Posted on Thu, Jul. 03, 2003
Bakery fakery or terror?
By Crispin Sartwell
The Inquirer
They hate our freedom.
But they want our hoagies.
Mazen Fathi Said runs the Famous Pita bakery in Greensboro, N.C. On June 14
at 4:21 a.m., Said was allegedly videotaped at Norristown's Morabito Baking
Co., swiping binders full of recipes for hoagie rolls, which Morabito
supplies to some of the biggest customers in the country.
One can picture this fanatical baker, frustrated by the limited pita market,
engaging in expansionist fantasies about the fundamentally American business
of leavened bread. Then one can picture him hatching a master plan, a plan
to compromise some of the most closely held hoagie-roll secrets in the
country in an act of espionage and subversion that would, if successful,
wreak untold destruction
Said was, at last look, being held in lieu of $2 million bond. This may
appear excessive even in the face of such a vicious attack on our way of
life. But North Carolina authorities claimed Said was a flight risk because
of links to terrorist organizations. Possibly he was planning to share the
hoagie secrets with Saddam and Osama, notorious hoagie consumers.
Said is an Israeli Arab born in Nazareth, from whence came the miracle of
the loaves and fishes that may, in his warped mind, have served as the model
for a fanatical Islamist hoagie-roll bakery. Few things are as dangerous as
a baker who truly believes that Allah has called him to sell hoagies.
Of course, Said's brother and others have claimed that the terrorist angle
is the result merely of anti-Arab prejudice. How typical of minority groups
to claim discrimination when actual hoagies are at stake.
One key piece of information Said was apparently eager to obtain was the
secret of making hoagie rolls that are blunt rather than tapered. One need
hardly point out that intelligence on that level could devastate a nation
already reeling from the release of From Justin to Kelly.
So today we can breathe just a little easier, knowing that because of the
heroic efforts of law enforcement, our hoagies, if nothing else, are safe.
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Crispin Sartwell's e-mail address is c.sartwell@no-spam