Letter From New York December 15, 2009

December 15, 2009

OR: as it seems to me

Several times over the weekend, I found myself on the deck of the cottage looking down at the creek. It was a working weekend; I had a project that kept me close to my computer and never far from home, with a bucket of conference calls layered in. So, sometimes in between, I went outside to catch a breath of fresh air, a respite from the work I was engaged in. The air was cold but not so cold that it was unpleasant to be outside; it was not MINNESOTA cold.

I sent a copy off to a friend in the U.K. saying: it’s looking a lot like Christmas. And it was, fresh snow on the ground, several local radio stations had turned themselves into All Christmas, All The Time stations so it wasn’t hard to find the carols to match the scene.

What was hard was to find the spirit inside to match the carols and the snow covered landscape. I don’t know about anyone else but the Grinch seems running amuck in my world. Thank God I put up the tree Thanksgiving weekend because if I were asked to do it now it might elicit a huge BAH HUMBUG from me. I am farther behind in chasing Father Christmas than I have ever been in all my remembered life. I may not even manage electronic Christmas cards this year! And I have been annoyed, annoyed with myself for not managing better organization [could I have?] and being annoyed at the season for slipping away so quickly. Time goes faster when you’re older they say but this Christmas season is going at light speed. Is it just because I have been buried in this project? Is it that there is a bit of the Grinch inside me [as there is in most people] and that little bit of the Grinch wants to come out and play under the pressure of other events?

So I have had to take a moment, a moment for attitude re-adjustment. This is not the way I want Christmas to be and so if it is not to be the Christmas stolen by the Grinch I am going to have to un-Grinch myself.

Which is why I found myself on the deck several times this weekend, working to get into the spirit of Christmas by basking in the beauty that surrounds me – and taking a photo so I would have some digital evidence of it. The fault is not with the stars, it is with myself and with myself I have to make the effort to break the cycle in which I have been finding myself.

Once realized, it hasn’t been that hard. Yes, I am monstrously behind in all the Christmas errands but that needn’t stop me from turning to the clerk in the store and wishing him or her a very merry. And, yes, I noticed when I was in the stores this weekend, squeezing in some essential Christmas shopping between conference calls, that there seemed to be very little merry, merry in the aisles. Well, I can help change that by changing myself and offering up a little of my own merry, merry!

The season of the year – whether you are celebrating Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanza or the winter solstice, lives not outside but inside – it is ours to make. And I have my work cut out for me in making this Christmas/Holiday season as merry as I want it to be – but I want it to be merry and fun and so I will do the work.

Merry, Happy/Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanza, Winter Solstice, whatever… may the joy of the season be with you and fill your life.

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Letter From New York December 9, 2009

December 9, 2009

OR: as it seems to me

While I write this, many of the world’s leaders have descended or are going to descend upon Copenhagen to attend COP 15: United Nations Climate Change Conference.   While I would follow this story in the normal course of events out of natural curiosity, I am particularly engaged in this because my major client, Odyssey Networks, has a team of four there covering the conference from an interfaith perspective and I have been leading the technical team that is charged with getting their nightly reports up on the web and available for the 127 or so organizations and news services that have said they want them.  I have been on pins and needles because of Copenhagen, Climate Change and the schedule of Mr. Obama, who has decided he will attend, putting a stick in the works of getting some credentials for our folks over there.

The whole concept of “climate change” is under siege right now because of “Climategate,” a brewing scandal out of the University of East Anglia in the U.K. that charges professors there with manipulating information and bullying others in the field to make things look worse than they are, in fact.  At least one person has temporarily stepped aside from his post while investigations proceed and the resultant brou-ha-ha has caused the number of people who say they believe in climate change to plummet just as all these folks are pulling into Copenhagen to discuss and attempt to do something about climate change.

Regardless, I am deeply engaged because I have people on the ground and can’t afford not to pay more than a little attention.

