Category Archives: Poetry

Poetry, Security

Digging for answers

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This prose was just forwarded to me and I had to share…

An old Arab lives close to New York City.

He would love to plant potatoes in his garden, but he is old and weak. His son is in college in Paris, so the old man sends him an e- mail.

“Beloved son, I am very sad, because I can’t plant potatoes in my garden. I am sure if you were here you would help me dig up the garden.”

The following day at 3:45 pm, the old man receives an e-mail response from his son.

“Beloved father, please don’t touch the garden. It’s there that I have hidden ‘the THING’. Love, Ahmed”.

At 4:02 pm, the US Army, the Marines, the Rangers, the Police, officers from the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and the CIA, visit the house of the old man, take the whole garden apart, search every inch, but can’t find anything.

Disappointed they leave.

A day later, the old man receives another e-mail from his son:

“Beloved Father, I hope the garden is dug up by now and you can plant your potatoes. That’s all I could do for you from here.
Love Ahmed.”

Would be even better if someone could string it into a metered rhyme.

Poetry, Security

Poems from K

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Jack Prelutsky has a site with a list of poems by students, including some from Angola, Afghanistan and Iraq. I found the Kindergarten (K) list especially fun, although I find it surprising that a K-level student would be able to write this:

My mind is like a shadow,
you can see it, but it isn’t really there.
My mind is like a sieve,
losing bits here and there.

Sounds like a budding security analyst…

Food, Poetry, Security

Security Sauce and Airports

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The premier authority on intrusion detection theory Martin Roesch has posted some excellent insights, as well as humorous anecdotes, on his newly minted blog:

If the set of things that need to be detected (signatures) is constrained to guns, knives and bomb materials, I’d say grudgingly that a motivated screener could maintain alertness through their entire period manning the machine to have a reasonable probability of detection of the things in the set of threats. Once you extend that signature set to, well, pretty much everything that’s not paper or cloth you’re going to have an analysts nightmare because you just did the equivalent of “alert ip any any -> any any (msg: “Something bad may have happened!!”;)” in Snort.

True, but that is probably not an acurate depiction of current events. There is a period of re-tuning the sensor, rather than de-tuning, and in this case the current detection technology is unable to detect the threat regardless of the rules you give it. In other words you can tell it “find liquids” but the scanner isn’t capable (since they are x-ray instead of ultrasound), so you have little choice but to take extra precautions and re-tune until you get something that can process the new rules and speed up again.

As an aside, “security sauce” and “meatspace”, found in Roesch’s blog, keep making me think of spaghetti. I wonder if he’s a Pastafarian, or maybe I am just hungry. Here’s my suggestion for an official Security Sauce site poem:

On top of spaghetti,
All covered with cheese,
I lost my poor meatball,
When somebody sneezed.

It rolled off the table,
And on to the floor,
And then my poor meatball,
Rolled out of the door.

It rolled in the garden,
And under a bush,
And then my poor meatball,
Was nothing but mush.

The mush was as tasty
As tasty could be,
And then the next summer,
It grew into a tree.

The tree was all covered,
All covered with moss,
And on it grew meatballs,
And tomato sauce.

So if you eat spaghetti,
All covered with cheese,
Hold on to your meatball,
Whenever you sneeze.

Security Sauce: Hold on to your meatspace.

Maybe if I have time I’ll try to do a full parody.

History, Poetry, Security

The Least You Can Feel

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John Stewart has a fine news report on the latest mood swings of the American President, coupled with a flashy new public service announcement theme for Bush called “The Least You Can Feel”. The announcement that started the report was:

Nobody likes to see innocent people die.

Incidentally, I was doing some research on the Library of Congress site and happened to take a look in their online store. I was a bit surprised to find that they sell a fancy “Bombers Tie“:

Handsome red and black tie features famous fighter planes of World War II: the B-17 Flying Fortress, B-25 Mitchell, and, of course, the workhorse of the European Campaign, the 4-engine B-17 bomber. Pure silk, hand-finished.

Of all the things the Library of Congress could offer the public to remember the price of past conflicts or to commemorate the service of soldiers, does it have to be a blood-red necktie with silhouettes of bombers? Could this have something to do with a new “hey, innocent people die” sense of fashion on the hill?

Seems like a hint of a “war is hell, get over it” mentality. Speaking of which, when you check out the official “Today in History” page it appears that the LOC is dominated by a list of war and battle stories, along with the impact of war on civilians. Take August 23 for example, which has an entire page dedicated to Farragut’s battle in the Civil War. Compare this rather pointed view with the Wikipedia offering, or the BBC, or the New York Times, all providing a rich list of social and economic events for the same day. And if you really want to see stark contrast from the American style of “which military event happened today” public record, take a look at the Canadian version:

1941 England – William Lyon Mackenzie King 1874-1950 booed by restless Canadian troops in England when he makes a speech; most have been in England for a year without seeing action.

Quite different, eh? On this day troops were upset because they saw a lack of action, or “crew from Saint John defeat Renfrew crew from England in a rowing race”; things in history to feel good, or less bad, about.

Maybe my sample size is too small. I think I’ll go back to reading their archive of poetry now and wonder how to get a good sample from soldiers and civilians, or someone who can really feel and relate the horrors of conflict. Until then, here’s yet another “life goes on” vision of war from their 180 collection for high school students…