Word: bulletproofing
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Vatican garages house six of the four-ton, bulletproof Popemobiles. And a surprising 14 other heavy-duty papal vehicles stand at the ready around the world. (The one John Paul rode through Denver last month was shipped up from Mexico.) Land Rover manufactured the first Popemobile for his visit to Britain in 1982, shortly after the Pontiff survived an assassin's bullet. Since then, almost everywhere John Paul went, new Popemobiles were sure to appear -- manufactured and generally donated by Renault, Peugeot, GM, Toyota and Mercedes Benz, among others. Last week, on his trip to the Baltic states (his 61st...
...into gasoline ads. Now it goes into wildly technological golf clubs and tennis racquets. Or is that argon? Or titanium? Neither of which is to be confused with something called Kevlar -- the stuff they make bullet-proof vests from. Kevlar these days is a very hot item. There are bulletproof Kevlar canoes, for example. And water skis. And bicycle tights. (A lie: the Kevlar bike tights, for the moment, are imaginary. But remember, you saw them here first.) The rest of these molecular rarities, however, actually exist at your neighborhood sports store. Bring your platinum card...
Workmen are still wandering through the halls, rats are being chased in the basement, and bulletproof glass is being installed in David Letterman's office. Not really bulletproof; that's just the way Letterman likes to describe the protective pane designed to prevent him from accidentally tossing a baseball right through the glass, as he did once at his old NBC office, raining shards on pedestrians below. But Letterman is already gushing over his unfinished suite as if he had just moved into Windsor Castle. "Look at | this," he says, striding into the room in his workaday outfit...
...especially for wanderers smitten by places they ought to think twice about: where quaint cultures run up against armored jeeps charging through city streets, where emergency travel kits had best include not just a bottle of Lomotil but also a bulletproof vest. The surprise is not that such dangers exist but that so many of the countries where they are commonplace want you to spend your vacation there. In the relentless quest for the tourist dollar, even places like Kashmir (400 civilians killed last month) and North Korea (no casualties, but why go?) are advertising their supposed charms...
...once bulletproof NRA is meeting some effective return fire...