02/12/2009

Everything Converges

I’m in Rochester, New York, my hometown, today. I don’t get here much and it’s been a while since I last visited. I can still find my way around, more or less. I have the experience common to ghosts when I look for things where I expect them to be and see they’ve been replaced by something else. Makes me want to moan and rattle my chains.

Rochester is less Rochester than it used to be. Places that used to be unique, landmarks of my mind, have been replaced by pre-fabricated chain outlets. Miles and miles of curbside commercial districts scraped away and superseded by pasted-in swathes of Everywhere Else.

Rochester is a factory town. In my youth, Rochester was known for making photographic film and carburetors, two products we never imagined would be obsolete so quickly. So economic crisis is not new here, but this current iteration will hit hard nonetheless. In the coffee shop where I type this, locals banter about the housing market.

“How many houses for sale on your street?”

“Just one, but ask me again in four days.”

“I’m gonna sell my boat. Dunno how much I can get for it, but I’ll take what I can get.”
Continue reading »

By floegel | Posted in Commentary, Economy, Global Warming | Tagged | Comments (0)
02/05/2009

The Arrogance Virus

This time last week, Barack Obama was calling Wall Street bankers “shameful” for taking huge bonuses a) in the midst of an economic crisis that b) they caused and c) using taxpayer money that was meant to stabilize their banks.

How could these guys be so clueless and out of touch? Sure, they shuttle between Wall Street and their luxury homes on the Upper East Side or their weekend places in the Hamptons, or wherever, but they must turn on the tee vee or look at the internet or something besides their Bloomberg terminals. Hell, even their Bloomberg terminals could tell them they’ve trashed the economy.

By Tuesday, President Obama was regretting that he had to accept the withdrawal of Tom Daschle’s candidacy for Secretary of Health and Human Services. This was going be the guy to bring American health care into the 21st century and serve as White House health care czar.
Continue reading »

By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Tagged , , | Comments (0)
01/29/2009

Don’t Expect to Like It

I was helping a young Latin scholar with her homework last weekend. (“Helping” may be an overstatement. I read the correct answers off a sheet of paper.) She kept getting hung up on the difference between “satisfied” (contentus) and “happy” (gauisis).

She’s not alone and distinguishing between the two, in whatever language, can be crucial. I was reminded of the Latin lesson when reading that Barack Obama appointed former Senator George Mitchell as his envoy to the Middle East.

Mr. Mitchell’s primary qualification for the job was his role chairing the negotiations that led to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that ended violence in Northern Ireland. It’s worth noting that life has not been easy or smooth in Northern Ireland in the last 11 years, but it’s been peaceful and it’s steadily improved over time.

There are similarities and differences between the Northern Irish situation and the one Mr. Mitchell faces in Israel/Palestine, but there’s a similar feature that cries for attention.
Continue reading »

By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)
01/22/2009

Miracle on the Potomac

Inauguration Day in Washington, DC was cold. Not Vermont cold, but around 30 degrees, cold enough when standing in one place for several hours on end. The sun poured from a clear sky and warmed my face.

Adrienne and I were on the national mall Tuesday, proud to swell the ranks even if we represented just one-millionth of the crowd. We were nowhere near the presidential podium. The night before, a friend called with a chance at two tickets, for the bargain price of $60 dollars each. By the time I called back, they were gone. Good thing too, because the people who claimed them were among the four thousand ticket holders who didn’t get in – one last farewell screwup from the Bush administration.

As it was, we were 18 blocks west of the capitol, watching the whole thing on a Jumbotron screen. Yes, we could have been somewhere warm and watched it on tee vee. That was not the point. The point was to be there, to show up, an act of faith in America’s new day.
Continue reading »

By floegel | Posted in Civil Liberty, Commentary, Electoral Politics | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)
01/15/2009

Smart is Not Enough

I’m in Washington, DC this week and the town reels already with inauguration fever, even as the temperature plunges. As I type, a flatbed truck bearing 12 port-o-sans drives past the window, headed for the National Mall, there to await the expected millions next Tuesday. At least this week, the capital’s homeless will find a convenient place to relieve themselves.

Capitol Hill buzzes each day with confirmation hearings on Barack Obama’s nominees for various cabinet positions. As it is with every new administration, reporters and pundits gush over how intelligent the new team is, calling them “superwonks” and “hot nerds.”

It’s all a matter of perspective, I suppose – and memory. Eight years ago this week, the same reporters and pundits were writing about how “adults will once again be in charge of foreign policy.” Doesn’t look that way from here. George Bush, going out the door, say there’s no such thing as “short-term history,” hoping that he will somehow be vindicated.
Continue reading »

By floegel | Posted in Commentary, Electoral Politics | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)
01/08/2009

A View from the Cave

Just over 29 years ago, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and a number of Muslims decided they’d had enough interference by western nations in the affairs of Islamic nations and launched what they considered holy war against the invaders.

The US, via the CIA helped with money, weapons and training. If you watched “Charlie Wilson’s War,” it all seems like fun with a few caveats thrown in. That movie leaves one with the impression that it was the movement of millions of US tax dollars, plus some nights in Middle Eastern cafes with shady arms dealers that made the difference.

That’s not how Osama bin Laden and his friends see it. Their version of history says God – Allah – strengthened their hand and all that CIA money was just a manifestation of God’s will. The displeasure of Allah with the godless Commies was such that not only were the infidels driven from Afghanistan, but the Soviet Union collapsed soon after.
Continue reading »

By floegel | Posted in Commentary, Iraq Invasion, September 11th | Tagged , | Comments (0)
12/25/2008

“Your reclamation, then.”

Merry Christmas. Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” has been on my mind frequently during this holiday season. There are three (maybe more) potential reasons for this.

1 – Mr. Dickens wrote a timeless piece of literature, one that speaks to people in every age and circumstance.

2 – With the global economy crashing, this Christmas and perhaps Christmases soon to come will be ah … “Dickensian,” replete with poverty, grime, malnutrition and oppression of the weak by the strong.

3 – Floegel is neither well read nor imaginative, so he falls back on the same material year after year.

Some or all the above reasons may be in force, but “A Christmas Carol” is still worth browsing in that fallow hour of an early Christmas afternoon, when the busy activity of the morning has subsided and before the rich aromas begin wafting from the kitchen. (The scent of Christmas Eve’s slowly roasting pork drives me to distraction as I type this.)
Continue reading »

By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Tagged , | Comments (0)