Just latest in a series of examples of how we are wasting millions of dollars in security theater and not protecting the country.

Tourist or Terrorist?
Shelby County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI teach people to spot potential terrorists.
BY BIANCA PHILLIPS | APRIL 3, 2008

Elvis fan or al-Qaeda operative? You make the call.

A man walking through Tom Lee Park pauses to snap a photo of the iconic Hernando DeSoto Bridge. Another man shoots pictures of numerous downtown buildings.

Many would assume the men are tourists taking in the city’s sights, but law enforcement officials say they could be terrorists staking out possible targets.

The scenarios were described at an anti-terrorism town hall meeting last week hosted by the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office. The meeting, held at Cordova’s First Assembly of God Church, was one of four public meetings that occurred in conjunction with Operation Sudden Impact, a new local anti-terrorism initiative.

“You may think a guy is just shooting pictures, but if you report it to us, we’ll send it on to the FBI and they may have four or five other reports of the same thing,” said Richard Pillsbury with the Tennessee Fusion Center, a collaboration between the Department of Safety and the Department of Homeland Security.

Shelby County sergeant Larry Allen warned attendees at the meeting to look for people who appear to be doing surveillance outside public buildings, such as shopping malls.

Read the whole tawdry piece here.

I attended the Sertoma BBQ Kick Off Dinner. It was a great, extremely fun show. Not unusual in that I’ve yet to meet a Sertoman who didn’t know how to have fun. They’re a wonderful group.

I can’t wait until the BBQ next month. By the way, I am setting up something special for the BBQ. It’s basically about 36 hours long from start to finish and I’ll be there shooting it from start to finish and, and here’s the fun part, I’m working on a way to post hourly updates to the site. So you’ll be able to see the entire event almost live.

The Sertoma BBQ is unique in so many ways but it’s also one of the most visually interesting event in Lancaster.

You can look at the images from last year’s BBQ here.

The complete gallery from the Dinner is here and below, a few shots from their after-dinner production, “Chickens of the Caribbean”.

A shot from April meeting of the Creative House of Lancaster at Annie Bailey’s.

Friday Night
What a perfect, stunning evening. Although lightly attended, the Friday events featured some live music and delicious weather for strolling through downtown.

Graphite artist, Richard Chandler Hoff at Living Light Gallery.

Hanging out at Rachel’s on North Queen Street.

Music on North Queen Street.

Portrait shots of Josh Nowak and Mark Moosic of the Lancaster County Convention Center for JSID.

Josh and Mark were great subjects and we had absolutely perfect weather. Made for a nice shot.

Sometimes (well, most of the time) that’s excuse enough to take the picture.

The Conestoga River.