"Denver is this kind of quietly literary city. We have thousands of writers..." "Most of us have a story to tell..." "...getting published is marketing oneself...at writers' fairs, farmers markets..." - Denver Herald, 12/14/2017
[Writing is]
a tool...to make sense of the world we live in. Whenever...confused, angry, or sad, writing allows...an outlet to express...and understand...emotions. - asian avenue, 12/2017
I was on a beach...in Portugal in April 1976...when the head postmistress shouted down the cliff... "Paul Martin has requested to be moved from the Middle East. His wife has had more than enough... ...the deputy editor [of]
"The Times"...Louis Heren [is]
offering you the Middle East." In Hitchcock's thriller..."Foreign Correspondent" [the journalist]
Haverstock's editor calls him to his office before sending him to [WW II]
and asks him: "How would you like to cover the biggest story in the world today?" Heren's letter was less dramatic bit it meant the same thing. I was twenty-nine and I was being offered the Middle East - I wondered how King Feisal felt when he was "offered" Iraq or how is brother Abdullah reacted to Winston Churchill's "offer" of Transjordan. -
The Great War for Civilization, by R. Fisk, 2005
It's the first of another month, the last month of another year. Around 8:30 AM, I have just climbed into a connecting bus to work. It's Friday, and this is my turn to have both days of the weekend off. A couple of stops later, a senior comes aboard with a walker and a camouflaged cap which has "God's Army" on the bill and the back. Eleven hours later, work is done and I am ready to start my weekend. I climb into the bus which dropped me off here this morning. At the stop with me and onboard this evening is a guy on his phone. On the bus, he makes his third or forth call, telling someone on the other end of his phone that he is done with his "program. Don't got to go to classes anymore." He has a new job which doesn't pay, which he begins next week, seven days a week. It's cooking lunch and dinner for residents of a place for the homeless. He says he used to live in such a place. He must have moved into a place which requires him to earn no money. He has also begun to train as a boxer. "They want me to start boxing at 147 pounds." He describes his workout, which sounds worse than mine. I don't know if this explains the difference, but I have a mortgage. In fact, my HOA payments are going up next month. He mentions a friend who "got his own room." I wonder if his friend gets paid for his work? His friend is already in trouble for "tryin' to bring his girl around, huh?" If his girl is earning money, I wouldn't complain if I was the landlord, assuming his landlord is collecting rent. He mentions that he has a plane ticket. I wonder if the airline wanted money for it...
And the extraordinary achievement of the First Crusade...liberating Jerusalem... It demonstrated...no other explanation for its success, that it really was Christ's own war... Stories about crusading appealed to a very wide audience... -
Chronicles of the Crusades, ed. by E. Hallam, 1997
Many considered themselves righteous warriors, killing evil and bringing justice. Some were believers in God, America, the War on Terror, the war with Afghanistan and the war with Iraq. ...brought...into [the]
inner circle, the closed club of the army. ...I...adjusted to working within their culture. I mastered...the fist bumps, the jokes, the code. I realized that the military was from Mars. I heard...contempt about...people...living in "mud huts," wearing "man dresses" and giving "man kisses"; about...Iraq felt like being in "Planet of the Apes" or the bar scene in "Star Wars." The soldiers' only entertainment were DVDs, violent video games, and the gym. ...every time [Major]
General Odierno...made a comment, everyone nodded in agreement. Every time he joked, everyone laughed as if it was the funniest comment ever made. Like a Greek chorus. An interesting tribe, I thought. - Sky
In a sense, the [antiwar activists who visited North Vietnam]
were the mirror image of the bomber pilots. ...young and full of fire... ...a wild man Trotskyite...and...the son of a Pakistani pasha or something. ...made brilliant, militant speeches. I could never make a proper militant speech. He was always ribbing me about being compromised for being partly an imperialist. If you bomb...and the whole place has to evacuate, you put enormous stresses and strains on social and political life. ...our strategy...applied to counterinsurgency. There was an idea around that a totalitarian regime couldn't resist the strain of decentralization, and...you could easily make it collapse.
