Tuesday, March 18, 2003

 

Following is a copy of my letter to Tom Ridge, Director of the Office of Homeland Security, that I emailed today.

Regarding the new threat Advisory system put in place in response to 9/11. I have had a problem with it since its creation.

For decades, military and first responders and students of self-defense have used a 4-tier system of threat assessment, red=severe, orange=elevated, yellow=watchful, WHITE=NO RISK.

Now, I have no problem with the addition of another level--that makes some sense to me. However, the colors chosen for those levels are counter-intuitive. Anyone who has seen a color chart or a rainbow knows that the colors go naturally from red to orange to yellow to GREEN THEN TO BLUE!

Also, psychologically, green is a calm color, but blue is generally considered to be "peaceful", as in "pacific blue"...

I realize that it is now too late to make national changes over aesthetic issues such as these, but I have been sitting on this complaint all of these months and couldn't hold it any longer.

I'm sorry, but it had to be said.

posted by huggy 5:36 PM