My brother asked me over the weekend if I believed in climate change and I answered this way, based on a report I had heard over the weekend.  Back in the 1920’s there was no empirical evidence smoking was bad for you but some people said: hey, wait a minute, putting smoke into your body can’t be good!  And about fifty years later we found out that those folks were right, smoking isn’t good for you.  We have now learned that empirically.  Now I can’t say categorically that climate change is happening.  I’m not a scientist and haven’t parsed all the information.  I suspect something odd is going on based on all the strange things that are happening that might, anecdotally, point to climate change – glaciers disappearing, storm patterns changing but I can’t prove it’s really climate change.

Takes me back to a day when I first moved to Los Angeles and I was walking down the street and went under a freeway overpass.  I reached out and could feel the particulates in the air and thought: hey, wait a minute, this can’t be good!  Now, regardless of climate change we are going around doing some pretty ugly things to old mother earth that are tantamount to putting smoke in her lungs and that can’t be good. It’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature so I am erring on the side of caution when it comes to this climate change thing.

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Letter From New York: December 2, 2009

December 2, 2009

Or: as it seems to me…

As I was preparing this year’s Thanksgiving feast, starting my day by peeling yams, I had NPR on the radio to keep my company.  It seemed a docile companion, National Public Radio.  My thought was that there wouldn’t be any real news on Thanksgiving Day – everyone, like me, was in his or her kitchen, peeling yams, or prepping potatoes, making cranberry sauce.  The world didn’t have time to get into trouble on Thanksgiving… Ah, I had fallen into the grand American parochialism– if we were busy nothing could happen anywhere. Ah, I was wrong.

Utilizing the Thanksgiving holiday here in the States, along with a long Muslim holiday, to buffer fallout, Dubai World, Inc. announced it wanted to delay payments on its sixty billion dollars in debt by six months, a gesture that was tantamount to default, a move that shook the global markets that were operating. The London Exchange took a dive as did the German as did…   it had the potential of being a big mess, another nail in the world financial order’s coffin.  So far, it hasn’t turned out that way but it could have been…

But it was Thanksgiving and I had guests coming and there wasn’t much I could do about what was happening in Dubai or about the aftereffects in the rest of the world.  I had yams to peel.  And squash to make and bread to bake… And things to be grateful for… It was a staggeringly beautiful day, bright and  cheery and warm. Friends were coming to join me.  I was, at that moment, cozily safe in the cottage, surrounded by food that needed fixing for feasting.  I was not living in Baghdad or Kabul or Darfur.  I was living in the calm of Claverack and the creek was flowing peacefully by and I was undisturbed by bombs or IED’s, suicide bombers or the ravages of Mother Nature.  I was living an almost perfect moment.  There could be many regrets but at that moment regret seemed pointless compared with the gifts of the hour. Twice I ruined the soup I was making and each time I started fresh I had enough to start over.

Friends arrived, feasting was done, clean up was accomplished, leftovers sent home. Houseguests appreciated and were appreciated.  Black Friday was not celebrated by an orgy of commercialism.  It was, all in all, a pretty perfect Thanksgiving.  Everywhere I turned, there were things to be happy for… Kevin Malone had returned safe from Zambia, I was healthy, and the turkey was moist. Getting on the train on Sunday to return to the city, one of the conductors presented me with a birthday card she had put together with another conductor, carrying it until she ran into me. My cup overflowed.

We are living in parlous times and, against that backdrop, it is wise, I think, to take each moment and smell it deeply, savor it as much as possible.  Who knows what radio report heard while peeling yams will signal some great distress?  There is so little we can control and so much we can give ourselves permission to enjoy.

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Letter From New York, November 22, 2009

November 22, 2009

Or: As it seems to me…

The exciting news of the week, to me, was that water was found on the moon. To me, that was huge news and while it didn’t make banner headlines [which, by the way, to me, it should have] it was a momentous discovery. The fact it didn’t make banner headlines goes to show just how far down the news pecking order space has gone. Water on the moon? Not so long ago it was pretty much gospel that the moon was arid, not a drop to be had at all. Yet that’s not true. Water is not flowing in rivers but it’s captured in the soil.

