…we’re at war and so stories like this concern me. As they should.

Five children and two adults suffered minor burns after a bottle containing some type of hazardous material exploded in Upper Manhattan Wednesday afternoon. A bottle containing hazardous material exploded just after 3 p.m. on West 204th Street and Tenth Avenue in the Inwood section. The victims were decontaminated on the scene and then taken to a local hospital for treatment. Witness say kids in a nearby park let the bottle roll into the street. They say there may have been some chlorine or a chlorine tablet in water inside.

UPDATE: An e-mail:

Kathryn…
You have every right to be alarmed at that story about the exploding bottle, especially in the wake of yesterday’s story about the Georgia lawyer galivanting around the globe with TB. The CDC knew where he was, knew he was carrying an infectious, drug-resistant disease and all they did was ask him to go to a hospital. What would they have done if he’d had smallpox? Wag their finger at him disapprovingly with a heavy sigh?
We (our government and our allies’ govenments) are not taking things seriously.