Can Zombies Join the Priesthood?

London calling to the imitation zone
Forget it, brother, you can go it alone
London calling to the zombies of death
Quit holding out, and draw another breath
--London Calling, The Clash

If you think that I don't know
about the little tricks you play
And never see you when deliberately
you put things in my way
--I Can See For Miles, The Who
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Does the entertainment industry have a responsibility to the public to portray terrorism in a realistic, unemotional manner? Are the concepts entertainment and responsibility mutually-exclusive? Should they be?

The latest episode of New York City police drama is a case in point.

Three sleeper al Qaeda agents awoke one day and decided to conduct a biological attack on the NYC subway system using a mutated virus. How they got it, moved it, etc. is not addressed. Probably the missing mobile germ units that Saddam hid so cleverly re-surfaced in Schenectaday. Probably, they were in front of our very eyes operating as Mexican burrito trucks on Broadway!

Who knows, but the story line was pure fantasy, with a Churchillian subplot (Japan's 1995 Sarin attack scabbed onto haji?)

Churchill posed the question: Do we warn the people and compromise the element of surprise, or do we hold a tight grip on the intelligence? He made the decision to allow the German air attacks on London, thereby securing the Enigma machine from German knowledge.

This program was a nice rehash of the old argument (with the fictional twist that it saved the lives of 2 1/2 million people.) The point is, there are a lot of people in never-never land who believe these serials reflect reality, and should there be any balance in the portrayals?

There is no credible way that a group could make, transport and disseminate a biological agent purported to have no antidote or immunization; it was a scenario as fantastic as zombies joining the priesthood. After the terrorists were arrested -- not "captured" -- the NYPD released a cover story reporting that the event was actually a training incident.

In today's world, every self-important government security type would be crawling out of the woodwork trying to grab some credit for thwarting such an attack, no matter how non-viable. The days of discretion and modesty are gone.