I missed it yesterday — National Mission Accomplished Day. Iraq’s collection of ne’er-do-wells — former regime elements, noncompliant elements, Saddam loyalists, Baathist bums, foreign fighters and what have you (don’t worry, there are only about two dozen of them in the whole country, and there’s nothing we could do to make them happy ) — celebrated by killing at least 11 more U.S. troops over the weekend. Meanwhile, the rest of Iraq has suspended its continuous strewing of flowers in our soldiers’ paths to tune in Al Jazeera’s coverage (sorry about all the squiggly writing) of Torturegate.
Diary of a Commuter Jerk
Tuesday: I walk up Eighth Street to the Civic Center BART station after work. Nightmare scenario: I need to buy a ticket, which means I have to stand in line behind other patrons trying to figure out how the ticket machines work or who have decided to buy a five-buck ticket by feeding in nickels. Sure enough, I wind up behind three or four other people. The first person deliberates over the bewildering array of two or three choices before purchasing a ticket. Then the next guy approaches the machine. He feeds in one dollar bill, then another. The machine won’t take the third one. Instead of just buying a $2 ticket and paying whatever he owes at the other end, he hits cancel, gets his dollar bills back, then repeats the process. His third bill still won’t go in; exasperated, he looks first to the right, then to the left, for help that’s not there. Then he hits cancel again, gets his bills back, and feeds them in again. One. Two. No go with the third. He looks right, then left, hits cancel, and starts to try again. At this point — I want to get home, man! — I lean around the woman waiting in front of me and say, "Dude, what’s the problem?" Except, I don’t say "dude" in the friendly "hey, dude" way; "dude" comes out in a tone that clearly signals it’s a substitute for "moron." He turns toward me. He’s a short guy, maybe 5-6, with neatly trimmed brown hair and beard; he’s wearing a short-sleeved yellow button-down shirt; he’s wearing olive green shorts and dark street shoes and socks that he should wear with long pants. I recognize him from somewhere. He says, "It won’t take my goddamned dollar." Simultaneously, the woman in front of me — tall, 5-10, and kind of lumpy in a Joan Cusack way but younger than Joan Cusack — turns around and looks at me and says something. I hear, "Shut up." So I tell the guy he’s holding up everyone in line and I ask the woman, "Who the fuck are you telling to shut up? You shut up." She says, "I said, ‘Chill out.’ And you need to." I sputter something winning; perhaps it was "you chill the fuck out."
Meantime, beard guy has given up his place at the ticket machine and says angrily, "You guys go ahead." I already have a twenty in my hand and say, "You held up the line for 10 minutes." "It won’t take my money!" "Here’s a twenty — it’ll work. Take it and buy yourself a ticket." But he doesn’t take it; he goes to the back of the ticket line while the "shut up/chill out" woman is at the machine. She’s buying something like a $5.85 ticket, exact change. She dawdles. I resist the temptation to say, "Hey, look, another rocket scientist." Then it’s my turn. Luckily, the machine takes my twenty on the first try and I get my ticket without holding anyone else up. Then I go down to the platform, wondering who among the people on the platform and the train home just witnessed my little display. I also realize that I recognized the beard guy from about 20 years ago; his name was John something and he was Kate’s roommate’s boyfriend when Kate and I first went out. Same beard and haircut and everything, though Kate’s roommate, Beth, moved on a long
time ago.
Wednesday (pictured): Back to Civic Center BART after work. I’ve left work a little early thinking maybe I can get a short bike ride in before dark. Armed with my dramatically procured ticket from the day before, I head down to the platform. There’s a train waiting — headed out to Bay Point, not my line. The Richmond train, to Berkeley, is due in 7 minutes. But the train at the platform doesn’t move, and within a couple of minutes, there’s an announcement that "smoke is emanating
from a train at Embarcadero Station" and all the East Bay-bound trains are halted for a few minutes. It’s about 5:10. More announcements. The train at Embarcadero has been taken out of service. The train at Embarcadero had an electrical overload. Or it might have hit something on the tracks. BART workers are walking the track to see if there’s a problem. The delay lengthens — 10 minutes, 15, 20, then 30. Finally, the packed train at Civic Center moves, slowly. Then a Fremont train, headed south toward San Jose from Oakland, pulls in. Then the Richmond train I had been waiting for. The operator announces that there’s another train with a problem at Embarcadero; but by 5:45, we get going, too. I managed to get a seat and fall asleep during a stop-and-go trip through the Transbay tube. We halt for awhile outside West Oakland station. The problem is that another train ahead of us has broken down at the platform there, meaning we have to cross over to the opposite tracks to get through the station. When we get to West Oakland, I’m surprised to see that the platform there (that’s the picture above) is filled with nearly no room to stand — people taken off a train waiting for another to come in; of course, their problem is that all the arriving trains are either already filled or using the opposite platform until everything is straightened out. So those people over there are as good as stranded. Anyway, my train makes it through, and after we turn north from downtown Oakland, we get to Berkeley with no more problems. I get home about 6:50 p.m., so the trip took about three times as long as usual. Surprisingly, no one complained. People even laughed when the train operator apologized for "this less than stellar commute. I guess that’s an understatement." This gives me, the commuting jerk, food for thought.
