If news is what people talk about, if it’s the events and happenings that break up routine, then today’s big news seems to be a mystery missile launch on the West Coast.
I’ve looked at the video, and from the shape of the vapor trail I can see why people think it’s something that was launched away from the camera. To me it looks like a plane flying toward the camera, the contrail of which is being blown apart by high-altitude winds. I don’t have any proof of this, but one of the things I spent a lot of time doing over the past few years is looking at the sky and waiting for a vapor trail to drop thousands of pounds of explosives on a hill or valley nearby.
What’s more interesting to me is that I couldn’t find a link that didn’t include an ad at the beginning of the clip. Which makes me wonder if interest in this mystery missile is being driven by a real mystery, or by a manufactured mystery that guarantees page views and clicks. Nothing sells local news like a video of a plane-crash somewhere else.
On the same day the mystery missile story got a lot of play, the New York Times ran a story about how various interest groups are fed up with security delays at airports. Apparently the job of trying to find possible threats to air safety is getting in the way of consumer expectations, if not travel industry profits.
Missile over the sky on the West Coast? Spine tingling. Spooky. Terrorism thrill.
Trying to keep planes from being blown up or used as flying bombs? Irritation. Victimization. Whining.
The American mind.