1934?

Rated below the story of Guns and Roses' spat with Dr. Pepper in terms of popularity on CNN.com is the report that a committee in Congress expects a biological terror attack on a major city within the next five years.

These truly are strange days to be living.

This is striking to me on a number of different levels. Is the indifference to this report an aspect of living long under the delayed threat of another attack on US soil? Has complacency set in such that since it has not happened yet it, we therefore believe it cannot happen again? Do we dismiss the raised spectre of such an event to be yet another political gimmick to convert fear into power? Are we so fatigued by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that we do not want to contemplate a new angle on the global war on terror? Are we too absorbed in financial news and the threat of another global depression that we are deaf to all other threats to our security and well being? Do we feel hopeless in any vain attempts to personally prepare for such an event (i.e. "duck and cover")?

With an appropriate timeliness, I am still going through a biography on Winston Churchill. I read tonight that in July of 1934 , he spoke loudly in the House of Commons about England's vulnerability and the impending threat of bombings (particularly incendiary bombs) by the German Luftwaffe. He spoke of London being

"the greatest target in the world, a kind of tremendous, fat, valuable cow tied up to attract the beast of prey."

Later that year he added,

"The danger which might confront us would expose us not only to hideous suffering, but even to mortal peril, by which I mean peril of actual conquest and subjugation . . . The flying peril is not a peril from which one can flee. It is necessary to face it where we stand. We cannot possibly retreat."

At the time he noted,

"The fact remains that when all is said and done as regards defensive methods, pending some new discovery, the only direct measure of defence upon a great scale is the certainty of being able to inflict simultaneously upon the enemy as great damage as he can inflict upon ourselves."

With what defense do we arm ourselves against the threats of today?