The first thing you see as you approach Ground Zero is the smoke. You see it hanging between buildings, catching the autumn sun. You wonder if that’s it, if that’s The Smoke, or is it just some of normal exhalation of a busy city. Then The Smell wafts toward you and you know the smoke […]
Other than that, it’s been a beautiful autumn in northern New England. Days are warm and clear, nights have yet to bring a hard frost to the Champlain Valley. The tomato plants are still producing in abundance, still flowering even. We’ve been eating tomatoes from our garden for over three months. National Guard fighter jets […]
The president says nations must either fight terrorists or harbor them. The Bush Doctrine – two camps, no middle ground. Let’s take that idea and run with it. There are two kinds of people in the world, good people and bad people. Leaving the bad people aside for the moment, let’s separate the good people […]
It’s been a month today since terrorists attacked New York and the Pentagon, and now it’s a two-way war, the U.S. is shooting back. The raids so far have been remarkably successful, according to the newspapers. Military targets are being wiped out and very little collateral damage. There were those four workers on contract to […]
It’s been over three weeks now, but I can’t shake this sense of dislocation. My mind now may go for hours attending to other business, but it’s always there, a preoccupation. Sooner or later, I remember and think, “Oh yeah, that’s right.” Then I take a deep breath and go on. In the middle of […]
“No justice, no peace!” the protesters shouted, blocking traffic on Constitution Avenue the day it was announced the police officers who beat Rodney King had been acquitted. I was among them. “No justice, no peace!” The cry went up again for Abner Louima, Amadou Diallo, the people of Vieques, as it should have. “No justice, […]
Bombs Awry
It’s been two months since the launch of this post-modern war and Americans have done a great job of rallying around the flag, but any moment now, we’re going to have to start shutting down the free lunch. I know, it’s war, these things take time, there’s an international coalition we have to keep together, […]