I got a Fulbright to study in England. It turned out to be incredibly stuffy. But in London there was a magazine...that was just starting. I [had]
a sense that little magazines were where the real action was. ...I...became a socialist...between 1960 and 1962... - Maurer
Colloquially known as "businessman's trip," N1N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is known for its lunch-break-size: a 15-minute duration that launches consumers into vivid alien worlds. Some say it's among the most literally hallucinogenic of all the psychedelics, others say it's a portal to reach otherwise inaccessible depths of reality. - Boulder Weekly, 12/14/2017
Saturday. In the afternoon, I out to grab lunch, pick up photos and drop off film, and return a DVD to a local library branch. It's the nice thing about having every other Saturday off: the local branch is open and I don't have to go all the way downtown. Just up the street from where I live, I roll past a new home. It's almost as if it's painted a dull green to match the much older dwellings. But is smells Caucasian. It's a tiny condo, with a couple of decks each with a chair on it. Two big garage doors open onto the alley. No room for any yard with a loud barking dog. In the evening, I have my lights up but the timer does not appear to be working anymore. I head behind my place for dinner, a place where I see more Caucasians than I ever do within several miles of my neighborhood. A couple of young women are standing in the entrance to the parking lot of my place. One is on her phone, and it sounds as if they are waiting for a ride. In a minute, a minivan pulls up. From the voice on the phone, and they way in which one says, "Hiii...", they sound Caucasian. I suspect they live right across the street, in the renovated apartments chocked full of them.
As old-guard retailers shutter stores and lay off workers in the face of shifting consumer habits, Colorado municipalities are in a precarious position due to an unusual tax structure that depends mightily on retail sales taxes. "It could make it really difficult to meet people's needs." Even with a gangbusters Colorado and U.S. economy, with stocks soaring and unemployment at a 17-year low in October... Nearly unique among states, Colorado towns and cities derive much of their operating revenues from locally imposed sales taxes... The arrangement maintains local control and keeps property taxes low... ...the "middle-class squeeze" - housing and education costs have soared, and wages have largely failed to keep pace...pushing middle-class earners toward online bargains. ...many online retailers don't collect sales tax on behalf of municipalities... ...Amazon...agreed to impose sales tax on purchases, based on the shipping address... ...the agreement doesn't apply to Amazon's third-party vendors. ...online retailers are hesitant to enter into taxing agreements in places like Colorado, where the patchwork or taxing authorities could land sellers in hot water with auditors. "...the tradition that we don't tax the internet. ...the purchaser is liable to pay local sales tax, but the state has not enforced that. At the local level, each city would have to. We've looked at the possibility of taxing services. ...we have a prohibition o local income tax in Colorado." Nationally, the retail sector has lost jobs every month in 2017... - Denver Herald, 11/30/2017
He credits...Denver's population boom...for the growing size of his car meets...to more than 1,500...cars and motorcycles...at some of the largest. ...has also increased the number of drivers on the road... Over a thousand car enthusiasts...had attempted to shut down 44th Avenue for drag racing. ...Lieutenant Robert Rock...commanding the DPD's traffic investigations unit...led the DPD's efforts in Southwest Denver to stop drag racing up and down [the street off of which I live.]
