I've said little publicly about an event that happened at the Huntsville main library last month, but now that a local TV station has provided a video article about the armed kidnapping and robbery of a librarian, I feel a little safer in acknowledging that the incident happened.

(Link will probably spawn a popup, requires Flash, and has audio. However, I don't think it has cooties.)

I miss my little, friendly, Huntsville airport. It was, once, my favorite place to fly out of, but after September 11, I think it is safe to say that the airport I once knew is gone. Perhaps forever.

Yesterday afternoon I drove to the airport to pick up John; my first visit to an airport in several months. I'd nurtured some vain and tiny hope that perhaps reasonability would have prevailed in Huntsville, and that airport security would not have shut down the metered parking.As I pulled around to the front of the airport, I realized two things: one, that metered parking was closed off by a large volume of orange cones, and two, that I'd have to circle around the airport because there was no place to turn off.

The swath of orange cones was disturbing in its own right, but even more so were the three camouflage-colored Humvees guarding them. No one sat in the vehicles, but there were numerous men dressed in camouflage and carrying weapons.