Look Closely...
This is a picture of the
UN Security Council voting for a resolution to instruct Syria to cooperate with them. (A silly vote to take, in practical terms (since Syria is already supposed to do this, and it's just saying, "No, really, we mean it,") but a very important vote diplomatically nonetheless.)
I would draw your attention to the man in a mustache and striped tie, over on the left. Who is that?
Oh, why, it's John Bolton. Not voting. And that woman raising her hand? That's Condoleezza Rice. Voting for the US.
Why? If we don't like, or don't trust, Bolton enough to vote on our interests, why on
earth did we make him our UN Rep? I mean, it's not exactly like he was loved by the rest of the world (or, indeed, by many of us here at home). And if this is to show the world we're serious about working with them (and so we send our Secretary of State, a thing that the BBC claims), don't you think we could make that point a little bit more publicly so that the world actually
hears it?
Anyhow, I think the photo is interesting.
Halloween!
Do kids go trick or treating on Halloweens in New York City?
I mean, I know we've got the
Parade, but it just can't be as much fun as going door-to-door, meeting all your neighbors anew, and wondering whether the candied apples are poisoned or the cookies have razors in them. And getting lots, and lots, and
lots, of chocolate.
The truth is, Halloween is an excellent holiday. It's an excuse to get out and walking around in the lovely, crisp, cool autumnal air before the great outdoors descends into an unpleasant coldness. It's quintessentially seasonal, too, featuring pumpkins and squashes and full moons--and this seems good to me. With the exception of Thanksgiving, I'd argue that it's the last seasonal holiday that remains to us. It's nice to be a little bit in tune with the natural environment, though. It keeps man-made life grounded.
Perhaps that's why it's hard for me to conceive of a proper Halloween here in New York, though. This is the city of lights! Of not sleeping! Of apartment flats and taxis and people and construction! But not really of trees or pumpkin patches, much less clear starry skies, it must be admitted. Even the weather is unaccommodating: it grows cold, but not crisp or clean that deliciously autumnal way that I so love.
Ah well. New York has a character all its own, and it's not a bad one.
Spinning Heads
Yuri Kageyama at the AP reports on a remote control that controls people by messing with our sense of balance, among other things. (Thanks to Toynbee for pointing me in that direction.) This is:
- Scary,
- Scientifically impressive, and
- Completely awesome,
in that order.
Tanogashi (long defunct blog, I know, but interesting anyhow) notes that "this country loves its stimulents" and paints a picture of the day in which we ride the subway with our espressos in our hands, our ipods blaring in our ears, and our currents passing through our brains just to keep life interesting. I suspect he's not far off with this, though as for that I'm not entirely convinced it's a bad thing if we want to run on caffeine and heavy metal instead of Sun Chips and quiet solitude. Indeed, even dependence is not a de facto bad thing; I'm dependent on food for my happiness (and, in this case, my life), but that's fine with me, and, indeed, great food provides me with ample opportunity for genuine pleasure.
That said, I do feel a theoretical attraction to the idea that I should be as unaddicted as possible. I don't like the notion that my well-being or happiness is linked to the outside world (even if this is inescapably the way of things), because it means that depriving me of things may also deprive me of some of my practical joys. As a result, it seems best to limit my dependencies as much as possible.
But nobody is yet claiming that this remote-control thing is addictive (physically, or even psychologically... yet). It certainly does open up the door to scary body-control applications (and it's worth pointing out the distinction between controlling somebody's body and controlling somebody's mind--their thoughts, hopes, feelings, and desires, among other intangibles). But the thing that most disturbs me is actually the same thing that disturbs me about most drug use (legal and illegal), excessive alcohol consumption, and even, ocassionally, eating (not that I don't eat, but there is a philosophical hesitation as follows): I don't like the idea of changing one's physical or chemical state via artificial means. (Here, let "artifice" indicate "man-made," though there is room here for fruitful debate.) Just as I'm skeptical of taking a drug that enhances dopamine production, I'm hesitant to try any device that will mess with the fluids of my inner ears. You want to get high? Climb a mountain. Want to get dizzy? Run around in circles. The human body is meant to deal with stimuli of those sorts; it evolved over a long period of time precisely in order to be able to do that sort of thing.