Friday: On my way into work by way of the casual carpool. Waiting in the Civic Center line at the North Berkeley BART station with three people ahead of me, one behind me. The three in front all get into a Toyota Avalon. So the next car will take me and the other person. One pulls up to the curb and honks. It looks like there are already two people in the car (you need three to take the carpool lane, so they would only need one more rider), and I’m confused when the woman who’s been second in line walks very confidently to the car, opens the rear passenger door and gets in. Just a minute! She’s the third person. She’s taking my spot! I say,"Hey, I’m sorry, I was ahead of you in line. You need to get out." She looks up at me, very puzzled, and says, "Yes?" "Yes," I answer. And she gets out. Then she gets in the front passenger seat, where no one had been sitting. Um — I didn’t see the front seat was empty! Really I didn’t. Did I feel kind of stupid? No — very. And also like I must be cracking up to get into these um, misunderstandings. My trip home was altercation-free, though.
Koppel on the Dead List
The Poynter Institute, the world center for journalistic navel-gazing, has an interview with Ted Koppel about his reading of
the dead list tonight. Koppel expresses surprise at the reaction to the
show, and insists there’s nothing political about it: "I don’t want it
to make a political statement. Quite the contrary." Later he goes on to
contradict himself, apparently unconsciously:
"Why, in heaven’s name, should one not be able to look at the faces and
hear the names and see the ages of those young people who are not
coming back alive and feel somehow ennobled by the fact that they were
willing to give up their lives for something that is in the national
interest of all of us?" (Emphasis added.)
OK — so he’s on board that the whole deal is in the national interest.
That’s an improvement on the insistence that there’s nothing political
in this and that the show is just acting as a means of venerating the
dead because, well, they died. Although it would be a lot more fitting
to have an open discussion on the merits of the idea that the operation
really has been in the interest of all of us.
The War Dead
So, Ted Koppel’s going to read the names of all the U.S. combat
fatalities in Iraq on “Nightline” Friday night. My first reaction was
that his show’s ripping off the famous feature Life magazine did (on June 27, 1969) that pictured all, or nearly all, 242 U.S. servicemen killed in action during a single week. (The show’s producer acknowledges that Life was the inspiration.) My second reaction is that it’s a ripoff without the smarts or courage that marked what Life did. Here’s what the “Nightline” producers have to say about their
inspiration in their daily email:
“…We realized that we seemed to just be giving numbers. So many killed in
this incident, so many more in that attack. Whether you agree with the war or
not, these men and women are serving, are putting their lives on the line, in
our names. We think it is important to remember that those who have paid the
ultimate price all have faces, and names, and loved ones. We thought about doing
this on Memorial Day, but that’s a time when most media outlets do stories about
the military, and they are generally lost in the holiday crush of picnics and
all. We didn’t want this broadcast to get lost. Honestly, I don’t know if people
will watch this for thirty seconds, or ten minutes, or at all. That’s not the
point. We think this is important. These men and women have earned nothing
less.
An excerpt from Life’s introduction to “One Week’s Dead” made it clear that the editors were trying to refrain from making an explicit antiwar statement:
“It is not the intention of this article to speak for the dead. We cannot
tell with any precision what they thought of the political currents which drew
them across the world. From the letters of some, it is possible to tell they
felt strongly that they should be in Vietnam, that they had great sympathy for
the Vietnamese people and were appalled at their enormous suffering. Some had
voluntarily extended their tours of combat duty; some were desperate to come
home. Their families provided most of these photographs, and many expressed
their own feelings that their sons and husbands died in a necessary cause. Yet
in a time when the numbers of Americans killed in this war – 36,000 – though far
less than the Vietnamese losses, have exceeded the dead in the Korean War, when
the nation continues week after week to be numbed by a three-digit statistic
which is translated to direct anguish in hundreds of homes all over the country,
we must pause to look into the faces. More than we must know how many, we must
know who. The faces of one week’s dead, unknown but to families and friends, are
suddenly recognized by all in this gallery of young American eyes….”
