OK, it's That Post

If someone were in an accident in front of your house, the tragedy would be the people who were hurt or injured. If they knocked over the tree that had your rope swing hanging from it, though, you'd mourn the tree.

Manhattan was the small town I grew up in. My dad would take us downtown and let us watch the big buildings going up as if it were a new Dairy Queen on the corner - at any rate, it was a place to walk to on custodial weekends. We still give directions in my family in terms of landmarks - stores, murals, restaurants - that disappeared thirty years ago. "You know, cattycorner from where [x] used to be..."

We don't have the luxury of forgetting the dead the rest of the year around here. They're the elephant in our communal living room (and the grit in our communal lungs). They're a hole in the middle of us. But for the rest, I think maybe we'll get on the seven train this afternoon and take it into the city, and for the last few stops we'll watch the sun set where two of New York's great silly tasteless architectural monstrosities aren't any more.

My rope swing's gone too.

Gee, they are just like assholes, aren't they.

Standing on the site where Congress adopted the Bill of Rights, Attorney General John Ashcroft brought his defense of the Patriot Act to the edge of ground zero yesterday and suggested that critics of the act, a sweeping antiterrorism law, "have forgotten how we felt" on Sept. 11, 2001.


Mr. Attorney General:

With all due respect, go fuck yourself.

Thank you.

Just trying to keep us mindful for that nice Mr. Ashcroft.

President Bush paused in his Labor Day remarks about jobs and told his audience of union members, "I want you to think back to that fateful day, September the 11th, and what happened afterwards."

Usually his reminder is more subtle, but Bush is invoking the terrorist hijackings frequently as he ramps up his reelection campaign and tries to defuse the political risk posed by persistent joblessness, setbacks in Iraq and accusations that he exaggerated evidence on the road to war.

In the past six weeks, Bush has referred to "9/11" or Sept. 11, 2001, in arguing for his energy policy and in response to questions about campaign fundraising, tax cuts, unemployment, the deficit, airport security, Afghanistan and the length, cost and death toll of the Iraq occupation...

holy[tm] shit

we just don't learn, do we.

An answer to the big 9/11 question "How can people justify laying their personal tragedies on the altars of other people's gods"

the view from here

in case anyone was wondering what at least one New Yorker thinks about all this, my posts on what happened on 9/11 and after are here.

and Seth was closer than I was

Church Street, to people from elsewhere, is something less than the length of a good-sized mall parking lot from where the planes hit.

A view from where the death was.

a trifecta!

Now, not only can't I post to Body and Soul, aol has blocked both my pop address and my home address.

So anyway, here, thanks for this, Jeanne.

There may be a safe bacterial solution to the transmission of AIDS

Hallelujah.

ooooooooh

I'm really good invective's bitch (I guess some of you may have figured that out by now) so I'm adding alicublog to my daily reading list.

via Calpundit, who excerpts a really beautiful restaurant review.

want to do something good?

Mike (who has a neat blog) would like to find some folks to help his friend Kate,who needs some help.

Also paypal, so what could it hurt?

listening to the catbirds laugh in the back yard

I was reminded of my favorite political joke, which I here share with you on this very symbolic day.

My Favorite Political Joke
A Universal Comedy in a Fraction of an Act

A Man: (walks into a doctor's office, his salesmanlike face twisted slightly with an expression of concern)

Doc, what's wrong with me?

The Doctor: (asks him to sit down, and takes some cards out of a desk drawer)

I'd like to administer a test.

The Man: (unconvincingly breezy)

Hey, you're the doctor.

The Doctor: (holding up a card)

What does this inkblot remind you of?

The Man: (not at all good at appearing unconcerned, but a little smug)

Sex

The Doctor:

This one?

The Man: (with one of those little face twists that mean "I don't have to spell it out, we're both adults here)

Sex.

The Doctor: (eyebrow raised)

This one?

The Man: (turns his head sideways at a 57 degree angle, squints, shifts in his seat a bit too casually, swallows hard and - could it be? - blushes a little)

Sex

The Doctor: (a trifle glum, realizing as any wise man does that there are certain inevitable punchlines rolling around the universe, and he's just stubbed his toe on one of them)

I'm afraid I believe that you are obsessed with sex.

The Man: (leaps from his chair, shocked, stunned, secretly embarassed and righteously indignant)

Hey, buddy. I'm not the one who keeps a drawer full of dirty pictures at work.

and another day of discussing politics here on the world wide web drew gracefully to a close, and then another started.