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Volume CCXXXIV, Number 46    June, 2004      

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You can't get there from here!

BOSTON HELD
IN CAPTIVITY

By Alvin T. Fuller
State House Bureau Chief with
G. David Schine
National Security Correspondent

City officials have admitted that this summer's Democratic National Convention may lead to a few trifling inconveniences, including unemployment and death.

Now that they have succeeded in making Iraq safe from the threat of terroristm, Bush Administration officials have demanded an impregnable cordon sanitaire around, above and below the Fleet Center, site of the empty spectacle.

To make sure that missile-firing terrorists are kept at least 40 feet away from the arena, traffic will be cut off for 20 miles on all major highways leading onto the Zakim Bridge. State officials suggest that ambulances transporting critical patients to the world-class trauma center at the Mass. General Hospital either wait until the Convention ends or divert to a doc-in-the-box in Revere Beach.

In another brilliant decision necessitated by only the most pressing of legitimate security concerns, not to be confused with bureaucratic ass-covering, all MBTA north side trains will be halted miles short of North Station.  Were the trains to be allowed to reach the station, a terrorist might seek to detonate a bomb on the open platforms that might discommode the conventioneers located not above the station (as is the case with Madison Square Garden) but beside the station, which is open to the elements and therefore would dissipate upward the force of any blast.

However, state and federal officials have plenty of suggestions for alternates.  As an alternative to shooting missiles at the Fleet Center from a van that breaks down exactly 38 feet from the wall, federal officials suggest firing such a missile from one of the hundreds of windows overlooking the Fleet Center, including apartments, hotels, office buildings, or from the many open spaces across the Charles River.  Those wastelands have the advantage of affording quick opportunities for getaway by car or boat, security experts note.

As an alternative to stashing hundreds of pounds of explosives on a north-side commuter train, those same experts suggest mailing a bomb in care of one of the hundreds of journalists beavering away just a few yards from the swarming hacks.  These officials also note helpfully that there will be no similar Zugverbot in Penn Station, which makes the hundreds of poorly-guarded trains running through that station each day an ideal choice for terrorists so inclined.

Finally, the federales pointed out that while the Orange Line, running well below North Station, will be closed, the Eighth Avenue IND and Seventh Avenue IRT trains, which run near the surface a few feet from Madison Square Garden, will be available for the transport of massive explosive devices throughout the Republican Convention.

Officials do admit that the closures of highway, rail and mass transit may impose a few trifling inconveniences on Boston-area commuters and workers.  They suggest that affected workers take the week off at their summer places on Cape Cod, with the exception of the Boston Police, who will be afforded priority passage to their unruly and embarrassing picket lines set up right next to the Fleet Center.

Security officials defended the massive closures as absolutely imperative to protect America's vital interests, just like the invasion of Iraq, the indefinite detention without trial of American citizens, torture of detainees in Cuba, Iraq and Afghanistan and the denial of federal money to those seeking to cure crippling diseases by use of stem cells.

Said Attorney General John Ashcroft, after emerging from a particularly intense "voluntary" glossolalia session with Justice Department attorneys: "I'm not saying that those questioning these security arrangements are all providing aid and comfort to terrorists and their Democratic fellow-travellers.  However, you can be sure that their heads won't be popping off at the Rapture.  Thank you Jesus!"