Police departments struggle with how to crack down on street racing in Denver... The nature of the crime also makes it logistically difficult to control. ...kids have got cars that come off the showroom floor that can run a quarter mile in ten seconds at 140 miles per hour. - Westword, 11/30 - 12/6/2017
Graham Martin...used the word "treason" in talking about certain reporters. And I thought,Okay, let's see if there's any room to ease relations with the press. There was also...the demobilization of the psy-war operation. I wanted...American points of view. ...rationally discussed, with important emerging South Vietnamese leadership. Younger people in the press, in government, in culture. A...free-ranging discussion. We had...a theater, seminar rooms... Well, there was not time for all that... USIS had a magazine...the most militant kind of propaganda. I stopped it and said, "We'll design something more rational." But what's rational? ...many of the Americans there were old Vietnam hands. They had an emotional stake...even though circumstances...and U.S. policy had changed. ...they felt...deep, deep commitment to Vietnam and its final salvation... ...it was a constant battle. "We're still at war." No...there's a peace treaty." ...for these people, the kind of thing I wanted to do was irrelevant. Survival meant military aid and economic aid... They weren't dealing in the realm of ideas... ...the embassy was the most emotion-ridden embassy I have ever seen. ...in other embassies...I was lucky enough to work with basically rational people [and with]
objectivity. ...in Saigon. It was a moral and political and military crusade. Above all else, a crusade. - Mauer
Monday. I am on a connecting bus to work with a couple who is frequently on here. The woman has white hair and rambles on about particular details in their life. The guy speaks with a gravel voice. They come on board with a young guy who has a beard with no moustache. I notice that he is wearing bedroom slippers on a morning when I need my winter coat. The husband asks him his name. He takes a minute to comprehend that he is being spoken to. He slowly gets up and stands with a stoop as he shakes the husband's hand. He asks the husband where the grocery store is, and he replies with brief directions. The young guy appears stymied. We pull into a transfer hub. he slowly approaches the driver and stands with a stoop as he asks him if he should get off here. The driver also gives him a brief answer. The young guy takes a minute to process this before sitting back down. He comes back to the husband and stammers that the driver "w-w-wants me to get off here."
I was one of the last Foreign Service wives, the kind that pays a formal call on the ambassador's wife. By the late 1960s...there was resistiveness... The younger ones didn't...care...whether they were doing things properly. They just wanted to live their own lives... ...I...set up a wives training program. The wives were rated on their social skills. ...to entertain well. ...to be a handmaiden to the ambassador's wife. ...taking your card around. That's why everyone had a little silver tray in the foyer. - Maurer
As of 2015, baby boomers and millenials were nearly neck-and-neck in total population and numbers of people in the workplace.
[My neighborhood]
has the highest percentage of single-family homes in Denver, yet also has the highest density because many families live together under one roof. It also is a young neighborhood, with 5,600-plus children. The neighborhood has the lowest amount of open space per capita. It does not have any grocery stores and is near the lowest in public investment per capita. - Denver Herald, 12/14/2017
Although there are enough Quiznos sandwiches...to feed a crowd twice as large, only a few take...the food, including a couple...experiencing homelessness. ...a city employee turns on a video promoting the housing plan. ...backed by chirpy narration and soft guitar music, creating a vibe not unlike that of a Cialis commercial. What's missing are shots of homeless encampments along the South Platte River, scenes of people being priced out of their homes after...decades... ...the mayor's new Office of Housing and Opportunity for People Everywhere (HOPE)...plan...still must be approved by...the city's Housing Advisory Committee...chaired by (the head of a corporation which developed the old airport into a giant condo neighborhood.)