Of course, I recognize an irrationality in all of this. After all, if my body can handle dizziness after I spin around for a while, it can probably handle the very similar dizziness that I experience if somebody shoots electrical currents through my head--and it can do so in exactly the same way, one might argue. In short, our bodies were made for this, too.
That may be right. Either way, though, we'd better get ready for some crazy video games...
Unions
Every day, I pass a lady on Times Square who asks for "A Penny, A Nickel, A Dime, Ladies and Gentlemen, just a Penny, a Nickel, a Dime." She optimistically has a large empty water bottle, of the variety that are turned upside-down atop office water coolers, into which people deposit their paltry sums. The bottle is never even remotely full.
I do not know this woman's name, but I do know her. I once gave her my umbrella during a rainstorm, and she recognizes me now as I walk down the street on my way to work. We often share greetings.
The woman works for the
United Homeless Organization, a strange but good New York institution. The UHO is basically a union of the homeless and formerly homeless. They provide services for each other, do outreach, distribute goods, and, most especially, educate one another. Where does one go if one is sick? Where is the best place to sleep on a cold night? How can we change New York's vagrancy laws? The UHO meets in parks and buildings to try to provide common answers to these questions.
New York is the home of numerous unorthodox unions. The UHO is one of them; the
Freelancers Union (motto: "a strange idea whose time has come") is another. In a city as faceless as this one, people seem to band together whenever possible. And in a city as
big as this one, those bands can become quite large (and well-organized) over time.
Why is it that "organized begging" (fundraising, that is to say) is "respectable," while begging on the streets is not? I don't know the answer... but it seems like the UHO has figured out how to do the first instead of the second.
Internationalism on Call
Stanton in NYC
My high school was an amazing place. I am sometimes reminded of this when I hear about other people's schools, or when I start to think about a problem and I realize many of the tools I am using I learned in 10th grade. Mostly, however, I suspect that I take my excellent (and free, publicly-funded) education far too much for granted.
Friday night, however, I remembered this fact anew.
A big group of Stantonites-in-NY met up for dinner, and then retired to my apartment in order to play Set and chess, talk about technology and clothing and the job market, and expound upon possible changes in the public education system. Some of us talked about the nature of mathematics and different geometries. Some of us talked about college. Some of us just lounged around. But everybody was so cool! It was great to see these folks again, and to rediscover what well-rounded, sharp, and interesting people they were. We were just chilling, but people were smart and fun while still being... well,
real. There are a whole lot of smart people at Cornell, but many of them try a little to hard to be something they're not (whether that's fashionable, or smart-seeming (ironically, since they truly are quite sharp), or in charge of 800 clubs and just emitting leadership capability, without actually caring about any of those groups). Somehow, Stanton got something right in turning out well-adjusted, fun, confident, unpresumptuous folks.
To state the obvious: We need more very good public schools.
What you want, When you want it
There exists in New York an amazing culture of delivery.
My groceries come, boxed and bagged, frozed and cushioned and wrapped, to my door at any hour of the day or night.
Lunch comes to my office, and supper to my home (when I don't cook).
Dry cleaning? We'll pick it up! Books? Free delivery! New clothes, hardware supplies, puppies, fine wines: all can be had at your doorstep (for a price). And anything that takes more than 24 hours-- well, forget it. I can't wait that long (and nobody would expect me to).
This is awesome, if also baffling. I walk past hundreds of shops each day on my way to and from work. Nor, I suspect, is this avoidable in a city like New York; certainly it is
de rigeur on Manhattan island. Why I could not pick up books at any of the three bookshops on the way, or clothing at any of dozens (hundreds?) of stores, or food at anything from the Grand Central Marketplace to specialty shops to grocery stores to restaurants, I don't know.
