DAY THIRTY:Oct. 10:
I am thousands of miles away from home tonight and my heart is aching for New York. It feels a bit disingenuous for me to be writing a daily entry, as the whole point of these missives is to update you, My Friend, about things in New York. But perhaps a few observations are worthwhile.
I had longstanding obligations here in the Seattle area, but nearly cancelled them because of the greater need to be in New York, covering the story for Newsday. In particular, the anthrax situation in Florida and ongoing concerns about bioterorrism weighed heavily. And, to be honest, I feel terribly guilty about setting foot outside New York, though it has been a month since The Calamity. Many New Yorkers have expressed similar feelings of loyalty, as if failing to be in the city each and every day, giving it one's full emotional attention, were tantamount to missing the funeral of a loved one or skipping own when danger lurked. I toiled late into the day yesterday on a story that ran in today's Newsday on the Florida situation, and then raced to JFK Airport for a flight to Seattle. None of my prior options were available, due to news needs, so I took JetBlue, formerly -- and ominously -- known as Value Jet.
Despite reports that airport security is lax I found the situation quite the contrary. I was singled out in a random sequence, according to the JetBlue check-in person, for a thorough search. All my luggage was removed from me, passed through a large bag X-ray, and then returned to my possession for check-in. When I reached the security gate the giant S marked on my ticket by the first desk clerk haunted me: I had been singled out by their computer for reasons I will never know based on something that preceded my arrival at the airport. So, I was ordered to remove some of my clothing right there, in public, with several male National Guardsmen looking on. My laptops and cell phone were removed from my bags and submitted to special screening wipes. I was told to remove all articles of clothing that had metal zippers, which, as it turned out, included my jacket and pants. No privacy was offered.
This morning I had to fly, after three hours of airport hotel sleep, to Yakima, a distance of 40 minutes airtime. It took two hours to clear security for the 45-minute flight. After my speaking engagements in Yakima, at the Washington State Public Health convention, I had to fly back to Seattle: go figure, security took five minutes. It is hard o believe that this security situation can reasonably persist in this chaotic, often deeply time consuming form, without seriously impeding commerce in America. Business travelers are accustomed to racing to their flights minutes before gate departure. At the airports business travelers told me they are willing to accommodate to security needs, but they need consistency, predictability. If air travel means another hour, so be it: but let it be consistently and accurately known
The Yakima trip afforded me the opportunity to meet with Mike Bird, President of the American Public Health Association, as well as Washington's State Commissioner of Health and her Board. Their insights regarding post-September 11 public health were striking. Despite the scale of New York's tragedy, and the very real threat of terrorism, Board members complained that antigovernmentalism sentiments remain high in Washington especially Seattle --- and come not from the Right, as is the case in most of the nation, but the Left. If anything, they say, the antagonism they feel from the community is greater since the September 11 disaster. This is a striking departure from what is being seen in most of the rest of the country, where libertarian and right wing anti-government sentiments are yielding to fears of terrorism and recognition that government is, in the end, the public's only protector.
Nationally, Bird told me, the sentiments are completely opposite of those voiced against local health authorities here in the Seattle area. Bird, a Pueblo Indian from New Mexico, has traveled widely across America and Canada in his APHA role, and been on the road nonstop since September 11. The whole nation is depressed, he said, and deeply disturbed. There is a sense of something being amiss in the universe, of unsettling unpredictability and deep sadness. What New Yorkers feel is obviously more profound, Bird continued, but the whole nation is in a strange stupor. He likened it to the moment when people realize they need therapy. Nobody sees a therapist because one day they rationally sat down and said to themselves, I need to fix this and this and this. They see a therapist because they are in tremendous pain and something has forced deep-seeded issues so close to the surface that it hurts. Now America is ready for therapy. It should have gone through therapy a zillion years ago, but it's ready now. The pain is finally enough.
What, in the end, will we a nation be?
Be well. Be safe. Stand defiant.
Laurie Garrett
