It’s time to wake up, America: Amy Bishop, Fort Worth terror suspect epitomize fear to speak up

By Chuck Frank / chuck@theklaxon.com / 02.15.2010

Updated on: 02.15.10 at 7:46 pm

Huntsville Police Department

Nothing to see here folks, just move along.

It has been a great weekend for girls off their meds. Who says Valentine’s Day is just a Hallmark holiday? Some take it seriously. This past weekend, with pre-V-day angst running high for the ladies, two broke ranks and decided to express themselves.

First, we have the tenure-frustrated Harvard-educated Amy Bishop who decided to “go postal” at her biology department faculty meeting at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Bishop did not think it was fair that she had been turned down for tenure and was appealing the process. She came up with a unique tenure-expediting technique that involved shooting six of the faculty members (killing three) that she believed may have voted against her.

Note to Amy: Demanding the censure of the university president and being described by the chairman of the chemistry department as a “lone wolf” with “bizarre personality,” might have been a clue that behavior modification was in order, unless that wasn’t an option.

This wasn’t the first time that Bishop decided to go “Marshal Dillon” to handle a dispute. When she was 20, a family argument ended with her brother fatally shot, Bishop holding a 12-gauge and the police file missing. Gun accidents do happen, but is it plausible that a Harvard wizkid would point a loaded shotgun at her brother’s abdomen and have her finger on the trigger with the belief that she was practicing rudimentary gun safety?

In the meantime, the university tenure appeals committee is consulting the Fort Hood officer review committee for advice on whether or not to give Bishop tenure.

The weekend didn’t end there.

Kimberly Suzanne Al-Homsi was not up for tenure—that is, unless they are offering it to the frequently arrested at the Arlington, Texas, jail.

Al-Homsi has been a busy girl. Being a contrarian by nature, Al-Homsi decided to convert to Islam as a lesbian. In April 2007, Al-Homsi and her girlfriend, Aisha Abdul-Rahman Hamad, were arrested at Dallas Love Field airport for filming takeoffs and landings of passenger jets from a restricted area of the airport. They also were found to be noting and analyzing airport security patterns.

Always up for a good time, the girls decided to test fire some IEDs and pipe bombs outside their home in July 2007 and, just in case there was any confusion about this being a misunderstood expression of seasonal patriotism, a six-hour standoff with police ensued.

It should be noted that Al-Homsi’s fear of attracting attention began in 2005 when she caused a traffic jam by stopping her car and holding up a dummy grenade, threatening other motorists.

All these events culminate to this past Friday, when she and companion, Yasinul Alan Ansari, decided to drive around Fort Worth, Texas, pointing a toy gun at fellow motorists. This eventually attracted the attention of police who chased Al-Homsi and Ansari for 20 minutes until they spun out of control and were captured.

In the spirit of public safety, the pair told police that they had an incendiary device in their vehicle.

These two—Bishop and Al-Homsi—exemplify what may be called the “Fort Hood Synapse.”

Everyone involved with Maj. Nidal Hasan, the alleged Fort Hood shooter, knew that he was mentally unstable, but in the interest of political correctness and worship of the concept of diversity, Hasan was not helped. Instead, he was promoted.

Promotion makes the issue someone else’s problem and makes the promoter appear fair-minded, until the shooting starts.

In the case of Bishop, the “Fort Hood Synapse” was upheld when her increasingly bizarre behavior went unchecked in a “values neutral” university environment where “bizarre” is a relative term.

In the case of Al-Homsi, she is a clear overachiever when it comes to letting all of the proper authorities know, with absolute certainty, that she is not happy with the status quo.

Local authorities employed the “Fort Hood Synapse” by taking their lead from the mega-institutions of the American military and the education establishment and, ultimately, decided that being pro-active in the face of potentially dangerous behavior is a possible career killer.

It comes down to: Save your career or save lives.

Most never will face this dilemma. But, from the White House to the lowest-paid security guard, this pox on basic human integrity is rendering our nation vulnerable to lunatics.

We should not be targeting Muslims, women professors, female snipers or military officers who are not happy with foreign relations.

Instead, we should be targeting any individual in the workplace, school, airport or church who exhibits behavior that could be considered threatening or out of the norm.

Clues would be: Videos proclaiming Jihad against the American military, pipe bombs, IEDs, aviation students who pay for instruction on how to fly passenger jets but not how to land them, underwear packed with explosives, young men with no luggage buying one-way tickets on airlines and sweating profusely, unregistered firearms, tarp and tent complexes in the backyard with extension chords and young children in shackles, 70 pages of threatening e-mails (if you are a now-deceased Hooter’s waitress in Florida) or the smell of a sausage works gone bad (if you’re living in Cleveland) coming from the house next door.

Come on, America, what the hell will it take before you stop behaving like lemmings? “See something, say something” is the credo of the MTA in New York City.

Is that too complicated for everyone?

Obviously our institutions of defense, civil protection and education, as well as our judicial system are content with the current paradigm of response in favor of mitigation. That means you’re on your own until the problem becomes lethal.

All of the emergency management practice in the world cannot mitigate this risk if everyone refuses to speak up when they know something is amiss.

One can, however, become a squeaky wheel and endlessly document to authorities disturbing behavior until action is taken.

Granted, you may be ignored initially or feel that you are putting yourself at risk, but here’s a news flash: We are all at risk unless we get on the offensive.