Moreover, it makes me wonder. To what extent does the culture of delivery play into a culture of acquisition? At first glance, it seems like the two should go hand-in-hand. But in fact, I'm much more likely to purchase something on a whim if I see it (walking past a bookstore or through a clothing shop, for example) than if I'm sitting at home. Indeed, I think this is true even when I'm sitting at home and I realize I need something.
But then again I wonder--is this just because I haven't gotten into the New York swing of things yet? I mean, I certainly do think things like, "Oh! I'm out of milk! I wish I had some" and "Oh man, I forgot to do my laundry!" and "Gosh, I need some #43 quarter-inch screws in order to make this awesome astrolabe which a friend sent to me." What I never think, though, is "I'd better call the grocer/cleaner/hardware store and have some milk/laundry boy/screws sent up!" And I guess I wonder:
Do people--normal, you-and-me-type people--think that way in this city?
This city is a service industry unto itself.
It's all Greek to me
I missed my Greek class yesterday because of a migraine. That bums me out; the class keeps me sharp. However, as penance I did sit down and work through several exercises on my own this morning.
I have this (neither original nor very remarkable) observation to make: knowing grammar makes language acquisition easier.
It doesn't matter if the language in question is as familiar to the Anglophone as French, or as alien as Indonesian. At this point, our grammar is surprisingly capable of organizing nigh on all extant linguistic forms. And that leads to a question: was Chomsky more right than I've ever been willing to credit? I mean, clearly small children utter ungrammatical phrases all the time, strongly suggesting that grammar is more emergent than innate. But if I can draw a sentence tree for well-formed sentences in any language, then maybe we really are constrained to think in terms of subjects, objects, and adverbs nonetheless. Are these categories merely successfully descriptive of the languages we have encountered thus far? Or are they rather indicative of necessary constraints on the kinds of grammatical relationships of which people are able to conceive?
A Moment's Respite
At lunch today, I discovered an airy, acoustically stunning, visually compelling oasis of quiet and reflection right here in the middle of Times Square. The doors were open; I went in, out of curiosity, and was rather stunned to have stumbled into a chanted mass at
The Church of St. Mary the Virgin. I didn't stay, but the contrast between the bustle of the street and the calm of the church was really quite pleasing indeed. You can find anything in New York, if you just know where to look!
Note the vaulted ceiling, bestarred and lovely. (Picture courtesy http://www.stmvirgin.org.)
An Open Letter to the Associated Press
Dear AP,
On 17 October, you released an article about the implications of incorrect information concerning Valerie Plame. (This misinformation was found in NYTimes reporter Judith Miller's newly released notes.) The point of the article was that this new info might lead investigators to the original source of the leak.
The article closes with the following single-sentence paragraph:
The revelation came as President Bush wighed in yesterday by declining to say what he would do if one of his aides were indicted in the investigation.
My complaint is neither one of politics nor of poor reporting. It is a complaint against diction.
To "weigh in" most literally means to "add weight" to an argument or statement. It is to make such a statement richer, more laden with evidence, support, or believability. Precisely what President Bush did
not do in this situation was "weigh in." Rather, he
avoided weighing in, declining to make a statement that might have indicated his support either for or against the findings of the investigation. (One presumes that a determination to sack any indicted aide would show that he was taking the charges seriously and therefore approved of the investigation, while a decision not to do so would show that he doesn't give a rat's ass about who is compromising American intelligence agents' lives and livelihoods.)
AP, you should be ashamed. I freely admit that this is a mere quibble with a news source that is largely reliable and on-the-ball. Yet word choice is
important; we dilute this rich and lovely language of ours when we use our words carelessly. Losing shades of meaning also loses us shades of thought.
if honesty is a prereq, will anyone take the class?