The...plan is their vision document to...prevent Denver from becoming the next San Francisco or Brooklyn. But at this November 8 meeting, it's clear that slick videos, PowerPoints and a dense, 98-page plan won't fully appease community members worried about their future in Denver. "I work full-time as a teacher, and I don't know how much longer I can afford my rent or where I'll go," says another woman, practically in tears. "There's a perfect storm happening, and we began to see that in 2010, 2011...all of a sudden, Denver's economy took off, with more people coming in, at a clip of 750 to 1,000 per month, and more people looking for apartments." "City neighborhoods are changing in a matter of months, not years, right now." The GES - Globeville, Elyria, Swansea - Coalition represents some of the city's most...low-income areas...experiencing high demand for their affordable homes... - Westword, 12/7-13/2017
Twelve months of meetings. Discussion...about parliamentary procedure and committee positions. Hours...debating...terms like "gentrification." Listening to reports... Public comment sessions. Presentations from community groups... But despite all of that, Mayor Hancock's Housing Advisory Committee is still unclear on its role and powers. That was apparent last Thursday, December 7, at the conclusion of a five-hour meeting of the HAC... The existential question arose after...investors...approaching the City of Denver to be a public partner... ...committee members weren't sure whether they had the power to recommend city investments... ...the city's forthcoming five-year housing plan..certain parts...are...being drafted...inside the mayor's office... "It was basically just told to us by the city." - Westword, 12/14-20/2017
Thursday. I grab breakfast at my favorite place on the way to work. My favorite waitress is working. I enjoy watching her seating an old man and his caregiver, who is wearing scrubs. She shows him such affection, rubbing his back and telling how fancy his new coat looks. It's wonderful to watch her work. She catches my eye as I observe. At 9:30 AM, I'm at a coffee place on the way to work. Lots of seating and lots of windows. At one table I see a couple of 30-something women. Each has an open book on the table, along with a notepad and a pen. One has a cap with "Colorado woman" on the front. I have a rare few minutes before work. I am spending them sitting next to a grandma-aged woman and a younger man. She knows details about him, and sounds like his case worker. She mentions having experience working with the homeless. I listen to her mention his "time in the hospital." I wonder if she is a psychologist? From the little I hear him say, he sounds as if he is somewhat lost in society. Either that or this is a blind date with an age difference. I have been on those, with older women. I hear her refer to him as "a young man who has been through a lot. ...you don't want to be let down." The following morning, I am up and out of the door and on a 6 AM bus to work. I don't have to leave nearly this early. But I have been out here on a Saturday at 7, and have seen the bus arrive with no room on the bike rack. This morning, I score a slot on an early bus. Two stops before mine, a construction guy with a bike gets on. The rack is full and the driver reluctantly lets him on. I let the driver know that I am disembarking in four streets, and he can have my slot. He has an old red Schwinn, with two wire baskets on the back and one on the handlebars. It has no gears, and both rider and bike appear to be coated a fine layer of mud. The kickstand is held closed with a piece of tape.
Monday. I'm on a bus up my street. A young couple and a child get on with a stroller. The guy has a black left eye. The mom is wearing a hoodie with a photo of the dad on the front. In the photo, he is taking a selfie in a mirror. In the selfie, he is wearing a T-shirt with Marilyn Monroe on the front. The following day, I am at the gym before work. I'm in the locker room with two pairs of middle-aged men. Each is listening to the other tell a story, and both stories are being told simultaneously as the pairs are right next to each other. One guy is telling another about code enforcement coming around to his block. He mentions to the enforcement officer that both a city council member and the city manager live right "around the corner." The tale told in the other pair is about a neighbor yelling at city employees working on his property. This neighbor threatened these employees with the INS and told them he would call the city. For some reason, the fire department came out to address this neighbor's concerns. The neighbor was told to solve his problems by moving his house across the valley. Back to the first pair. The guy doing the narration mentions going to a local city council meeting, where 300 Tea Party activists were brought out to protest their "freedom of choice." The issue? Their trash pick up was being consolidated with another neighborhood's. Friday morning. I'm on a packed bus headed up my street on the way to work. It's full of students and Spanish-speaking men. In the back is a guy who mentions to someone, "I'm making so much money now, I'm gonna get a half-gallon. Apiece. A half gallon for you and a half gallon for me."
"What if we considered conflict as a secret ally or a guidepost...? What f our intense emotions and sources of invincible energy...?" ...knowledge of five areas - neurology/cognitive psychology, and personality, bias, social conformity, and morality - to help...not only...political leaders, but also...relatives, partners, friends and managers. Enemyfying...feels...righteous and heroic... it...distracts us with unrealizable dreams of decisive victory...
