Perhaps here in the commonwealth our emphasis is in the wrong areas.

``These terrorists,'' says Joey of North End. ``They get phony drivers' licenses, phony Social Security numbers, phony pilots' licenses. I go to City Hall to get a resident parking sticker, I gotta have 10 generations of family photos proving I live here. . . . Last time they made me carry in the whole house.''

Perhaps here in the commonwealth our hyper-vigilance is misdirected: not at mother-rapers and father-killers but at upstanding, tax-paying, Honest Toms.

``Try getting your own money back from the treasurer's unclaimed property list,'' says Tom, Newton. ``You need proof of your last 10 addresses. You need to keep some old envelope hanging around. From 1989.''

Now we've learned that Logan International Airport security, God help us, has no surveillance cameras.

But try sneaking a 25-cent pack of Juicy Fruit past the counter at the self-serve gas station's mini-mart. They've filmed you front, back, one side, the other side. They'll hunt you down like a dog.

Now we've learned that toy bombs, guns, bullets, buck knives, even dummy hand grenades - no flamethrowers or bazookas, that we know of, anyway - have sailed through Logan security.

But let the cashier at CVS or Walgreens forget to scan your Palmolive Dish-Washing Liquid, $1.49, bells and whistles, sirens, lights and gongs go off as you pass through the electronic gate.

``Please return to the sales clerk,'' some disembodied female voice instructs you. Then the bored kid with the eyebrow ring who caused this humiliation starts rifling through your plastic bags, looking for what you've stolen. Customers behind you salivate at the prospect of your arrest, you filthy scoundrel you.

All this, I submit, says something about our priorities.

So it was no surprise to read a Washington Post survey Friday that said that for the first time in three decades, most Americans trust the federal government to do ``what is right.''

We have to. Who's left?

Here's our local officials post-attack:

``Enjoy the city,'' said the mayor of Boston. ``Have your children go to the Sock game.''

``Are you Mr. Johnson?'' asked acting Gov. Swift mid-press conference. We thought she'd called media together to introduce her crack new task force, the one that's going to save Logan. Apparently she needed to meet its members herself.

Said the mayor, ``Every information that we get we take with credibility. We check it out to see if, what, what the long-range plans are with them.''

``She came from canine.'' So said a Logan employee of Mary Carol Turano, who ran the Federal Aviation Administration's canine program before running the FAA's security field office at Logan. She was reassigned Friday in the wake of reports of toy bombs, guns, bullets, buck knives and dummy hand grenades sailing through security - though no flamethrowers or bazookas, that we know of, anyway. ``Clearly, this illustrates how vulnerable and flawed the system is.'' So said Ginny Buckingham, head of Massport, failing, utterly, to reassure a jittery public about our mess of an airport.

Then we saw the beleaguered Buckingham, as she's come to be known, on ``Today'' with Katie Couric. If ever a moment cried out for a Hillary power suit and no-nonsense 'do! Ginny wore some sweater deal like a sorority sister out of UConn.

Maybe for now we should all fly in spandex, the material that leaves no room for hidden agendas.

As it is, we must look for comfort to President Bush and his new federal Office of Homeland Security. It's got a vaguely Third Reich-ian ring to it, a tad disturbing. What do we care. We turn on TV and it's perpetual panic. Every network has its own logo running (America Under Siege! America Attacked!! AMERICA AT WAR!!!). Either some talking heads blather ominously or some Pakistanis are screaming ``Death to the infidels'' and burning Dubya in effigy. We're overwrought, understandably. We need to take hope wherever we can find it. Which isn't around here.