Bush's
staged talk with soldiers makes me sick. Public office holders (and candidates) should be... well...
candid. We don't always have to agree with them, but we should know what they are thinking and doing; democratic competition simply doesn't work if we don't know what we're voting for or what positions our candidates actually hold. In short, if politicians are not honest with us about their positions and political posturing activities, then democracy itself is undermined. Frank discussion and debate over an issue is what democracy is
about. Moreover, such honesty embodies a respect for the people one represents, the nation one governs, and the office one holds. A lack of honesty, however, is just "playing the people," and is both disrespectful and ignoble.
Is anybody surprised that Americans don't vote these days?
I hope we are not seeing the beginning of the end of a short-lived experiment in idealized political forms. Sometimes it just seems like true democracy, while theoretically superior to other forms of government, is practically untenable.
Rain
There's
a lot of it.
Tosca
Last night a friend and I went to the
New York City Opera to see
Tosca. I had managed to get a pair of free tickets at work, and we found that our seats were fabulous: eight rows from the stage, in the orchestra, center stage. We could see
everythingThough I grew up with some exposure to opera, I know that Contreras is my favorite of the three tenors (on recordings only; this isn't a statement about how well his voice carries when on stage), and I could sing you nearly anything from
Carmen when I was six, I had never actually
been to an opera before. Let me tell you, the staging made the experience. Hearing the arias in context, placing them, having a fluid and easy awareness of the plot at any given moment (because it was being acted, but also because the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center features supertitles above the stage)-- all of these added enormously to the music.
I found, however, that I still experienced
Tosca as primarily a musical event. What I mean is this: the staging, the acting, and the spectacular(!) lighting of the production heightened the music and got me caught up in the sounds. Fundamentally, though, it was the
music which grabbed me, and which played with my emotions. When the music was driving, so was I. When it was lyrical and emotional--at times even Rachmoninoff-esque--I too was caught in the rise and ebb of it all. While I paid attention to the stage, neither its simplicity nor the minimal blocking and movement of the characters bothered me; the stage was a prop for the greater understanding and appreciation of the music, and not vice versa.
Contrast this, for example, to the Musical, in which the plot is all-important and the music rarely that impressive. Major musicals--the Phantom of the Opera comes to mind--have spectacular sets, great effects, and often elaborate acting as well. These are primarily plays, supplemented by song. The opera is a different thing--perhaps primarily a symphonic work, supplemented by acting--but perhaps yet a third thing altogether.
That is not to say, of course, that the plot or libretto of an opera is necessarily weak (though it sometimes is, to be sure). Indeed, one of the new pleasures that I discovered last night was quintessentially textual; I was charmed by
Tosca's clever references to opera and playacting itself. For example, Tosca, the female lead, is an opera singer--but knowing this fact from a plot summary just cannot give one a sense of the beautiful irony in watching her run offstage in order to "sing onstage at the opera." In another place, Tosca coaches her lover, Cavaradossi, on how to feign his death convincingly: "
Tieni a mente... al primo colpo... giù... " ("Keep your wits about you... at the first blow... fall down..." -my translation, possibly imperfect). She repeats instructions, emphasizing at one point that her training as an opera singer has taught her how to fall without hurting herself. She implores her lover to follow her advice to the word. Their plans go terribly awry in the final scene, however, as Cavaradossi is killed and discovered not to be feigning at all, but instead to have been truly killed. The actor
playing Cavaradossi, however, has just followed Tosca's instructions to the letter, convincingly pulling off a death scene. The effect is excellent.
One last word: both I and my companion had a
great time, and we genuinely recommend the opera to young folks. Not pretentious, opera-loving young folks, but normal people. We bet you'll like it.
For Beautiful, For Spacious... Pages?
Reading:
America: The BookEverybody has already said their piece about this left-leaning (but largely non-partisan) take on Democracy, America, and All Things Political. Tom Carson of the New York Times Sunday Book Review went so far as to suggest that
it should be nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for history (the link only works if you subscribe to TimesSelect, a really annoying new feature of the NYTimes website).
