local naval base playing pick-up basketball with my buddies. We were all enjoying a good game - a little rough, but typical for playground style hoops. Anyway, after one sorta hard foul, the recipient of the blow complained that it was uncalled for. It was an accident. He was hit during a mad scramble for the ball. But instead of accepting the offender's apologies, the guy who was fouled yells out that he's pissed off and that he's going out to the parking lot to his car to retrieve a gun. Well, at first we all reacted the way you might expect. We started yelling and running in circles like chickens with our heads cut off. But then one of the guys stops us and says wait a minute. If he supposedly has a gun in his car, why are we allowing him to go to his car? Good question. So our fear instantly turned to anger, and we banded together like Minutemen, sprinted out the door, and caught him before he made it to his car. Then we proceeded to beat him like a cartoon character. I'm not a violent guy by nature. I'm more peaceful than Gandhi. But this guy threatened our lives. Surely no one will disagree with me, when I say this guy deserved it? The base police came. We explained what happened. Surprisingly he didn't deny it. And the police basically told him he got what he deserved. They searched his car and found no gun, made him leave the gym, and he was banned from coming back onto the base.

My point is these types of reactions are good signs, as far as I'm concerned. People who mass murder and people who threaten to do so may be forced to think twice about their actions if they believe us sheeple, the general public will stand up to them and stop them in their tracks.

Sign of the times

In the days and weeks after a big tragedy - most recently the Virginia Tech massacre - people are on edge. It's only natural.

So you can understand my chagrin about an hour ago, when I heard an unfamiliar voice in the newsroom yell out, "Which way is the publisher's office?" This wasn't a mousy voice. It was loud, confident even, like the person behind it was on a mission. Or maybe I'm just paranoid.

I heard in my mind that cartoonish screeching-to-a-halt sound, my fingers lifted themselves off my keyboard, I screwed up my face and made that "ruh?" sound that Scooby Doo used to make when he was confused or facing a conundrum.

Then I made eye contact with a colleague whose desk is across from mine. And the look on his face said that he'd heard it - the question, not the cartoon screeching sound - too.

OK, laugh if you must, but my thoughts went in this order: "Disgruntled postal worker! No wait, this isn't the post office. Disgruntled reporter! Pissed off reporter! Reporter, who, like Milton Waddams, the red stapler dude in Office Space, feels like he's been kicked around! Crap! We're about to get lit up and I'm working on a really good story!"

Seriously, all those thoughts flashed through my mind in about 5.3 seconds. I'm guessing at the point-three. But it was close.

I don't think I would've dove under my desk. But I'm no hero. So I'm not ruling it out.

Fortunately, it didn't come down to that. A few seconds later I saw the source of the voice: a young woman, pushing some sort of delivery cart. She was lost. Her question was what it was. She just wanted to find the publisher's office, where she apparently had a harmless delivery to make.

A minute or so later my colleague across the way and I shared a nervous laugh. He observed that someone - perhaps several someones - had quickly pointed her in the right direction....away from all of us. Hmmm.

Just like the fat guy looking at himself in one of those beautifying distortion mirrors at the carnival, I picture myself pointing my imagined disgruntled-postal-reporter-person into a broom closet, slamming the door shut, and bracing it with a heavy filing cabinet, thus saving the day.

In reality, I probably would have hidden under my desk....along with everyone else.

But how crazy is it that so much nuttiness is going on in the world that a person asking what turned out to be a perfectly innocent question can put us on edge?