[L]ast month, when a woman was raped and beaten by a stranger in the parking garage of a downtown Boston hotel, there were no mass e-mails, no press releases, no citywide alert...Why? So they can all head for the Sphinx when the warning alarm goes off?
"It really hit home," said Ken Ham, a member of the association's crime committee. "We really need to let people know." [More]
[Via Ed M]
What movie or book is "head for the Sphinx" in reference to?
ReplyDeleteThe Time Machine.
ReplyDeleteIn the book, it was the "White Sphinx".
In the 1960 George Pal movie, where I took my screen shot from, the cannibalistic Morlocks used it to harvest the Eloi. It was a holdover from years past when sirens would alert people to go to underground bomb shelters. The Eloi had forgotten the original purpose--they just knew they were supposed to answer the summons and enter.
It's a recurring theme around here--one of my first published articles was "The New Eloi" for Guns and Ammo magazine's January 2000 issue.
The book is available online for free. The 1960 movie is available pretty cheaply. I did not care for the 2002 remake.
A Mass. Obamaniac of my acquaintance assures me that there IS no crime in Boston, partly because there are no guns to make people barbaric. Well, she doen't know that word, but that's what she was trying to get across.
ReplyDeleteYet south of Boston, gun sales have doubled since last year. See the article in the Boston Sunday Globe:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/05/10/a_semiautomatic_sir_and_pass_the_ammo/.
I bet the beaten and raped woman already knows. I think it already "hit" her.
ReplyDeleteIf Ham wants to let people know, he should let them know that they need to be armed legally or not. Otherwise, he's just posing.
I remember reading a story once about a woman who suffered a similar fate. Died, too. (I may have read it here, to be honest)
ReplyDeleteHer friends had convinced her not to get a gun, but a rape whistle. When her body was found, the whistle was still clenched in her teeth, stained with her blood.
Why? Why do people insist that self-defense, in whatever form you prefer, is some kind of mental illness?