Wal-Mart and
two Mississippi library systems have refused to carry the book for reasons of taste and decency (so they plausibly say). Publisher's Weekly named it
Book of the Year (2004) (I can't link directly to the PW article, since it requires a pay subscription that I don't have). Everybody on earth has offered reviews, it seems.
So I'm going to do something different. Yes, I find the book amusing--at times even insightful, though at times a little too base for my tastes. What I find particularly appealing about
America, though, is not actually its content. Rather, I am taken by the book's
form.
In terms of design, Jon Stewart and the Daily Show team have put together a masterpiece. The lines are simple and elegant. The color scheme is bold. Charts and graphs are straightforward and easy to read (if sometimes ridiculous), and pictoral interludes are cleanly and crisply designed with plenty of negative space to offset the images. Even the font is nice (though as for that, perhaps we oughtn't be surprised: font is often the only internal graphic element over which mainstream books take care).
I confess that I wouldn't buy a book simply for its nice clean lines and its excellent use of space, but I bet
Diana Eng would. And she wouldn't be wrong, either; people buy coffee-table books all the time because of their form and design. I too can imagine buying a book for formal reasons, though I would privilege a different kind of form: for me, heavy pages, leather bindings, real ink, large size, and illumination would make a work worth owning regardless of content. But the idea is the same, and
America: The Book is a beauty after its fashion.
(Note that clicking the page images will blow them up to a larger size for your leisurely perusal.)
Beauty, Goodness, Truth: What Socrates Got Wrong
Read:
Death in Venice. (Also read, as a direct result of having read Mann: Plato's
Phaedrus.)
Death in Venice is a complicated and excellent little book. I'm left a bit confused as to what's going on intellectually, however. On the one hand, Aschenbach moves from being a determined, cerebral, prominent and dignity-filled author to being a debased man ruled by his passions. The sense of duty and level-headedness that had guided his earlier working life disappears swiftly once he sees Tadzio, a youth of extraordinary beauty. Aschenbach abandons his writing, his steadfastness, and his well-considered plans to flee Venice. He leaves behind all dignity, as well: the writer sneaks around the city following Tadzio; he has his hair colored and makeup applied in order to look younger and more desirable to the boy; and he ultimately dies of an easily-avoidable bout of cholera because he could not bring himself to leave the diseased city where Tadzio is staying. In one way, then, this story is about the decline of an old man who, once having let his passions get the better of him even for an instant, is caught inexorably in a downward spiral.
But there are hints, too, that this is not precisely a bad thing (and it is this that leads to my confusion). Clearly, Aschenbach's obsession with Tadzio draws him from the cerebral to the passionate, from diligence to distraction and leisure. One of his best and most admired works comes out of his passion and preoccupation, however. Moreover, Aschenbach himself is filled with joy at even just the sight of Tadzio (to whom he never speaks). Perhaps most tellingly, though, are the constant references to Plato's
Phaedrus, in which Socrates (ironically and seriously, in turns) extols love and lovers. "Beauty," the
Phaedrus tells us, "is the only form of intellectuality which we perceive with, and can tolerate with, our senses. Otherwise, what would become of us if the godhead, if reason and Goodness and Truth were to make themselves directly known to our senses? Would we not perish and burn up from love...? Beauty is therefore the path taken by a man of feeling to achieve the intellectual." Tadzio's extreme beauty, which drives Aschenbach to destruction, is also represented as a kind of Platonic Ideal, then. Moreover, it seems like an appreciation of the boy's beauty
ought to form the perfect bridge between the cerebral and the passionate within Aschenbach himself.
