“You know, you never were very smart”
Swan to Ajax, “The Warriors,” 1979
People refer to extremely rare or unpredictable events as “black swans.”
I think many of these occurrences are actually white seagulls, and are predictable when we study the past, look around us today and just use plain common sense.
The first of many hearings into the Capitol invasion started this week. The security agencies seemed completely surprised even though millions of Trump supporters had been openly plotting a government overthrow for five years.
The Capitol police chief received an explicit warning the night before from the FBI. Unfortunately, the urgent memo said thousands of rioters would be attacking the Capitol wearing red baseball hats that read “Make America Very Good Again.” The intelligence was deemed to lack specificity.
To head off future catastrophes, I will throw out a few red flags for our governments and ourselves to reflect upon: Drawing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in a chicken suit is not a good idea. Flying on a three level Boeing Supermax jet with duct tape on the engines is not a great way to save money.
Bearded white guys in Camp Auschwitz T-shirts are probably not in town for the “Color Purple” screening.
Dan Bercu