Wednesday, July 04, 2007

UNSETTLING THOUGHTS about the San Diego Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition:
To beef up security before the scrolls' arrival, the museum was awarded roughly $80,000 by the Department of Homeland Security's Urban Area Security Initiative for nonprofit institutions considered to be at "high risk" for a terrorist attack. Of the seven San Diego nonprofits awarded a grant in 2006, six were Jewish organizations, the seventh being the museum, which spent the money on security cameras and door locks.

Dave Dalton, head of security for the museum, said that although it's been busy ("busier than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs," as he put it), there've been no threats.

"I keep my ear to the drums pretty closely," Dalton said. "I check with organizations on a regular basis to see if there's been any intelligence that would suggest there's any known threats or risk, and [there are] none that I'm aware of."
But the story about the mouse is amusing.