Where did it come from? That’s the question I’m asking. How on earth is there water on the moon? Why aren’t the papers full of discourse and debate about how this has come to be? Water on the moon? And there’s water on Mars… just not a lot of talk about it and there should be. We’re talking about mysteries of the universe and the world press is more concerned about the outfit Blake Lively wore to some premiere than it is about the wild mysteries of the universe that should be being debated.

I was space nut kid. I created my own mission control in front of the television when there was a space launch. I hauled every futuristic piece of gear I could find in the house and made my own Houston. It lifted me up, excited me, and made me feel engaged not just in what was happening in that moment but in the fate of the human race. Space, to me, was already the final frontier before Star Trek claimed the phrase.

The exploration of space excited me as a child in the way I assume children were excited, entranced, intrigued by tales of the New World back in the day when it was being discovered. It gave everyone, from child to grandparent, a sense [I think] of wonder of what MORE there was to the world. Just as the idea of space exploration gave me, as a child, the sense of what MORE there was to the universe in which I lived.

Similarly, in the first part of the 20th Century, people became excited by other people accomplishing feats that stretched the concept of what man could do. Lindbergh became famous for flying the Atlantic solo for the first time. Amelia Earhart catapulted to fame for being the first woman to do the same. Adventurers became heroes because they expanded our concept of our abilities as humans.

We live, it seems, in a time of diminished expectations. We do amazing things – just this week, men walked in space while working on the International Space Station. Certainly not the first time a man has walked in space but none the less amazing, no less so because it’s not the first time. The fact we do it is amazing. It’s something that should take up a bit more space in the public consciousness than the dress worn by a television star.

There are many amazing things happening, in space and on earth though we seem to discount them, make them small while aggrandizing the trivial – like the exploits of our favorite television and film stars. I don’t really care that we do [well, okay, I find it a bit annoying and overblown] but I do really care that we give such short shrift to the amazing things that are happening every day – things that are steps in changing the way we live forever.

I can’t use a solar powered calculator without remembering it’s a by-product of the space program, as are so many things we use in daily life. Up there in space, as well as down here on earth, men and women are slowly pushing the boundaries of what’s possible and showing us the way to do things differently, better.

Robert Browning’s quote: “Ah but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for…” has been used by me before. It’s very true and is part of the essence of man, to reach to do more, something man has been doing since he emerged from the primordial soup. We can’t help ourselves so let’s do more celebrating of it.

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Letter From New York November 12, 2009

November 12, 2009

Or: As it seems to me

It was Election Day recently, the first Tuesday in November. Since then it seems all political pundits are attempting to read the runes of this just past election to see what it says about the state of the nation: who is up? who is down? Did the defeat of Corzine in New Jersey mean that the nation was turning against Obama? Or did the election of a Democrat in New York’s 23rd District, the first since 1852, signal deep trouble for the Republicans? Ah… my guess is that come the next election pundits will still be parsing this one.

Me? I was voter number two at my polling place, the A. B. Shaw Fire Station at the juncture of 9H and 23, there before dawn broke and certainly before my morning caffeine had effectively coursed its way through my body. However, I was prepared and knew for whom I was going to vote, having read and studied in the week before as I attempted to be a responsible voter. This election was all about the local politics and for the first time in many years it seemed possible that some new blood could be elected to the Board of Supervisors. As I write this, two of the people I voted for have gone down to defeat and one is leading by a razor thin majority. It will take days to resolve this one. The differential is as few as seven votes to possibly twenty-one, depending on which report you read. It is a classic example of why every vote counts and why I am gratified I made the effort to get home to vote. Based on what’s happening, my vote counted.

What happens, unfortunately, in democracies, especially big democracies, is that people discount the fact their vote matters. The closeness of our local election underscores the democratic principle – a single vote counts.