Yet somehow the boy's beauty ends up not as the apotheosis of some divine or near-divine thing (as it ought to in a story that parallels the
Phaedrus, in which Socrates points out that Eros, too, is a god), but rather as something like a "gateway vice." Aschenbach's initial appreciation of Tadzio is intellectual, perhaps even spiritual (or so he tells himself, and it seems plausible to believe it): the great writer notices a perfection of form, and himself reflects upon Plato, Beauty, and the nature of divinity. In fact, we might say that Aschenbach allows himself to fall in love with Tadzio only because his beauty is so easily intellectualized. Having let down his guard and opened the door to passion and feeling even just a little, however, Aschenbach is overwhelmed, and ultimately doomed.
Yet perhaps this makes sense. After all, Aschenbach is not a "man of feeling" whom sensed beauty can move towards the more intellectual. He is an intellectual and reason-driven man already; and his indulgence of passion and worldly feelings, even in the dignified way of his early encounters with Tadzio, can only lead him astray. Aschenbach never perceives a physical, sensible instantiation of Goodness or Truth, but his appreciation of Beauty is sufficient to destroy him. Ironically and pathetically, then, Aschenbach ultimately does "perish and burn up from love."
Americans in the News?
I've always thought of Columbus Day as an American holiday. It's never occured to me before that it might be an
Italian-American holiday, much less an
Irish-American day. But during my lunch break today I ran into the Columbus Day parade on Fifth Avenue (yes, I work on Columbus Day). It was an excercise in stereotypes. The New York Department of Sanitation, I learned, has its own Pipe and Drum Corps. In this, they were not unique. Everybody not sporting some Irish flair--and I mean
everybody--was decked out in red, white, and green. The New York City Police department members each wore the colors of the Italian flag around their necks. Others carried Italian flags, played Italian music, or waved banners written in Italian.
The thing is, the NYPD--or the Fire Department, or the Department of Sanitation workers, or City Hall--is no longer an exclusively Italo-Irish group (if ever it was). You look at the names (and faces) of the cops who were actually marching, and you see Fitzkewitzes and Smiths, Yens and Chins and Estradas and Coopers. Is the NYPD actually representative of the New York population? No. But it is certainly not an Italian Old Boys' Club, either. It's strange, then, that the institution (along with so many others) maintains such a strong Italian-American cultural affinity. (Though as for that, some things change: a few people were waving EU flags, especially alongside Italian flags, and several had EU patches on their clothing.)
A cool detail: I saw Justice Antonin Scalia at the parade. (He was the Marshall.)
St. John the Divine
Over the weekend, I went to the
Cathedral of St. John the Divine, an enormous work-in progress on the Upper West Side. The Cathedral is very much unfinished, so that when you walk up the middle you see an enormous grey blank area where, in the future, I imagine there will be an alter, much carving, and maybe a rose window. The towers with which it is pictured in its own stained glass are, my companion pointed out, yet unbuilt. Some stone is only half-carved.
The work-in-progress is somehow emblematic of the Cathedral as a whole: it is a
living cathedral, a
modern religious structure (for all that it's Gothic architecture suggests another age). Chapels are dedicated to AIDS victims, the New York City Fire Department, and American poets. The stained glass features saints and religious scenes--but also the signing of the US Constitution, Louis Pasteur, linotype, the telegraph, Valley Forge, baseball, Lincoln at Gettysburg, the Code Napoleon, and many other things. Statuary shows Armageddon--in which cars are being flung left and right by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The message is clear: religion is not dead, or stuck in 1500 before modern science, medicine, art, sports, or convenience. It is here now, and these things which are a part of our world and identity are also religiously significant, or some sign of God or part of His plan.
I'm not always sure what I think about the role of religion in America, but I do think that (for better or worse) this cathedral was engaged in a very successful attempt to blend the old and the new, and to keep religion alive and relevent without resorting to rock music and laser-light shows.
At any rate, the place was cool, and for the curious I give it a high recommendation. Take your time over the windows and the sculpture: the details are rich indeed.
Midnight Madness
Today's feature is a group New Yorkers after my own heart: those who love the challenge of figuring out (and setting) difficult puzzles. I've done this sort of thing with friends for years, making them find (or having them make me find) gifts or messages strewn across the Cornell campus. For the first time, I will do it with coworkers, neighbors, and a random assortment of crazy New Yorkers.
