Nation: Bomb Blanket

Some of the radical young complain about their revolution being co-opted by the Establishment. But on the other hand, countering revolution head-on has stimulated equal amounts of Establishment enterprise. Pinkerton’s, the venerable private constabulary that hunted down Butch Cassidy and was McClellan’s private OSS in the Civil War, is marketing ‘the new Pinkerton Bomb Blanket, a four-by-four 18-layer core of high-tensile ballistic nylon covered by fire-retardant Herculite to smother incendiary bombs.”

As. advertised in The Wall Street Journal, Pinkerton’s Bomb Blanket is designed to “stop up to 90% of the destructive fragmentation of most home-made bombs.”

Thus, “if a lethal homemade bomb is planted in your building, you can take immediate, decisive action to save lives and minimize costly damage.” The price is only $149.50, with a 10% discount for orders of five or more. There might, of course, be some additional expense in finding a hero willing to tiptoe up to the bomb and swaddle it in the blanket.