While waiting for resolution to the local election of the week just past, we have celebrated November 11th, Veterans Day, celebrated on this day because on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, soldiers put down their weapons to end the “war to end all wars,” commonly known now as World War I. It is a moment to honor all veterans, all the men and women who have put themselves in harm’s way for the safety of this our democracy [see above about the importance of voting]. I heard the last living veteran of WWI passed away recently – a moment to give us pause – as we are now in some real way disconnected from a conflict that shaped much of the world in which we live, even if we don’t think much about it. There will come a time when the last living veteran of WWII will pass away and we will become disconnected from that conflict which, too, shaped the world in which we are living. There will be a time when the last living vet from Korea will go, from Viet Nam, from Iraq…

History is, unfortunately, made in conflict. And we should capture those voices while we can as there is much to be learned from them, even the smallest recollection enhances our understanding of the human experience, shaped in conflict. Stephen Spielberg has created the Shoah Foundation to capture on video all the stories he can of the Holocaust. Perhaps we should be capturing the history of those who have fought because in understanding what they have endured we might find reasons to not fight in the future…

The lessons to be learned from combat are in the forefront of our minds this week, due to the devastating events at Fort Hood, where many of the victims were preparing for deployment in Afghanistan to help soldiers deal with the stress of warfare.

The glory of war is often told, all the way back to the Iliad and beyond but now we are facing the price of war on the field of battle.

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Letter From New York, November 2, 2009

November 2, 2009

Or: as it seems to me…

Outside rain falls. I’m not sure I remember a time anymore when rain hasn’t been falling. It’s been that kind of year. And continues to be – wet and chill, perfect weather for the flu. Which is on everyone’s mind these days. H1N1/Swine flu in particular, called that as the theory goes that it first emerged in pigs in Asia, leaping to a human there and then traveling to North America. Personally, I now know a half dozen people who have been ill with it; one so sick she needed hospitalization.

It is both seasonal flu and the more threatening H1N1 strain that has our attention this week. Some reports indicate this will be the peak week for the flu, of whichever variety. The CDC has released the last stores of Tamiflu for children due to an upsurge in children dying from the H1N1 strain, 19 more in the past week. We are all balancing our fears with the reality of living life. While children are especially vulnerable, it didn’t prevent parents from indulging them in this year’s Halloween ritual of “Trick or Treat.” Nor did it stop adults from congregating for parties though I am sure the thought of crowds gave people pause before setting out with their children or going off to their parties. I am sure that the use of hand sanitizer was way, way up. It’s hard to escape sanitizer these days. Many offices seem to have it everywhere; some buildings have installed sanitizer stations next to elevator call buttons and almost everywhere else you can think of. Everyone is advised to wash his or her hands, frequently and thoroughly. Scrub your hands for the amount of time it takes to recite the alphabet or sing “Happy Birthday” twice – that’s the current conventional wisdom.

We are, here in the United States, at the epicenter of H1N1/Swine flu. Some schools are decimated and workplaces as well. But it’s not just here – the entire world is bracing for H1N1/Swine flu. Jet planes mean that infected people move quickly from one country to another. It’s coming up on the time for the Hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to the birthplace of Mohammed. And the Saudi government is taking steps to encourage the most vulnerable not to come to Mecca this year. Hand sanitizers will probably be everywhere though some conservative Muslims won’t use it because it is alcohol based. The world is haunted, rightly so, by the flu epidemic of 1918 that left millions dead.

I tend to think: it’s just the flu. But every year thousands die of “just the flu.” It’s not something to take lightly, especially this year. This last week there was no Letter From New York partly because I was fighting what I thought might be the beginning of the flu – headache and achy body were my symptoms. Doing something unusual for me, I heeded the call of my body and stayed home, resting and going back to work when my body quit aching. Wisdom won the day and it’s smart that wisdom and caution rule the days for all of us this year when it comes to flu; it’s time to be cautious.