Click
here for some of last year's clues...
The Tale of the Unknown Island...
...is a fairy tale written through a haze. The characters are everymen, with a king who would rather recieve favors than petitions, a dreamer who wants a boat to find an island that he doesn't know exists, and a washerwoman who is sucked into his dream. There is a moral: life follows belief (or desire), and not vice versa. The man and washerwoman end up living together on their impossible island (if only in yet another dream), drifting asea in forests and in love. They never
find their unknown island, precisely, but they do
make The Unknown Island out of their boat itself. They float together, perhaps in perpetuity, living their ideal; their hopes, dreams, beliefs, and desires are made real precisely because they indulge them.
All this is well and good, and the style is appropriately fluid and flowing (little punctuation breaks up the dreamy stream of words). But Saramago's little story didn't really do that much for me, even if I recognize a kind of textual richness in it. Perhaps it said a lot, but it evoked very little in me.
Rime (not reason)
For the first time in years, I reread
"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" last night. It is a brilliant poem. It is, perhaps, the only poem I know which is so obviously a great success as a
story. Certainly, other poets (some quite well-known) are first and foremost storytellers; Robert Browning comes readily to mind on this count. But nobody's poetical stories are quite so gripping as Coleridge's is here.
Appositional Logic
I spent my lunchtime today at Rally Monday at Bryant Park. This entailed listening to Yankee legends and half-legends speak about the team's postseason prospects (it was universally acknowledged that they would win the World Series: the only right answer, obviously); getting a number for the raffle to win Yankees paraphernalia; and the opportunity to win tickets (
good tickets) to Game 3 of the Anaheim-New York series.
It also involved Greg Nettles being asked to lead a cheer of "Let's Go Yankees!" He stood up, took the mic, and cheered, "Boston sucks! Boston sucks!" It got a glorious reaction from the crowd.
Now, I have always maintained that Boston is a city (and, of course, a team) dependent upon an inferiority-complex for their identity. What is the Boston cheer when Baltimore comes to town? "Yankees suck! Yankees suck!" Clearly, their identity is merely appositional: "We are not New York; that is who we are." I have always thought the "Yankees suck" thing goes a little far.
But now, I must confess, I kind of understand it. It was
much more fun to cheer "Boston sucks" than it would have been to cheer "Let's go Yankees!" We were galvanized by panning our rivals. What does this say about human nature, I wonder?
At any rate, I apologize to Boston for so often chewing them out for their cheers & jeers. Kind of.
* One other thought: this is a city with
identity. People came out for Jaguars rallies in Jacksonville, too. But nobody closed the rally by singing songs about how great Jacksonville was or how much we liked the city. Here, that is precisely what happened. This isn't just our team; it's our
city, of which we are proud and to which we are fiercely loyal.
Debt
On the corner of 44th Street and 6th Ave (right above the IRS office, appropriately enough) there is a giant electronic billboard: the national debt clock. I pass it nearly every day when I go out for lunch. The thing is striking, perpetually climbing past the total of the day before. Right now, the clock informs me that the debt stands at $86,458 per family.
I used to look at that and think,
wow, that's about $20,000 per person. Today, however, I realized that I
am a family, at least in the eyes of the federal government. These days, we tax by household (which makes sense; nobody wants small children to have to pay an even amount, for example). And, for the first time in my life, I'm nobody's dependent. I'm not the head of anybody else's household, either. My share of the national debt?
$86,458.
Eventually, isn't somebody going to realize that America is a terrible customer? If I had a perpetually growing bar tab that I never paid off, you can bet the bartender is going to stop serving me drinks at some point. And the money I'm spending on other things: it's all just a big loan from the bartender whom I owe. But if I've got the force on my side, I suppose everybody'll let that little detail go.
Woo-hoo for
realpolitik!
