Posted on: Wednesday, October 17, 2001

Editorial
Caution yes, but we must not be fearful

All of us are at least a little bit on edge. It's only natural.

Anthrax is sent to Sen. Tom Daschle's office and to Mainland media offices. People are scared and translating the most innocuous of things into suspicious goings-on. A shopper fears a bag of potatoes that wasn't tied has been tampered with. A post office is shut down because an organization that routinely does mass mailings makes a change in its packaging.

We have been seeing the bogeyman around every corner, and as a result, emergency personnel in Hawai'i and on the Mainland have been run ragged responding to one false alarm after another.

It's time for a collective deep breath. Yes, we need to be vigilant, but not obsessive. We need to take precautions, but not bring our infrastructure and ourselves to the point of collapse.

While the war on terrorism is a struggle to preserve our way of life, it is a sorry reality that some things are probably forever changed. We must be more careful when we fly, attend large events, send packages in the mail. There are some things it is wise not to do. Many of them are common-sense warnings that are not new, such as not accepting packages from an unknown sender.

Likewise, we must adjust to a different way of life. We all have to learn to be alert to anything out of the ordinary, but we also must learn not to panic but think things through. If we buckle to the pressure, we only cripple ourselves.