[wordup] thoughts from the eristocracy

[Adam Shand]

Via: B Potter <gdead at shmoo.com>
From: "The Eristocracy" <Eristocracy at merrymeet.com>

One of my goals for The Eristocracy has always been to provide what other
information outlets aren't providing. Over the last week, that's been
silence. Also, as one of my heroes, Judith Martin, said about death and
funerals, when there's nothing you can say, the best thing to say is
nothing, but "I'm so sorry" is never out of place. I'm so sorry.

They say that an optimist is never pleasantly surprised. Me, I'm always
pleasantly surprised. It is interesting to watch the hopeful people --
they're the ones who are rubbing their hands together with glee at the
thought hat all that money they sank into Y2K supplies might not have been
wasted after all. The End Of The World As We Know It didn't arrive, and
like the religious nuts who keep revising their timetable for Armageddon,
they're crossing their fingers that this time it's for real.

However, all through this, I've been pleasantly surprised time and time
again. Here are a number of things I've been pleasantly surprised over:

* I was woken up Tuesday by my security chums in Toronto, who called to
  say that the East Coast was in flames, and maybe I should get out of
  bed. Their quick assessment of what was going on included a casualty
  estimate of 100,000 people dead, and another 100,000 injured. I watched
  the news for a while, and thought, no, no, that's not right. It's
  probably in the neighborhood of 20 to 50 thousand dead. As I write, it's
  five to ten thousand dead, and far closer to five than ten. I think we
  have those few hundred fire and police workers who died to thank for
  this.

* Watching the news has been almost like watching a movie. As silly as it
  sounds, I can't watch some of the films of the disaster without
  thinking, "That looks so real!" However, it's *almost* been like a
  movie. I can tell it's real and not fiction because of all sorts of
  little anticlimactic things that have gone on. People helped each other.
  There've been a variety of troubles, but it hasn't been dramatic. The
  news commented a lot on how quiet things are. We don't have Escape From
  New York, and we don't have Independence Day.

* Officialdom has been surprisingly rational. Not without exception, of
  course. The new FAA regulations mostly punish the innocent; real changes
  that would improve safety will take years to design and implement.
  There's the inevitable call for crypto restrictions. Feinstein is taking
  up Helms's mantle. We're going to have to gently slap these things down.
  What part of "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance" don't you
  understand? But we haven't heard cries of finding the people responsible
  no matter what it takes. They've glibly blurted out that horrible things
  happened to the Japanese in WWII, and we're not going to do that again.
  People were detained and released without splashing their names all over
  the news. The poor guys who got their identities stolen got huge and
  repeated apologies.

* Giuliani. Wow. He's good. I picked my jaw up when he said, "New Yorkers
  don't do that" in response to questions about violence on Arabs. He was
  stunningly good again just an hour ago. Pataki, too.

* They played The Star-Spangled Banner at the Changing of the Guard in
  London. They played it *before* God Save The Queen. This is the biggest
  compliment we've gotten since Elizabeth apologized on behalf of
  Parliament for that little incident in 1776, and Phil quaffed a Sam
  Adams (I'm not making that up). Thank you! They literally shut down the
  highways in Ireland for a moment of remembrance. There are some really,
  really funny sites in Australia. Even better, our allies are backing us
  while urging moderation. That's what you want, friends to hold you by
  the arms while you snarl and think about what to do.

There's still a lot to be worried about. Fine, okay, this is an act of
war. But how to we get *out* of this war? How do we keep them from
winning? If we're going to increase security, we need to come up with
measures that will work without leaving what good there is in being an
American in a pile of rubble. There does, however, seem to be every
indication that we're going to muddle on through. Let's hope there are a
lot more pleasant surprises in the days to come.

Jon