Stephen Gale: You're all gonna die -- and soon!

(This article appeared in the 3/31/03 joke issue)

Everyone dies eventually. It's just a simple fact of life. You, your parents, your friends will all die.

So why is everyone so concerned all of a sudden with the threat of another terrorist attack on America? Statistically speaking, at least one of you reading this column will die tomorrow. Of course, you don't know that yet, and you're probably thinking that some Islamic fundamentalist will fly a plane into High Rise South.

There's nothing you can do to prevent your imminent death. There was plenty we could have done to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks.

Oh, but nobody listened to me. I've been warning the federal government for years about the threat posed by Islamic fundamentalists. I even wrote a memo about the possibility of terrorists hijacking planes and flying them into buildings. All I ever heard was, "That Gale is crazy. He might as well go smoke that pipe of his in an insane asylum with his terrorist friends."

Now, all of a sudden, students are banging down the door to get into my Terrorism seminar. It's not their fault that they sit there and ask the most inane questions -- they have been indoctrinated into believing that America is a safe country and that our pathetic Homeland Security Department will protect them from the nuclear war that should break out in a few years. Their minds have been brainwashed by their elementary school teachers, who sat there years ago teaching the alphabet when they should have been teaching them how to create anthrax from a shoelace, a piece of cardboard and a bottle of applesauce.

I try to explain to my students that America's policies in the Middle East for the past 50 years have created this Islamic faction. I try to convey that this war in Iraq is solving nothing and is merely delaying the inevitable retaliation that will come in the form of an attack on the American embassy in Bulgaria next month.

For years, I tried to convince just about anyone who would listen that we were doomed. All of a sudden, one massive attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon gets them to listen.

Well, it took you all long enough. Nobody took me seriously, and now the DP calls every five seconds to ask me what I think about the friggin' terror alert being raised from pink to orange.

I would feel vindicated after years of research, but my joy is muted by the knowledge that we could all die from the next al Qaeda attack, which will likely be in the form of bombing a nuclear power plant and could happen within the next week. I'm currently in the process of stocking up my bomb shelter and installing a satellite videophone so I can explain to some moronic Fox News anchorman why the world was bombed into oblivion.

People often ask me if there is anything our society can do to prevent another attack, or whether this war will end the threat of terrorism, or whether the Homeland Security Department can defend our country. I've suggested countless times that the easiest way to avoid terrorism is for the entire world to convert to Islam.

Wait, you know what? I've been answering these questions for years. Why don't you just call Tom Ridge and ask him yourself? Ask him why the CIA has botched every major anti-terrorism operation in the last 40 years. Then, when he starts crying, hang up, call me and then I'll answer your questions.

In the meantime, I'm going to go about my business as usual, offering students an opportunity to learn about the true reasons for terrorism and teaching them why duct tape won't save them when chemicals start falling from the sky. Which, by the way, will likely happen this July 4 weekend.

Stephen Gale is a Political Science professor and the biggest optimist we know. With Professor Gale, the glass is always half full.

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