We...conducted peace intention experiments... ...within a few months...war was over. - natural awakenings, 12/2017
While there is much wrong in the world... I am thankful for out amazing team here at the office. I am thankful to partner with dozens of companies... I am thankful for this country and the freedom we enjoy compared to so much of the rest of the world. - [a letter from my homeowner's]
Insurance Agent & Agency, 12/2017
It would take a decade, he had told him, to establish political parties not based on ethnicity or religion. He had suggested...a pilot for developing...processes...beyond ethnicity and religion. The US Air Force hosted a show "Tops and Stripes" to which I was invited along with the Council members. ...we were given front-row seats as guests of honour. The women paraded before us in the front row, flipping up their skirts as they danced... They jumped onto the waists of their male partners. To a Muslim it was pornographic. ...the whole row got up and walked out... Outside in the cold air, many of them rushed for cigarettes. "This is not our culture," one said to me. "It's not mine either," I responded. ...one of the members of their party...had been arrested by Coalition forces... ...he was a Dutch citizen... A few days days later, [after the author arranged for his release, he]
came to see me... {He]
told me of the hopes he had had for the new Iraq - he had been visiting from Holland with the intention of investing in the country. It had all gone so horribly wrong. All he wanted now was to get home...
"The Coalition...brought about state collapse. Democracy could not...be developed...in a matter of days." ...the Iraqis called us "qawaat al-ihtulal, occupying forces" in Arabic... The interpreter translated "Coalition forces"... ...Bremer reminded him that they now had "freedom," at which the Iraqi officers looked mystified. He never displayed any doubt. He relied heavily on those who shared his convictions but lacked experience...had marginalized the experienced and skilled diplomats... ...I arranged for a delegation of Kirkuk Arabs to meet Bremer. I wanted to allay their concerns...to expel Arabs from the province - a fear that was pushing them to aquire strange bedfellows and to provide passive sanctuary to those attacking Coalition forces. ...a special rapporteur could...serve as a honest broker to whom all...could pour out their grievances. Bremer...liked this option. There was no response to Washington to our cables requesting guidance on the final status...or on a UN...resolution...to...a special rapporteur or on suggestions for...the board of the Kirkuk foundation. Kirkuk's "special status" disappeared...
The American Forces Network (AFN) blared...and...still seemed geared toward...subnormal IQs. Don't drink and drive. Don't commit suicide. The nation is grateful to you for defending freedom. Greatest military in the greatest country in the world. Army strong. "Hooah." America the great. America the beautiful. Endless jingoistic messages...with sports coverage. Beautiful plastic women in short skirts churned out a parochial and paranoid picture of the world. "These Yanks pray more than the Muslims do." There were prayers in the morning...prayers i the afternoon...and chaplains everywhere. Their God was...more Old Testament than New - with American can-do. The chaplains prayed for victory over our enemies rather than for peace.
...it was agreed that...services would be delivered to show the presence of government. The government had very little capacity to deliver anything. Most professionals had been dismissed from their posts through de-Baathification, were dead of had fled the country. ...Baghdad at night was totally dark. The insurgents had taken out all the lights. ...dead bodies found in the morning, in the streets or washed up on the banks of the Tigris. ...the guards on hospitals were...Jaysh al-Mahdi. Sunnis were terrified to go to hospitals in Baghdad after some had been murdered in their hospital beds. It was too dangerous to go to the Ministry of the Interior; it was outside the Green Zone, and every floor was run by a different militia. Sunni extremists' networks ran from the towns...into the city... Shia militias had cleansed areas of Baghdad of Sunnis and behaved as mafia units....through their control of gas stations. ...detainees became radicalized... The Grand Mufti...handed us suggestions for the way forward in Iraq. ...there had been a shift among the Sunni population. ...they sought protection from the Shia militias and...their greatest threat: Iran. "...the Shia were pushed to seek shelter with the militias and the Sunnis with al-Qaeda.
