Since the 1950s and '60s, the Hollywood film industry has implanted and toyed with the idea in our minds that one day private citizens would get their hands on deadly biological weapons.
That day has come.
Yesterday afternoon, FBI agents in Nevada apprehended two men with anthrax, the deadly biological disease (not the heavy-metal band!) in their car.
As of right now, the explanation is that the two men were going to do some experimental testing.
Yeah, like, "Let's see what happens to the population of Nevada if we just contaminate the air with one of the most infamous diseases in human history!"
Try that on for size.
If that was not their intention, what exactly were the test subjects supposed to be?
Funny how there weren't any rats found in their car.
In typical bureaucratic, hush-hush fashion, these questions remain unanswered.
I don't think we realize how serious this all really is.
If two freaks in Nevada can get their hands on anthrax, who else can?
The other evening on the news, I saw Phil Gramm (he's one of our senators, for those of you who have no clue) visiting a lab where students study such chemical weapons.
Students, for God's sake! Students like you and me!
Now, if that doesn't instill some fear in you, then I really don't know what could.
At that very moment, horrible images began to plague my mind.
I thought that all the movies were really just movies, but now I know that something like this will happen in the unfortunately imminent future.
Read on with caution, my friends:
One night, you'll be watching the news and you'll hear Dave Ward say something like, "This evening 22-year-old Houstonian Billy Bob White was arrested for murdering his former girlfriend, Flora Mae Sanchez, with a chemical weapon."
You'll go crazy. Before you can even begin to wonder what on earth possessed Billy to do such a thing, you'll hear Dave Ward say, "White allegedly did this because Sanchez had decided to stop seeing him once she noticed his violent tendencies with his lab project.
"Be advised that the deadly, noxious cloud of poison gas released in the attack has spread and is now heading south down Interstate 45.
"All citizens are asked to refrain from opening doors or windows and from breathing. Now, moving on to the weather..."
What is the world coming to, my friends?
Once again, troops have been shipped out to the Persian Gulf.
It's been seven years since the last war against Iraq.
The Iraqi president Saddam Hussein did not comply with U.N. regulations against the possession of biological warfare then and will not comply now.
This is scary.
It's not just about planes, guns and grenades which alone could kill thousands, not to mention the injured.
That would, fortunately, take some time, a day at least.
Chemical warfare is completely different.
All it takes is an amount of deadly chemicals equal to a bag of sugar to kill millions in a matter of minutes.
With chemical warfare, there is no discrimination. If you're there, you die.
I have to say that watching a movie with this type of plot is definitely better than living it.
Mahmoudi, a sophomore French and German major, is searching furiously for gas masks and can be reached at amahmoud@bayou.uh.edu