Emergency Codes

I ran across an interesting article from Urbo.com not long ago - 10 Common Emergency Codes That Most People Don't Recognize. The article notes that "all sorts of organizations speak in codes to keep from alarming the public—or simply to communicate quickly. Airports, police departments, and public transportation hubs all have their own special lingo, and it's often impenetrable to the uninitiated."

This is true, of course. We all know about the "10-codes" used by police departments, of which the best-known is probably "10-4," which means "message received and understood." But there are a lot of other 10-codes that would cause us great concern if we heard them, such as "10-34," which warns of a riot in progress. You can read the whole list here.

Agnes and I enjoy going on cruises, and cruise ships have their emergency codes as well, one of which is "Operation Rising Star," which tells crew members that a passenger has died. And we occasionally shop at Wal-Mart, where an announcement of "Code Blue" evidently means that a bomb threat has been received.

You can read the whole article for yourself and learn about all sorts of emergency codes now in use. But it got me to thinking that we probably need a whole new range of emergency codes for you and I to use in the current social and political environment*. Here are a few suggestions:

Code Ananias - Donald Trump has told another ludicrous whopper;

Code AR - a person with a grudge and a high-powered semiautomatic rifle is on the loose;

Code Youlose - Congress has passed new legislation friendly to business, but bad for consumers;

Code Musical Chairs - Another White House reorganization;

and,

Code Voteski - Russian trolls are working with clueless Americans to undermine our democracy and civic culture.

Those are my suggestions ... do you have any? Leave a comment so we can share the collective angst.

Have a good day; more thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* In addition, of course, to my already well-established National Stupidity Index (DUMBCON). As a reminder, we have been at DUMBCON Minus 3 since June 5, 2017.