Front Page
Commentary
Letters
Editorial
Feature
Health
Profile
Perspective
Legal
Real Estate
Finance
Africa News
Community
Arts & Entertainment

About Us
Advertising Info
Subscribe
Survey
Chat Room
Bulletin Board
Guest Book


Search

Past Issues

Current Weather
7-day Forecast
Traffic Map

SUPERMAN?

I don’t know about you? But I could really use Superman now. Okay, I know he’s a fictional cartoon, but it seems to me the nation is in need of someone with enormous powers, an indestructible body and a righteous sense for justice. American citizens, at least a lot of them then normal, are in a panic state. In the newspapers, magazines, on the television and radio talk shows people from coast to coast are frightened over their sudden loss of basic freedoms. Some feel helpless. Some feel hopeless.

Some say it’s karma coming back to haunt the U.S.A. for its oppressive afflictions on innocent people in its own country and around the world. Cynicism, criticism, chaos, condemnation, and contumely toward citizens have led to internal crisis in the land of the free. That’s why I say, metaphorically, a Superman is needed.

Bombings in Afghanistan continue to date. This defensive tactic hasn’t done much to weed bin Laden and his cronies out nor persuade them to surrender. Their terroristic resolve seems to intensify while innocent bystanders get killed and our military troops succumb to the strenuous rigors of the battle. When will it end? When will we win? It’s a rhetorical question to ponder seriously. Superman would have caught Osama bin Laden and been on his way back to the United States to drop bin Laden in a jail cell by now. The Taliban would mercifully plead for Superman not to remove their turbans in a swift, spinning top conquering moment and they would disband.

Let’s come on home and talk about the letters we’ve been getting signed sincerely, Anthrax. Some postal workers, media, government officials and citizens have received mail contaminated with Anthrax. The news reports will make you afraid to open your correspondences. Rightly so because some have died after being infected with the spores. Investigators haven’t been able to substantiate who or what’s behind these mailbox capers.

Superman, with his keen x-ray vision ability and his rapid reflects, could decipher which piece of mail shouldn’t be delivered. Perhaps too he’d figure out a criminal pattern to this stamped envelope debacle and bring the perpetrators to judicious victory. I think, though, the U.S. postal service has one upped our fictitious hero and will be incorporating a letter sanitizing system within various branch offices soon. Sigh or cry, the junk mail will return.

Lax security at the airports have scared folks away from cashing in on their frequent flyer miles benefits. The scrutiny of airplane travel has heightened since the September 11 attacks. Passengers are concerned about everything from weapons being smuggled on flights, inept security, cockpit vulnerability, federalizing airport personnel to bankruptcy of airlines. But if Superman were on standby, any plane veering off course, he’d fly up into the sky, put the plane back on its scheduled route, duke the bad dudes in their ugly, “I’ve-been-busted” faces, hand them over to the FBI and linger in the symphonic cheers of confidence passengers would courageously sing to him. And the airports would return to a booming business and more companies would enter the airline industry to compete in the marketplace and offer unique services to the travel consumer.

Overall in my fantasies, I see Superman swooping in to save the day and our national destiny. And the people of America could go on with the daily routines they once engaged without fear. Yet reality paints a picture too horrific for a Disney animation. We’re bonded to this terrorism dilemma for a long haul. What direction will we be pulled into? I don’t have a crystal ball to render an answer. Whatever it is, I hope and pray we all come out on the side of safety; sitting soundly in our homes watching baseball and eating “Dear Old Mum’s” apple pie. Peace!

Contributed by Vaughn Wilson

Listen to The Journalist's Soldiers of Fortune CD