...more recent posts
phew. if hes a neoliberal, i can only imagine what a neocon is thinking.
jargon alert: sky marshals - your arms in the sky
ok, here are some of my other complaints. can we come up with some shorthand to refer to the disaster? ive seen "bloody tuesday" but thats a bit gruesome. "9-11" might have some staying power as it is the code for emergency. so where were you for 9-11?
also, can we finish canonizing rudy? about the only job i havent heard him considered for -- pope. where was pope john paul 2 during this crisis? now is not a time for prayer but for action.
guiliani only looks good because the shrub is such a mumbling bumbler. i say, thank god for colin powell, he seems like the only reasonable person in that administration. meanwhile, was i the only person mildly disturbed by bush speaking from the pulpit to the assembled dignitaries (and the viewing audience) at the national cathedral for his day of remembrance. maybe it would have been alright had the speech he gave not been so politically oriented. it seemed like an intentional effort to blur the line between church and state when those lines should be drawn all the more starkly.
lastly, what is up with NOrmalcy? i was taught that it was properly "normality" but the only instance ive seen it used as such of late was in slate. thank you jacob weisberg. (i later found an economist article that also used "normality".) i think merriam webster listed the first instance of "normalcy" for 1857 or so. one of the do-nothing presidents, i think harding (return to normalcy), may have popularized its use. i was wondering what the oed says about it. jim?
they say foes, like couples, look and act similiarly after they spend too much time together. what you call a cell, we call "need to know".
bookmark The Nation
I just got my big 300.00 tax cut check. Now I can go out and prop up the economy.
I’ll buy you a beer.
FYI, find the meaning of acronyms PDQ.
Central Park, NYC
Gopnik said "surreal" and Armani said "cinema, cinema"
I finally got my online service back, and have been trying to digest the last week. I am fine, but have not yet been allowed to return to work at 26 Federal Plaza. The building is within a few blocks of the Trade Center, but we got out unscathed, in the minutes between the second impact and the first collapse. The north wind spared me the dust cloud. I made it to Diti’s, at the edge of downtown, where we saw the towers fall on TV. We were joined by Steve, and later made our way to the Lower East Side, to gather with Jim, Mary Beth, Linda, Mike, Dave, and other friends of this family of friends. I’m often happy to be alone, but this was a time to be with the people you love, and I want to thank everyone for just being there, and for just being. I’ve seen some of you since, and that’s been a comfort, but others have been out of reach, and being cut off from the net has been frustrating. It allows me to be isolated yet connected at the same time. Losing this capability at a time of crisis reminds me of how tightly the internet has been woven into my life, and of just how fragile the high-tech filigree of our civilization really is.
Mixed feelings are on the menu, and I’m sure we’ll all be going through this for some time. I’ll be trying to figure out what I feel, and I’ll try to let you know what I think about that. Meanwhile, some of the most beautiful days of the year are passing, and Fall arrives on Saturday. In irony or irrelevance, the natural world goes on without reflection. We will reflect, but we too will go on.