Airlines are being more lenient with re-booking fees and some companies are raising the limit for the number of sick days. The President has declared a state of national emergency to expedite procedures if things become dire, as H1N1/Swine flu has been reported in 48 of the 50 states and 168 different countries.

Now we’ve turned the clocks back, had an extra hour of rest, done our “Trick and Treating” we can begin prepping for the Holiday season in front of us. Best to focus on the good times ahead and be health cautious now.

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Letter From New York October 20, 2009

October 20, 2009

Or, as it seems to me…

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has issued dire warnings that failure to create an agreement at the Copenhagen Conference in December will result in even more dire consequences to be revealed in weather catastrophes. As I read his dreary statements [and Gordon Browne seems a dreary sort to begin with] I wondered [and here I must admit I was pushed toward this thought by the musings of my friend, the writer/philosopher Howard Bloom], is there no hope in the world? Have we become ostriches with heads in the sand because we hear no one saying there is hope anywhere? It is dire out there, whether climate changes are happening naturally, are being accelerated by human actions or are solely the result of human actions, we are living on a planet that seems to be going through a…change? Menopause? Something. Something is happening and to shrug it off is irresponsible as is ignoring it, as it is acting as if we are as doomed as the passengers on the Titanic after its brush with an iceberg.

While it is true that something significant is happening climate wise, it is untrue that it is completely out of our control. We are a remarkable race that consistently does remarkable things, often when our backs are against the wall [why do our backs have to be against the wall?]. So where in this desert of despair in which we so often seem to be living do we find a voice of hope? Who is going to stand up and say, yes, we can! [Oh wait! Obama said that and for a moment we thought we could and now seem to be slipping back into ennui, a tenebrous state of enervation. In others words: dark, gloomy, exhausted, without much hope.] And while it is more than a tad gloomy out there, we have survived gloomy periods before.

The Great Recession is not infrequently compared with the Great Depression, eighty years ago and there are some striking similarities. Now that was a pretty gloomy time also – and in the end the west pulled itself out from that period’s ennui through the vastly unpleasant shock of World War II, an event that united individuals and nations in a common cause against a frightful enemy. Do we, today, have to be that confrontationally threatened to wake up and react? Perhaps.

We have challenges in front of us [and, in fact, more challenges than we might actually need (certainly more than I personally want)] and we need right now a someone [thank you, Howard Bloom] to stir us with the same passion that John F. Kennedy stirred us with when he said: ask not what your country can do for you but what can you do for your country. It has been nearly fifty years since those words were spoken and yet they still have the power to excite and move and stir us in the fiber of our beings, a call to something beyond ourselves.

According to promos I saw on television this week, this is a week of volunteerism, a celebration of getting out and doing for someone else. God knows we have a lot of people who need doing for [I read a report of a 97 year old woman who is living in her car] and we have a lot of people who need to be doing, to stir themselves out of that ennui, the tenebrous state of enervation, out of the dark and gloomy space which really surrounds us but which we do not necessarily need to be victim to…

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Letter From New York, October 12, 2009

October 12, 2009

Or, as it seems to me…

Last Friday, as on most days, I was awakened by the sound of NPR. I had been in a heavy sleep, deeply tired from having awakened at oh dark hundred the day before to catch the early train into the city. The announcer was telling the world that the Nobel Peace Prize had gone to President Barak Obama. I rolled over and buried my head under a pillow, not wanting to get up and wondering how Barak Obama and the Nobel Peace Prize had worked itself into my dream state, as I was sure that Obama and the Peace Prize were part of a very confused dream I was having.

However, it wasn’t a dream – Barak Obama had, indeed, been awarded the Nobel Prize “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons. Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics.” [Announcement of the Norwegian Nobel Committee] I was stunned as I sipped my first cup of coffee of the day, wondering what had caused the Nobel Committee to make this choice? It didn’t seem like he had done anything to deserve this award at this time, even taking in the words of the Committee. Everyone I spoke with seemed perplexed, including friends who are ardent Obama supporters.

