Amber
Posted by Patrick on Friday, August 06, 2004If you've at all watched the news or listened to the radio, at least in some parts of the U.S., you've probably heard of the Amber Alert system. Now, whenever a person, usually a youth, goes missing, it's possible to pretty much tell everyone who watches TV, listens to the radio, and reads things online that this person is missing. Kind of like the Emergancy Broadcast System, except it doesn't interupt your favorite show with an ear-piercing alarm drill. This Amber Alert system has been succesful; they located some missing girl near the Boston area just last week using it.
So I was thinking (and here's where I go wrong):
"Amber alert? Seems like kind of a non-threatening color to asign to something so important. That's like calling it the Beige Alert, or the Periwinkle Alert. Why wouldn't they call it Red alert, or something non-colorful like Missing-Kid Alert? "
I then thought it was related to those over-the-highway signs you see on Rt95, or the Mass Pike. The text color could be Amber, I thought. I even discussed this with some co-workers. I then brought my theory home to Kate.
She let me know that Amber is actually named for a girl who was kidnapped and murdered, and that it has really nothing to do with the color. It's also apparently an acronym, America's Missing: Broadcast Emergancy Response.
So, now I know. I just wonder if my co-workers didn't know either, or if they were nodding their heads and thinking "this kid is nuts."
It's also debateable to claim that Amber is even a color. Kind of like when Crayola had a Flesh colored crayon, or when my dad says that cars can't be colored silver ("it's gray"), even if it's the most popular car color in America.
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