Last fall, as anthrax fears consumed the nation, a few Kansas Citians started acting really, really stupid. People called the city's haz-mat team to investigate suspicious powders on the floor at home-improvement stores (sawdust), in their own garages (a kid had been playing with flour) or on an old couch in a trash pile (God knows what that was). As the fire department raced all over the city to handle the ridiculous load, Deputy Chief of Special Operations Domenic Serrone offered this nonbureaucratic advice in the Star: "Let's calm down. Let's be practical and think who would be a terrorist's target. Would Joe Blow in his home really be a target? Why would they [terrorists] waste something so hard to make? Why would they waste it in Joe Blow's garage?"
