"[This book] embodies the Buddhist wisdom about change, life, and the
world more than anything written after the events of that day."
Robert Stone

« Previous · Home · Next »

September 22, 2007

LEADERS AND LENSES

HALLUCINATION, YEAR 4. President Bush asserted this week: “Some say the gains we are making in Iraq come too late. They are mistaken. It is never too late to deal a blow to al-Qaeda.” Huh? Is he the only person in the country who doesn’t get it? As they say: the Emperor has no flak-jacket.

CAMERA CRAZY. The New England Patriots have been using cameras to swipe opponents’ signals . . . . Twenty thousand online volunteers, using so-called “smart mob” connectivity, spent part of the last two weeks sitting at their computers and searching the nooks and crannies of satellite photographs to find the wreckage of the missing plane of adventurer-aviator Steve Fossett, whose plane went missing in Nevada on September 3 . . . . There’s an ever-more-popular practice among the about-to-be-engaged, the Times reported Thursday: young men, in increasing numbers, are asking friends or even outside agencies to surreptitiously photograph them in public places as they pop the question to their would-be brides. “The trend is on the rise to have all the moments documented in your life,” the Times quote Anna Post, author of Emily Post’s Wedding Parties.” . . . . Opening sentence of Watching the World Change: The eyes are everywhere.

THE TIMES, IN PRAISE OF GIULIANI. New York City firefighters, Democrats everywhere, pro-lifers, artists, civil libertarians, yours truly – there is virtually a double-rainbow coalition against Rudy Giuliani. That’s why it was refreshingly counterintuitive yesterday for the newspaper of record to run a positive profile, by Michael Powell on the former mayor, going back to the day that defined him, and the months thereafter. I encourage the open-minded to absorb it. Even though it doesn’t alter my opinion that Giuliani would be a clear and present danger in the Oval Office, on many, many levels, it does remind me of his composed command that one day in September – and in the weeks thereafter.

21giuliani-600.jpg
A FRAME FROM THE STUNNING H.B.O. DOCUMENTARY IN MEMORIAM, NARRATED BY GIULIANI

Among the highlights of Powell's piece yesterday: “That walk north, the spareness of his words, and his passion became the founding stones in the reconstruction of the mayor’s reputation, transforming him from a grouchy pol slip-sliding into irrelevancy to the Republican presidential candidate introduced as America’s mayor. The former mayor has made this day the centerpiece of his presidential campaign, aware that millions of Americans hold that heroic view in their collective mind’s eye….His performance shone brighter for the implicit comparison with President George W. Bush, who initially appeared – fairly or not – frozen in his chair, listening to second graders read as a nation came under attack.”

RELATED POST: FIREFIGHTERS’ ANTI-GIULIANI VIDEO

Email this entry to:


Your email address:


Message (optional):