Thursday, August 17, 2017

a bad start

Today is the first day of school for the grade-school kids in my town.

Guess what happened near one of the elementary schools (the one on the south side of town)?

An alleged pipe bomb was found in a car. Yeah. The school is on lockdown. Those poor kids - in fact, I think there's a kindergarten there so for some kids this is their first day of school, and this is what happens. I hope the teachers manage to keep things calm and maybe even try to keep the scariest stuff from the kids.

There's a suspect in custody, apparently had warrants out for his arrest and the classic "alcohol is suspected to be involved" line was given in the brief news story.

They're still waiting on a bomb squad as of about an hour ago.

but yeah. This is really not cool. And yes, I know, 13 or more people are dead in Barcelona because of yet another van attack. There is just too much bad stuff coming too fast and too loudly.

The only thing I can say about the pipe-bomb thing is (a) at least it didn't go off and I assume the bomb squad will defuse it - if it is even a bomb, it could be a fake, that's happened and (b) speaking selfishly, this is on the other side of town from where I work and live so I'm safe where I am and I should have no trouble getting home.

But still. Those poor kids. I would have been freaked out by a "lockdown" when I was a schoolkid. I marvel that back then - more innocent times, I guess - the big concerns were tornadoes or getting everyone out fast enough if there were a fire. (We had tornado drills and fire drills; we never even though of the possibility  of "armed invader" drills).

I just want to build a blanket fort.

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