Even Obama himself seemed puzzled.

As the weekend progressed, it seemed to me that Obama was awarded both for his aspirations and his attitudes while at the same time the Norwegian Nobel Committee was also rewarding the United States for electing someone who had changed the American dialogue with the world from the bumptious, fractious tone of the Bush era to something more… and here I get stuck for words. Under Obama the tone of American diplomacy has been, well, diplomatic. It has also left doors open as opposed to unilaterally closing them. Whether diplomacy will accomplish something is still to be seen. However, we, at least, aren’t alienating most of the world and most of our allies simply by opening our mouth.

The Nobel Prize to Obama has set off a maelstrom among political pundits giving conservatives an opening to ridicule the President. Senator McCain was thankfully muted, simply proffering congratulations. As puzzling as the award may be, the vitriol with which it has been greeted on the right is, unfortunately, not unexpected. Deeply saddening was an article this week reporting that threats against Obama’s life are occurring thirty times more frequently than they did for his predecessor. This fact reflects badly upon us, a counterpoint to what the Norwegian Nobel Committee seemed to be praising us for – the election of a man of color with diplomatic tendencies who chooses words designed to bridge rather than divide, someone who has reflected hope on many levels on the world stage upon which he acts.

Also happening this weekend was a march on Washington by Gays and Lesbians, a National Equality March, highlighting the desires of the LGBT [Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transgendered] Community to have full “full Federal equality” including the right to marry and to serve openly in the military. On Saturday night, Obama pledged to end the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy to thunderous approval of the crowds at a Human Rights Campaign even though the President took it on the chin on Sunday morning from some gay activists for not having set a timetable. Within the gay community there has been division over whether energy should have been spent on such a march when so much is happening and needs attending in states like Maine and Washington where important issues will be faced at the ballot box next month.

I am not sure whether energy should be focused at the state or federal level. However, what remains amazing to me is that energy is being focused on both those levels on issues I did not think I would see addressed in my lifetime any more than I thought I would live to see an African–American President.

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Letter From New York October 5, 2009

October 5, 2009

Or, as it seems to me…

The weekend was spent curled up, for the most part, at the cottage, rain falling, the yard slowly littering with leaves, watching back episodes of Mad Men [without a doubt one of the finest television dramas ever], doing a little reading, some straightening up and, as best I could, ignoring the fact I had left the power block for my laptop at the office…

I spent the weekend digitally deprived, basically cut off from the broadband universe I so heavily rely upon, only using the computer on battery power for absolute necessities…paying bills that were due, responsible things, not for the fun things I normally do like surfing through HULU looking for some video to watch, or writing my weekly missive. Or, on the task side, taking care of the work that I had put off saying – I can handle that on the weekend.

Digital disengagement was not liberating. I thought perhaps it might be – ah, I could spend the time I would be working on the computer doing things I don’t always have time to do – read more, for example. The reality is that I have become dependent upon my ability to interact digitally with the world – or even with myself. My journal resides on the desktop of my laptop. I keep my checkbook balances on an Excel spreadsheet, my addresses are organized in my Entourage, my calendar – almost all the bits and pieces of my life are on my laptop which is why backing up is almost a religious ritual.

Oh sure, I had my iPhone and it wasn’t the same and it wasn’t enough. I can’t really type on my iPhone – it’s great for short emails and it was great because that way I wasn’t cut off, completely. But I missed my full functionality, missed being able to type out my thoughts, missed being able to surf the Internet unfettered by the constraints of a smaller screen and a slower connection. I missed my bigger screen.

In other words, I am tethered to my electronics in ways I only think about when I am not able to exercise what seems to me to be my constitutionally guaranteed right of web access. In other words, I am a man of the 21st century, a man who is electronically dependent and geared toward utilizing those electronic devices to define and refine his life.

