Quote for today

I see America, not in the setting sun of a black night of despair ahead of us, I see America in the crimson light of a rising sun fresh from the burning, creative hand of God. I see great days ahead, great days possible to men and women of will and vision.

           Carl Sandburg

Quote for today

A comforting bit of wisdom from Elbert Hubbard, the American writer and philosopher who was born on this date in 1856:

“A retentive memory may be a good thing, but the ability to

 forget is the true token of greatness."

      (Hubbard and his wife were among the passengers who perished May 7, 1915 when the Germans sank the Lusitania off the coast of Ireland.) 

Of golf balls and half dollars

Listening this morning to National Weather Service reports of the "derecho" storms headed for the place in Maryland where I live, the voice called out the probable size of the hail stones that would accompany the storm. These ranged from "golf ball" to "half dollar" to "one inch in diameter" to "the size of a quarter." -- all in the space of about 15 minutes.

So who's out there measuring this stuff? One imagines some pathetic, rain-soaked observer standing in the midst of it all like those characters on the weather channel, calling in to Sam the NWS announcer: "Sam. They're coming down the size of golf balls -- no wait a minute, more like half dollars." Followed minutes later by "Sam, cancel golf balls and half-dollars, now they're one inch in diameter. No, hold it, more like the size of a quarter."

How exact is this science? Is the observer actually measuring this stuff or just guessing? What's the difference between the size of a golf ball and the size of a half-dollar. As a matter of fact, who has seen a half-dollar lately? I haven't seen one in years. But, come to think of it, does the half-dollar hailstone come flat like a coin rather than round like a golf ball. Flat hail. That would be a news story.

I sympathize with the observer. Back in my day as a young newspaperman, we would assign sizes to hail stones. If people were seeing hail stones the size of baseballs or softballs we might send out a photographer. Anything smaller would probably melt before a photographer or reporter could get to the scene. There were no photo phones or other of the marvelous technologies that exist today. It was very long ago, back when half-dollar coins were still in wide circulation.

Not getting it

Here's the latest sign of old age setting in: The latest New Yorker arrived in the mail Monday.  I didn't "get" two of the cartoons in the magazine

That's not funny

Happy Ending

Bob Timberg, an old colleague, inquires how the Amtrak experience ended yesterday.

Answer: Quite nicely, thank you. New locomotive attached in Philadelphia, after which Train # 86 hurtled to New York at breakneck speed, arriving only 90 minutes late. Time enough to get to Keen's where Bruce Michel, my friend since childhood, bought me lunch. 

Cheers, all.

-30-

Amtrak – Gotta love it!

Amtrak – Gotta love it!

Aboard Amtrak NE Regional # 86 to NYC.  Train breaks down around Elkton. There’s a blown fuse. The engineer does not know how to open and close the circuit breaker box.

THE ENGINEER DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO OPEN OR CLOSE THE CIRCUIT BREAKER BOX!!!

The train sits idle. There’s no electricity. After about 45 minutes, another train comes along. The plan, we’re told, is to transfer the passengers from the stalled train to the working train. They have bridges for this. (who knew?)  The bridges are laid down between the two trains at the café car exit. We wait. Then the bridges are withdrawn. The electricity comes back on.

(In the midst of all this commotion, the funny-guy-wise-guy conductor who has been keeping us posted on all these developments is told by someone that he better put on his tie because there may be Amtrak brass on the othet train who would dock his pay for being out of uniform. This is a true story!).

The electricity is back on train 86 because an engineer on the other train actually knows how to open and close a circuit breaker box. He has transferred to our train and will accompany us as far as New York. Uncertainty lies ahead for passengers travelling from New York to Boston.

Now they’ve decided to change locomotives in Philadelphia, meaning more delay.

My question is: What happens to the lone engineer who knows how to open and close the circuit breaker box, and is he really the only guy left on the job today who has that particular expertise? Is this a hitherto unreported consequence of the sequester? Or is it that Amtrak has gone to hell in a handbag ever since Joe Biden stopped riding the rail?

Stay tuned.

Silence of the Lions

Today is the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by the United States and a few allies, most notably, the British. The cause for that war -- Saddam Hussein's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction and the absurd allegation that he was somehow complicit in the September 11, 2011 attacks on America -- have long since been repudiated.

The war and occupation and counter-insurgency in Iraq cost more than 4,500 American lives, tens of thousands of American wounded and more than 100,000 Iraqi dead and hundreds of thousands more Iraqis displaced in their own country or living as refugees in neighboring countries. The Iraq experience cost American taxpayers about one trillion dollars, substantial parts of which were wasted on graft, overcharges by contractors and simple abandonment of projects and equipment. Iraq is not at peace. Only this morning, almost 50 Iraqis were killed in a car bomb attack in Baghdad.

So what do the lions of March 2003 who led us into Iraq with shock and awe and extraordinary bombast have to sayabout it today? Nothing.

President George W. Bush: Silent.
Vice President Dick Cheney: Silent
Defense Secretary Donald rumsfeld: Silent

And what does one hear about the Iraq experience from the neo-cons who clamored for it? Not much. They're too busy burrowing around, building their case for going to war against Iran.

New Leadership Everywhere

Interesting confluence of events in the last 24 hours: Roman Catholics get a new pope. China formally gets a new leader. Israel gets a new government -- same prime minister, unfortunately, but a coalition without the Jewish state's worst religious fanatics. Let's hope for the best on all fronts.