An Open Letter to the Department of Homeland Security

Dear Sirs/Mesdames,

Allow me to first state that this is the most embarrassing letter I’ve ever written, but please bear with me -- if there is any significance to this whatsoever, it will be worth all the humiliation in the world

I have a question pertaining to terrorists and how they communicate via the Internet: Is it possible for terrorists to relay information to others of their ilk, information that would be invisible to the casual reader, through someone else’s web page?

I ask this (and please forgive my ignorance -- I know next to nothing about how web pages are built or how computers work beyond the basics) because, beginning in May, 2005, my blog has received many, many visitors from Iran, Iraq, United Arab Emirates, England, the U.S. and elsewhere via Google or Yahoo engines, as well as no referring link, all searching for the same word, “pudendum.” You see, I wrote a post on April 12, 2005 that included that word, a humorously lame post relating to Fox's highly-rated reality program, American Idol. At the end of my post, I wrote: “As predicted by Nostradamus, a wicked green-eyed woman has spoken of lust, reality television and gigantic pudendum in the year of our lord, 2005 A.D. The great fires should arrive within the next seven weeks. Take heed, brothers and sisters. Take heed."

If I weren’t so level-headed, I might believe that my post is part of an evil terrorist recruitment campaign, but as you can clearly see, I am quite level in the head.

Thing is, in May 2005, I began to notice hordes of hits from the Middle East and England, just dozens of hits, many of them repeat visitors who had apparently bookmarked that page but who do not visit other pages on my blog, then, by the end of June, beginning of July (not clear as to the exact date), they just…stopped -- until the last week of November, and continuing into this month. Again, my blog is being inundated with hits from the above mentioned countries, although now there are more hits from the U.S. than ever before. I began copying and pasting the IP addresses and other information about two days after the influx started, and have them saved in Word, but gave up after the ten millionth pudendum hunter. (Okay, maybe not ten millionth, but there's way too many to keep up with.)

Why would this be? “Pudendum” is not a commonly used word, for sure, especially in pornography where, excuse my language, “pussy,” “muff,” and “beaver” are the terms of choice, and I hardly think that my ridiculous post about American Idol would cause people to come in droves for the hilarity of it all. And why the bursts of activity? Why from mainly Middle Eastern countries? I feel something’s amiss here. Something bad. Considering the last influx of hits ended around the time of the London bombings (when many of the pudendum hits came from England), and now the current influx coming on the heels of whatshisname’s videotaped threats, I’m sure you can understand my concern.

I truly beg your pardon if I seem like a wacko with an overactive imagination, or if I have wasted your time, but I’ve been agonizing over this letter for a couple for weeks now, and finally decided that my embarrassment is a small price to pay if it helps in any way.

God bless the U.S.A.!!!!!!!!!

Sincerely,

Lori Young