Lexicon

antidepression medication.
    Colleagues remain in disbelief at Mr. Gonzalez’s actions, describing him as a friendly, generous man who often went out of his way to help others.
    “Amelio was a flat-out nice guy,” said Jerome Webber, who worked with Mr. Gonzalez in aircraft maintenance for two years prior to the incident. “A little quiet, but anyone would be knocked around by [his circumstances]. He’s just the last guy you’d expect to ever do anything like this.”
    Airport management defended their hiring practices, saying all employees were subject to regular psychological checkups. Mr. Gonzalez passed such a check as recently as four weeks ago.
    “We are doing everything we can to get to the bottom of this,” said George Aftercock, manager of security for Portland International Airport. “We want to know how a model employee can suddenly snap.”
    Amelio Gonzalez shot two people on Saturday. A third person, a woman, is believed to have died in a car accident while trying to flee. Their names have not yet been released.
    An earlier disturbance in which a man ran through the Arrivals hall in an agitated state, initially thought to be connected to the shooting, has since been found to be unrelated.

Post #16
    In reply to: http://nationstates.org/pages/topic—8724511-post-16.html
    In my city we spent $1.6 billion on a new ticketing system for the trains. We replaced paper tickets with smartcards and now they can tell where people get on and off. So, question: how is that worth $1.6 billion?
    People say it’s the government being incompetent, and ok. But this is happening all over. All the transit networks are getting smartcards, the grocery stores are taking your name, the airports are getting face recognition cameras. Those cameras, they don’t work when people try to avoid them. Like, they can be fooled by glasses. We KNOW they’re ineffective as anti-terrorism devices, but we still keep installing them.
    All of this stuff—the smartcards, the ID systems, the “anti-congestion” car-tracking tech—all of it is terrible at what it’s officially supposed to do. It’s only good for tracking the rest of us, the 99.9% who just use the smartcard or whatever and let ourselves be tracked because it’s easier.
    I’m not a privacy nut, and I don’t care that much if these organizations want to know where I go and what I buy. But what bothers me is how HARD they’re all working for that data, how much money they’re spending, and how they never admit that’s what they want. It means that information must be really valuable for some reason, and I just wonder to who and why.

[TWO]
    “Hmm,” said the man in the trucker cap. “I think . . . no . . . just a second here . . .”
    “Take your time, sir,” said Emily. “The queen isn’t going nowhere. She’s quite comfortable under there, in all her skirts. She’ll wait for you all day.” She smiled at a man standing behind the trucker. The man smiled back, remembered his wife, frowned. Forget that guy, then.
    “On the left,” said a woman in an I ❤ SAN FRANCISCO sweater. Her eyes darted at Emily. “I think.”
    “You think?” said the trucker.
    “I’m pretty sure.”
    Emily slipped the woman a wink.
You got it.
The woman’s lips tightened, pleased.
    “I dunno,” said the trucker. “I was thinking middle.”
    “The queen is quick on her feet, sir. No shame in not being able to follow her. Take a guess.”
    “Middle,” said the trucker, because
Take a guess
meant,
That’s enough, Benny
. Benny wasn’t a trucker, of course. He had found that cap in an alley. With it pulled low, and his straggly sand-colored beard, he could pass.
    “You sure, now? You got some advice from this lady here.”
    “Naw, definitely middle.”
    “As you say, sir.” Emily flipped the middle card. The crowd murmured. “Sorry, sir. She got away from you.” It took a little work to shift the queen from right to left, a Mexican Turnover, but she made it. “On the left, just like the lady said. Should have listened. Quick eye you have there, ma’am. Very quick.” She spread the cards, scooped them up, and flipped them from hand to hand, fast but not too fast. Sections of the crowd began to move away. Emily tucked a strand of blond hair behind her ear. She was wearing a big floppy hat with colored panels, which she had to keep pushing back to keep it from falling over her eyes. “Care to try, ma’am? Only two dollars. Simplest thing in the world, if