Wired. That is what I am, a wired person. And because this wired person was without his computer, he did not get to write his weekly blog. I attempted to put some thoughts to paper, long hand. My handwriting has deteriorated to something that would cause the nuns who shaped my penmanship heartburn. I sometimes have trouble reading it. It is embarrassing to go back to notes from a meeting and realize you have no idea what a certain word is because it is so badly written. I am embarrassed when I think of it which, most of the time; I don’t because I don’t need to read my own writing that often. I do so much of it on my laptop.

So this is what has happened to me. I am so dependent on having my laptop I am not very capable of workarounds. I am a man of the 21st Century; I am a digitally dependent chap who finds it difficult to cope without his digital devices so much so that it brings my life to a minor halt. Am I unusual or am I just like everyone else? Probably not just like everyone else.

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Letter From New York September 27, 2009

September 28, 2009

Or – as it seems to me…

Autumn has arrived; the official start date has come and gone and all around us there are definitive signs: the leaves on the trees along the creek have started to turn, fallen yellow leaves drift down the stream. The temperature has begun to drop and the mornings and evenings are cool and very crisp. Stores are filled with Halloween candy and accoutrements. Sweaters are being pulled forward in closets and it is sometimes necessary, at least here at the cottage, to have heat – the Franklin stove is in use.

Like the start date of autumn, the Emmys have come and gone, full this year of gallows humor about the state of broadcast television. The humor had a desperate edge to it, voices tinged with a soupcon of hysteria. Julia Louis Dreyfus welcomed everyone to the last official year of broadcast television and everyone in the audience who had a stake in broadcast television was afraid she was correct. And there’s no denying that the business is changing. So is everything in media. A once glamorous business seems a bit tarnished and frayed around the edges.

As for frayed around the edges, there is a bit of that in New York as a result of the arrest of several people who allegedly were planning to use beauty supplies to blow up – something. The central figure is a young Afghan named Zazi who seemingly has evolved from enthusiastic immigrant to ardent terrorist.

Apparently in his computer were found photos of New York subways. I hate to admit it but subway terrorism is something I think about. Not just since these folks were arrested… It’s been on my mind since the London bombings in 2005. I arrived there three or four days after the attacks and realized then, as I realize now, how easy it would be to bring backpack bombs onto trains. So I tend to ride subways at the front or rear of the train, not in the middle because if I were a suicide bomber I’d get on in the middle of the train where I would think I could cause the greatest damage.

These are the kinds of things I think about. As, I have discovered, do my friends and colleagues. 9/11 is distant but not so distant as not to think terrorism is a possibility. It is not a bright thought but it is a realistic one.
I also contemplate the changes in media, the work world within which I live. The velocity of change in the media world is unprecedented. In a very short time, many institutions, like newspapers, find themselves called into question. All in all, it’s just a more complicated world than it was ten years ago. On every level…

My great friend Lionel had the good grace to know Jane Campion in Australia, the country of both their origins, and so was invited to the premiere of her film BRIGHT STAR and he invited me to accompany him. It is the story of John Keats and his muse, Fannie Brawne, played out against the deep, lush English countryside which, on film, reminded me of nothing so much as my beloved Claverack – woody, windy, lush, wet, full of promise. It helped me understand why this area is called “New England.”

It also reminded me of the searching we do in our souls for the meaning of things, the meaning of the seemingly countless small things that end up being so important. It is the small things, piled upon each other, that make the important things. It was the combination of wind, rain, lush countryside and passionate love for Fannie that propelled Keats to greatness.

But what combination of small things caused Zazi to turn from being an enthusiastic American immigrant to one who seemingly wants in the deepest part of his soul to bring mass destruction upon his adopted homeland? What combination of small things has resulted in each of our lives taking the direction they have? How did we individually, as industries, as a society, move from where we were ten years ago to where we are today? In the answers to these questions, we have what’s called history.

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