There is not really any al-Qaeda in Iraq. Armed groups just adopt that name but they are not...loyal to al-Qaeda. ...siding with whichever is stronger." ...the...General...shouted at me about being too negative and not believing...accused me of going over to the Iraqi side... Everyone was constantly attacking the very Iraqis with whom I was trying to improve our relations. How could I...if they felt such hostility from the Coalition? ...said [the] general..."I need your help to think through this shit." - Sky
"...if you don't gather around the President now, I think your country is lost." And they would answer, "No, the only solution is immediate reform. There's no way to save the country with Thieu. He has to go, and then maybe we can rally enough people to the defense." - Mauer
Governments like it this way. They want their people to see war as a drama of opposites, good and evil...victory or defeat. ...war...is primarily about death. A teenage Taliban looked at my passport in Jalalabad airport... a boy soldier of maybe fourteen who held the document upside down, stared at it and clucked his tongue and shook his head in disapproval. - Fisk
One week before Christmas. I am just out of my front door shortly before 8 AM. I have everything but my gloves...and my keys. Shortly thereafter, I get my keys. Minutes later, I am across the street at the bus stop. I swing my bike out of the way of other waiting passengers. It swings behind me...and I lose my balance and fall over backwards. For the first time in my life. I make it onto the bus, which gets me to the corner where I need a connecting bus. He hurried here as if he is late. I get out on the corner to find my connecting bus already there. The only reason the driver lets me on is because he is letting a passenger and a stroller off. A short way down the street, we pass a condo unit. At the edge of the parking lot, next to the street, is a young guy with earbuds, shifting his weight from one leg to another. It below-freezing temperatures, he is wearing no shirt. I get to the gym, where I hear a guy singing in the shower. I hear him singing, "Holy holy holy..." I begin singing myself, "Lover of the Bayou" by The Byrds.
Tuesday. On the crosstown bus to work. We pass a bundled up guy on the sidewalk, with two shopping carts. Each cart is loaded with a mountain of blankets piled each on top of the other. Shortly after disembarking, I step into my favorite restaurant before work. A party of seven seniors is in front of me. A white-haired guy in a buttoned down shirt and down vest asks me, "You riding a bike today?" Four hours later and I am having lunch at the sushi place next door to work. I swear, these guys have one CD, and it's Sade. Hours later, after work, I am at a stop for my last bus home. The one which arrives is driven by a guy who always has a full bike rack, and therefore passengers begging him to let them in back with their bikes. He obliges me this evening. A few short stops later, a woman also begs the driver to let her on with another bike. With hers, we're now carrying four bikes. She is one of eight street people who all recognize each other on this evening route. Someone mentions a street person who passed away. Another jokes that she was "run over by a bus." The eight enjoy this gallows humor of the street. Another says, "She was hit by a beer truck. The alcohol got her." The droll life of the boulevard shadows is apparent.
Wednesday. It's after work at 7:15 PM, and I am waiting for the first bus home at the usual stop. Up the sidewalk comes someone pushing a shopping cart. It's loaded with crap. They get down over the curb onto the busy street, and cross during a lull between speeding pickup trucks. I watch as they roll across the street to a big strip mall. They park the cart and sit in front of a store which is being renovated. The following morning is snow, the first real one of the season. It's winter solstice. On my connecting bus to work this past autumn, more than one passenger has been on my connecting bus to and from work, looking for the nearest hospital. A couple have been in wheelchairs. One guy pulled out a map and asked when we would arrive at a hospital which is, in fact, across town in the opposite direction. The other passengers knew it and laughed. This mid-morning, a young guy is passed out in a seat. At a transfer hub, the driver goes back and wakes him up to find out where he is going. The guy says that he's headed for a hospital on a boulevard blocks and blocks back the way we came. He says that he's on his way to detox. The driver gets out for a break and the young asks the rest of us, "This bus goes (to a county the opposite way), doesn't it?" If you're going by bus to detox, it's best not to have to go there at all... At 7 PM, I'm out of the door from work. The temps are below freezing. The sidewalk on the north side of the avenue is almost completely devoid of snow and ice. There are isolated patches of ice along the way. I feel the tires slip underneath. I try to stay over the snow for some traction. I can feel my breath freeze on my moustache. Beginning yesterday, the bike has been slow coming out of third gear, and won't even go into first.
