With Black Friday getting so much attention, other days of the week are clamoring for colorful modifiers to set them apart from just another 24 hours in a routine week. So welcome to Mauve Monday. Let’s review a rainbow of headlines:
•“U.S. to drop color-coded terror alerts”: The Department of Homeland Security plans to retire the warnings after the country has lived in the yellow (significant risk) to orange (high risk) range of alertness without wavering for eight years, the New York Times reported.
The book-ending colors were red, the highest level, meaning “severe risk of terrorist attacks” and green, meaning “low risk of terrorist attacks.” Blue, after yellow but before green, meant “guarded risk.” It’s all meaningless, as the government concedes now.
However, the failed experiment does prove the success of mnemonic devices (and the inability to set them aside, regardless of government orders) such as “Roy G. Biv,” to remember the colors of the rainbow — red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. So it’s fairly easy to understand and remember the first three terror alert colors: red, orange, yellow, just like a rainbow. But then Roy goes off the rails and so does the “terror alert system.” Apparently indigo and violet weren’t deemed serious enough colors to handle the job, but it sure would’ve been easier to remember.
Since we’re always at some risk, Homeland Security has commissioned the country’s interior paint companies to come up with a more sophisticated color code to reflect the complexities of dealing with ever-changing terrorist threats. On any given day, for example, the reddish shades of risk could range from “Jupiter glow” to “salmon run” to “Bermuda pink.”
•“Obama gets 12 stitches in lip after basketball injury”: “We just got tangled up like two gol’ darn moose wrassling on a winter day! Just a part of a clean, no trash-talk, hard-fought, fun game!” said former high school basketball star Sarah “Barracuda” Palin, icing her elbow afterward.
“Willie Nelson charged with pot possession in Texas”: The 77-year-old country singer was busted after authorities smelled marijuana emanating from his tour bus at a highway checkpoint in Sierra Blanca, Texas.
With a world in turmoil, this is a reassuring annual event, like bird migration and the changing seasons.
•“The secret sex life of John Travolta”: Well, apparently not any more.
“Rubber hose falls from Monorail, strikes 10-year-old boy”: Who then confessed his national and state secrets before running the redundantly named Seattle Children’s Kids Marathon.
“FCC may allow you to send text messages to 911”: Which will come in handy when you text yourself into a ditch while driving.
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