The Wall Street Journal has an article on Anthrax cases that seems to weaken the argument in favor of domestic terrorism. Apparently a letter sent to Chile from Switzerland tested positive for anthrax -- a letter identified as suspicious because while it was postmarked Switzerland, it had a return address in Florida. From what I've seen of the domestic crazies, they have neither the resources nor the inclination to zip merrily around the globe, mailing letters hither and thither. On the other hand, it is only one letter, and there is no word on whether the Chilean strain matches ours, so perhaps it's a wash.
The New York Times has an editorial saying that official residences (governors, mayors, presidents) are going out of style and losing their utility, except in places where they aren't which seems to include everywhere except New York. Aside from showcasing how parochial the Gray Lady has become, the article seems to be entirely without purpose. Writer's block, or unseemly arrogance? You decide.
On a related note, I really do think that this war has cost the Times its place as the paper of record. The increasingly editorial tone of its articles -- and its refusal, with rare exceptions such as Virginia Postrel, to put intelligent conservatives on its editorial pages -- were already costing it credibility outside of the New York/Washington media cocktail circuit and the groves of academe. My classmates from business school, unlike their elders at the banks and consultancies, didn't even bother getting subscriptions when they moved to New York. The coverage of the war, however, was the nail in the coffin. While the Washington Post was offering a range of viewpoints, the New York Times was accentuating the negative. We couldn't win. Even if it might temporarily look like we were winning, we actually weren't. The Taliban might be on the endangered species list, but there are a lot more where they came from. Etc. My (admittedly somewhat cynical ears) detected a distinct note of glee in all of this. IMHO, there are two reasons for this:
1) Bush is president, and he's actually doing a pretty OK job. 2) The New York Times would rather cover a disaster than a victory because a) A disaster lasts longer b) It feels more exciting and important to describe a disaster than to discuss the floats at a victory parade c) They like being the Voice of Doom. I myself am not immune to the seductive joys of raining on someone else's parade. (pardon the repitition; I couldn't think of another metaphor.)
Anyway, I think that they badly miscalculated, mostly because (as I am far from the first to point out) Punch Salzberger has surrounded himself entirely with people who agree with him. Personally, I think the Post will emerge as the paper of record on the policy side, the Journal on the New York/Business side. But we shall see.
WATCH ME MAKE MY FIRST HYPERLINK City Journal, a quasi-libertarian quarterly dedicated (as far as I can tell -- I've never read their mission statement) to the conservative take on urban issues, has a proposed design for the WTC site. Looks pretty good to me, but then, I'm not an architect, nor a city planner -- something in me feels that it should be an enormous memorial, even though I know that this would devastate lower Manhattan.
World War II Nostalgia The Corps series, by WEB Griffin. The books are somewhat cartoonish (does every Marine meet good looking women who fall into bed with them five hours after they meet?), but very amusing and offer interesting historical tidbits. For those of us who find the present a little frightening, it's a pleasant escape, especially since it makes you realize that it wasn't a very sure thing that we would win the war, way back then.
Could This Be Another Great Depression? Once in Golconda by John Brooks. It's not quite up to the incomparable The Great Crash by John Kenneth Galbraith, but it's an interesting picture of the period between 1920-1940, and is blissfully free of Galbraith's obvious (if sometimes accurate) editorial bias.
How Should the Nation React to a New Security Threat The Rosenberg File by Ronald Radosh. Yes, indeed, they were communist spies. The book is thorough, but lacks direction -- there is a mountain of evidence, but the straight chronological recount, without the framework of conclusions that could or should be drawn from it, makes it feel rather meandering. If all you want is the facts, its a useful compendium -- but since I was born in 1973, I wanted a little more context.
Where's the Light at the End of the Tunnel When God Doesn't Make Sense by James Dobson. Yes, the Family Research Council. It was given to me free by the Salvation Army (funny, I never thought about the Salvation component until I got down here -- where they are doing a superb job, by the way), and takes about two hours to read. While I have a little trouble with the author's biblical literalism (I just can't believe that there are demons hovering around trying to do me in) it has some surprisingly insightful, and incisive, things to say about the anger one feels when things don't go according to plan.
Just for Fun My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok. I'm afraid that for me, nothing he writes has ever lived up to The Chosen and The Promise. But still excellent by any other standards.
Issue resolved. Now to introduce myself. I am, it seems, the epitome of our new century. I'm 28, just graduated from one of the top business schools in the world, and just had my job offer rescinded by a management consulting firm. In the interim, I have obtained a job with a construction company working on the WTC disaster recovery site. No, I don't work on "the pile" (as it is known here, despite the fact that they are already working below ground level) -- I work in a trailer across the street, doing everything from handing out security passes, to database design, to typing letters. Unfortunately, I can't offer any great insights, or even good gossip, about the site -- first, because they don't tell me anything, and second, because relating what I do hear could cost me my job.
So no great insights. But possibly interesting trivia. Such as -- the police, fire, and construction workers are whizzing around the streets of lower Manhattan in cunning little golf-cart type vehicles (with more power and usually 4WD, but without, alas, the cupholders). It is probably the only time in my life that I shall be able to go the wrong way on a one way street with cops nodding at me as I pass them. The World War II air prevails. It is unbearably awful to see the destruction, especially when they find bodies. Yet as long as we are here, and busy, it is easier to bear it all than it would be to be working somewhere else, and worrying, and unable to do anything about it. The people around you here have a reverence for their work that is absent almost anywhere else -- most people, most of the time, try to do the right thing just because they should.
Off the site, on the other hand, it is more like the Great Depression. One of the guys told me that three weeks after the Day, when he had been working all that time without a break (I got lost in that clause somewhere, and can't seem to get back on the right track. So I shall abandon it to its fate) he decided to get drunk. The whole time he'd been here, seeing body parts and terrible destruction, he had been able to handle it -- and this had made him think that perhaps there was something wrong with him, that he didn't break down. As soon as he sat down in a nice warm bar, in clean clothes, with a stiff drink in his hand, he began to cry. And couldn't stop. Similarly, I was fine until I left the site in search of office supplies. Passing through Union Square, I saw the thousands -- THOUSANDS -- of fliers posted by families missing loved ones. Seeing two or three on the television was sad, of course -- but seeing thousands of photographs, every single one of them of some cherished happy memory, was too much. One of them in particular sticks with me still. It was a snapshot of two friends, both Cantor Fitzgerald traders. They were in a hallway, obviously at a party, and one of them had the other in a headlock. Most people my age have an identical snapshot somewhere in their albums. And I thought, it could have been any of us holding the camera. I cried. Not a few little tears delicately overflowing my eyes, but huge, racking sobs that attracted the stares of passersby.
So that is the more-solemn-than-I-had-intended introduction to my blog. There will be lighter items on fascinating topics such as how much weight everyone's gained since 9-11 (last night, someone told me that the average American has gained 20 POUNDS since the Day -- as if most of us needed an excuse), and why I think that this recession actually is very similar to the Great Depression. Not to mention my no-more-ignorant-than-anyone-else's opinion on current politics, etc.
I seem to be posting on West Coast time, despite the fact that, as my heading reveals, I am about as far east as you can get without a wetsuit and flippers. Must investigate this.
Skipping the customary opening remarks about my intentions in beginning this blog (which generally put me in mind of Robert Benchley's statement that he found bookshelves mightily depressing because he could too readily see behind each forgotten volume an author signing his name to a finished manuscript and saying to himself "there! Now I've secured the immortality of my name." So I shall say only that I am writing this in the confident expectation that no one will read it, but still with the faint hope that somebody might. . .