Friday. I'm on a bus up the street, headed to work when a middle-aged guy gets on. I don't hear him but he appears to have words with the driver, who tells him that he doesn't "want to hear it." A female passenger tells the driver, "Atta girl." He sits next to another passenger who he suddenly recognizes. The other one tells the first he recognizes him from rehab. He also mentions that he "got out" in 2015, having been in prison for murder. He mentions a sibling or cousin who is currently in "juvie. He got seventy." Yep, I'm seated behind a guy who was convicted for murder. Happy holidays.
On 19 March 1997... A benevolent white dust covered the windscreen, and when the wipers cleared...the desolation took a hard, unforgiving, din-coloured uniformity. The track must have looked like this, I thought to myself, when Major-general William Elphinstone led his British army to disaster more than 150 years ago. The Afghans had annihilated one of the greatest armies of the British empire on this very stretch of road... The stones of Gandamak, they claim, were made black by the blood of the English dead. - Fisk
Saturday before Christmas. The bike chain is slipping, a sign it needs to be replaced, along with the gears which are referred to as one unit called the cassette. Along with the trouble that a couple gears are having, when I get to work, I notice that there is a thumbtack in the rear tire. I pull it out and it is released, immediately followed by the air inside. I instantly put the thumbtack back in the hole. Several hours later, the air pressure feels as if it is holding. When we close I head out. It feels okay on flat concrete but I feel the rim making contact with every bump. Downhill, fresh snow can both act as a brake and cushion a low tire. Along the way to the bus stop, I must negotiate two separate flocks of geese on the sidewalk. The following morning, I am up the street at the drug store, picking up some photos. I come out and begin unlocking my bike. I see a young 30-something guy come shuffling up to me. His appearance is anything but that of a street character; clean skin, clothes not mismatched. In fact, he looks like he's in a clean delivery driver uniform, with a reflective vest over his shirt. He asks me in a quiet voice if I can help him out with money "or something to eat or..." I decline. He replies, "Well, listen. Merry Christmas." He shuffles off. Keep on truckin'.
The nobles and knights... Starved of privacy and books, they could never engage in private devotions...their acts of piety...public ones like...pilgrimages. Until the late 12th century...only one son [per family was allowed]
to marry...expecting the rest to [be] s
upporters of the breeder. ...they had to take part in...blood-feuds... ...married couples...were supposed to abstain from sexual relations on 'forbidden days'...more than half of the year. With the preaching of the crusades the Church provided morally vulnerable men with a glimmer of hope, paving the way...in the 12th century of the lat condition as a...vocational life... ...he...in terms of a vendetta...could contribute to his own salvation. - Hallam
...I met Osama bin Laden... My impression was of a shy man. ...he would avert his eyes when the village leaders addressed him. He seemed ill-at-ease with gratitude, incapable of responding with a full smile when children in miniature chadors danced in front of him and preachers admired his wisdom. I noticed how bin Laden, head still bowed, peered up at [an]
old man, acknowledging his age but unhappy that he should be sitting at ease in front of his elders. ...almost every...Arab state...re-created itself in a looking glass for the benefit of its own leaders - Fisk
The United States Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) asked General O for support to help negotiate... It was the closest military-UN relationship anyone had ever witnessed. ...the UN felt much closer to the US military than to the US embassy. From different parts of Iraq and different communities, I was hearing the same refrain: "No to sectarianism, no to ethnicity, yes to a united Iraq." They were drawing on models and memories from the beginning of the twentieth century. It was...a struggle to put an end to sectarian religious government. It was a battle for the legitimacy of the state. - Sky
Tuesday is the day after Christmas. There is just another full week plus one last Sunday in 2017. Yesterday morning, my boulevard was uncharacteristically void of traffic. But on this morning, the eighteen-wheelers, garbage trucks, pickups, and SUVs are all back to race each other up and down the street. And up and down. At work, when lunch time comes around, I am next door at the sushi place. Over the speakers comes some soft holiday guitar. At another table is a crew of four people in reflective vests. They are watching a comedy on someone's phone. It's in Spanish. All are laughing through lunch, and one is snorting. The following evening, I am at the stop for my last bus home around 8 PM. After some days in the single digits, it's a beautiful winter evening in the 40s. From behind me I hear the shuffling of feet. I see a guy walking along in a full length parka. His head is hidden inside his hood. He has the face of someone in his late 50s, a face which could perhaps belong to the senior vice president of an oil company, were he in some universe other than this dark boulevard with a doughnut shop and a bus stop and deathburgers up and down its length. Hanging out of his back pocket is a long rag. On one corner of the rag is a skull.
