Two men pleaded not guilty today to charges they created panic by placing “bomblike” electronic light boards displaying a cartoon character with an upraised middle finger throughout Boston. Assistant Attorney General John Grossman called the light boards “bomblike” devices and said that if they had been explosive they could have damaged infrastructure and transportation in the city. (from CNN.com)

Overall, I have found this story kinda silly – a horrible overreaction, but, well, it did get excellent PR for the cartoon.

What I don’t find funny is the phrase, “IF they had been explosive.”  IF if if if IF IF IF.  If I accidentally dropped a Seiko watch at the mall, it might have a detonator!  Or poison gas!  If I put a teddy bear at a vigil site, it might be a pipe bomb!  Or soaked in anthrax!

And if my eclair was made of uranium and had a plutonium filing, it could kill me quickly rather than slowly clogging my arteries.*

One of the Boston officials noted yesterday that, basically, this was an unconscionable stunt in a post-9/11 world.  And I can understand – certainly I respect – that first responders are the people who have to make the connections quickly, who have to look for danger, and who have to place their lives on the line to protect the rest of us, even when a situation appears innocuous.

But there’s a difference between watching for danger and seeking it out where none exists.  There’s enough danger in the world without imposing it upon innocuous situations.  I can’t say how I would have reacted, but I’d like to think I’d be able to call a spade a spade, a toy a toy, and an eclair an eclair.  And I’d like to think I’d make certain the call was right before I shut down a city, created massive panic, and wasted so much time and money.

It’s a post-9/11 world, but it’s still a world.  People can do the unthinkable, but that doesn’t mean you need to stop thinking.

Turns out this does fall under the scope of this blog.  Massive panic is not how we are constituted.  The inability to distinguish between a real threat and a cartoon character threatens us – as a people – as much as most violence.  And the kind of thinking evidenced by this event can do tremendous damage.

* Thanks to my husband for the eclair idea.

That’s all fine and good.

But every year, I forget – and then am forced to un-forget – that I share a birthday with Dick Cheney.

Despite that, I had a decent birthday. Pink striped pajamas ’til noon. Debriefed the Constitution kids in my signature manic style, and got new ideas for an alumni institute. Got sushi, got presents, got myspace messages, got phone calls, got cake. I was gifted and celebrated in a nice low-key manner. All that was missing was one of these. And family. I do miss my family.

Twenty-nine is just one of those ages. It’s the age at which countless women in the forty-something range seem to want to be frozen – if you believe pop culture. Twenty-nine, then, supposedly means the last days of youth, maybe even the last days to accomplish the goals of youth.

My goals… some certainly are checked off the list.  I’m married, and we just bought a house.  Things like that are easily listed, easily crossed off.

But I’m also, I pray, growing wise.  If a measure of wisdom is awarness of the great volume of things we have yet to know or discover, then I certainly meet that.  I’m growing comfortable in my own skin.  I’m growing confident, and recapturing a fearlessness of youth.

In between those sets of things are great grays of dreams and goals, all run together and mostly unnamed.  Career goals and artistic goals, and all the markers like Titles and Income that come with those, seem lacking.  Though I took great strides in those over the past year, it’s easy to feel – after an intense campaign season – as though I’m back where I started.  Underemployed, sleeping ’til double-digits, lacking schedules and deadlines and reasons to get up in the morning.

I told the Constitution kids today how the We the People competition is set up to parallel the acts of American citizenship.  You have to make yourself want it.  You can’t just sign a contract to do the work, you can’t just treat it like Any Other Class, and you certainly can’t do well by following a simple rubric.  Finding the passion, finding the motivation to overcome all the reasons not to step forward and achieve and live – such is the WTP competition, such is citizenry, such is life.

And I’ve got two out of three.  Learning the third, living the third, is the task at hand.  It’s the task at which I’ve felt the least amount of recent success.

Taking this all into account – overcoming the balance of the contradiction between the exceptionalist aura in which I was brought up and the lack of specialness that global instant connectedness and, frankly, sheer numbers force me to accept takes a drive, a focus, a swift kick in the ass that I’ve been weakly able to harness.  And even then, only for brief times.  The discipline of self-starting, of overcoming the critical mass to whatever’s on the other side of that line, is my task at hand.

It’s on my list, right next to painting the kitchen.

And, hey, at least I don’t get presents like this on my birthday.

Now, for a while I hadn’t been certain if Walter Mondale was dead. Happily, he’s alive and kicking – with a great big elephant target to kick.

Quick thought – “constitution” is more than a document. Used here, it’s a process of finding meaning, a way of defining, and a declaration of the makeup of a people – or of a person. Inelegantly, the writings and the photos here are my steps toward constitution – finding and declaring that which defines me. Informally, this is the makeup of me.