“We must pause to look into the faces.” Four years into the major combat phase of the war — and with a
long way and 22,000 more deaths to go — it was clear everywhere the price was appalling. The editors went on to note the division of opinion, even among the troops, about the war and what it was about. “The mother of one of the dead, whose son was the third of four to serve in the Army, insists with deep pride, ‘We are a patriotic family willing to pay that price.’ An aunt who had raised her nephew said of him, ‘He was really and truly a conscientious objector. He told me it was a terrible thought going into the Army and winding up in Vietnam and shooting people who hadn’t done anything to him…. Such a waste. Such a shame.’ “The overall effect of Life’s issue was to invite a deep consideration of the war and the price; not such a radical notion — this was nearly a year after the Democratic Convention in Chicago and just a few months before the huge Vietnam Moratorium marches; it was an issue everyone had to consider.
But what “Nightline” promises is something quite different. On one level, another solemn paean to our fighting men and women who have — the producers even use the cliche — “paid the ultimate price.” And
whether you’re for the war or agin it, you have to bow your head respectfully for that. But what we don’t get is a real appraisal of the cost or an invitation to consider it or a sober discussion of the future.
The “Nightline” reading sounds like a stunt — it’s funny that the right-wingers are already jumping on the idea because they think it’s an anti-war statement — because it repe ts the same mistake most major media have made since it became evident our semi-elected executive branch was determined to start this war: they’re behaving as if it’s fundamentally disloyal in our post-9/11 world to strenuously scrutinize the rationale for going to war or the motives of the people promoting it.
Where’s Your Flag Amendment Now?
A shocker from flag police at the, ahem, New Hampshire Gazette (hey — they’re looking for a free part-time copy editor; maybe that’s my next gig):
"The CBS Television Network and MTV collaborated on a Super Bowl half-time ‘entertainment’ featuring repeated crotch-grabbings and a gratuitous display of a mammary gland, but for the Flag Police, the true horror was watching this talent-challenged individual [Kid Rock] use an American flag as an article of clothing."
Hot
Record heat
in the Bay Area today; 90 in San Francisco, in the low 90s in the East
Bay; several places in the region set their all-time record for the
month (and most of the records broken were set in 1935 or 1965, long
before the phrase global warmiing was coined). But the real thing the
heat makes you think about is whether the lights will go out. So far —
with Enron and Calpine and the rest of the energy criminals sidelined
— things look OK. Even with temperatures in the hundreds in some
locations today, the state’s energy network operator said demand never approached the available supply.
Don’t Talk About the Weather
The New York Times reports that NASA headquarters ordered its scientists to keep their mouths shut about questions arising from the upcoming climate-change blockbuster "The Day After Tomorrow" (with someone named Claude Laforce playing "UN Norwegian diplomat").
"No one from NASA is to do interviews or otherwise comment on anything having to do with" the film, said the April 1 message, which was sent by Goddard’s top press officer. "Any news media wanting to discuss science fiction vs. science fact about climate change will need to seek comment from individuals or organizations not associated with NASA."
The Times also reports that the space agency has called off the dogs and will now let its experts talk about climate stuff. Maybe that has something to do with some research results published last week on NASA’s own site, "Satellite Thermometers Show Earth Has a Fever." Keep it cute like that, so no one will get the idea that increased temperatures have anything to do with well, anything.
View from the Ferry
Caught the 6:25 ferry back to Oakland after work. Sitting on the top deck, noticed the sun was blocked behind One Embarcadero Center (that tall building in the middle). Decided to try to shoot it with my camera phone, using my sunglasses as a filter. The building in the center-right with the flag on top is the Ferry Building; that little tiny nub to the far right is Coit Tower, I think. I’m surprised both at the ability to shoot anything with the phone and also at how modest the resolution really is.
In the Mail
time on it. For some reason, I thought it might show up by the end of last year. But it never came, and lots of other stuff came up, and I never really thought too much about it. I just figured that maybe I was the one rider who didn’t get one; or that my ride had been declared invalid for some unworthiness that the organizers had detected in me; or that I had managed to ride the one year when no medals were awarded. Just my luck.
Then I started to see accounts on some cycling email lists a month or so ago that none of the American riders had gotten their medals yet. But they were coming. By sea mail, maybe.
Yesterday, a big brown envelope with my self-addressed sticker was in the mailbox. Heavy. The medal was inside, along with my brevet card, with the stamps from all the controls along the way, and the English-language program for the event, with the finish times for all the participants, including No. 4417, Dan Brekke: 85H51.
Resettling the Plains
Spotted a feature somewhere in the past couple of weeks about how some
Plains towns are offering homesteads to residents. It’s a twist on the
old homestead idea: Instead of 160 acres and five years to "prove out"
your claim by farming it, you get something less than an acre in
town and need to build on it in a year or so. After seeing the National
Geographic article, I checked and found the story;
it was in the Washington Post. As an aside: What’s with the fascination
of the eastern papers — The New York Times has been running a series
of in-depth features on the depopulation of the Plains for at least a
couple of years — with the Plains?