Friday. The last day I will work this year. In the morning I am crossing the street to the bus stop. It's a beautiful morning. I myself wondered if this was December or April. On the opposite corner is a guy who had to abort his crossing the street because his light turned red. He's dressed head to toe in olive drab and carries an enormous olive rucksack stuffed full. He sees me and I can't entirely make out what he says. He has a big smile and mentions something about his butt, and it feels like spring out here. I am shortly on this bus and up the street, and on my connecting bus to work. A familiar senior couple gets on at one stop, along with an elderly friend with a walker moving very slow. The husband speaks in whispers, and the wife is loud. Instead of the usual things I overhear on the bus, such as murder, incarceration, rehab, and detox; what I listen to from this trio is much more standard sitcom fare. At some point, I figure out that the three have just come from breakfast at a restaurant. While the wife is in the process of talking, she is informed that the friend took out his false teeth at the restaurant and left them on a table. We are parked at a transfer hub at the moment. The husband whispers that they must return there, and gets up to exit the bus to do so. The wife calls him back. She has a phone. She reaches the place and relays that they be on the lookout for a set of false teeth. She asks the friend why he took his teeth out. The friend tells her that he doesn't need her telling him what to do. She tells someone on the other end of her phone, "No, not that table. We were sitting in the corner." Then there is some confusion as to whether or not the friend found his teeth in his pocket. She says into her phone, "Oh wait, I think he found them. Did you find them?" she asks the friend. More than once she asks him this, and more than once he replies that no he did not find them. He can't be heard over her voice. She leaves the restaurant her number before she asks him one last time. He yells out loud, "NO!" and tells her that she needs her ears cleaned out. Her phone rings and it's the restaurant. They have his teeth. The husband gets out at the bank. She tells him that she isn't going with him because he's "the one with the great big bank account." The friend gets out with him. She gets out a stop or two later, where I assume they all live. If this is the end of 2017, I can only wonder what the city's transit system will bring us next year. The new commuter train line out this way has cleared a hurdle toward opening. Perhaps I will find some teeth onboard...
Well, not quite the end. After work, I jump on the 7:18 crosstown bus home. At the next stop, we pick up a second passenger with a bike. he comes aboard to ask the driver, "What happened to the bus that was supposed to be here an hour ago?" I can't make out what the driver tells him, but he replies, "...fuckin' excuses." I hear him on his phone telling someone that the bus before this one has been late for the sixth time now. "I rely on that bus," he says. 'Tis an old story. The center does not hold. But, you can call the transit system which tracks every bus, and will tell you where it is, including if it isn't going to show up. A couple of days later is New Year's Eve. In the morning, I am coming back from breakfast across the street. In a parking lot on the corner are a couple of characters who give off a homeless vibe. One is in a full length leather coat, a knit cap, and pants which look like tan denim overalls. The other is wearing nothing on his head, even though he has a hoodie under his coat. It feels as though it's in the single digits, if not colder. He also carries a canvas shopping bag with pictures of vegetables on the outside. They stand discussing something before they slowly head down the sidewalk. Perhaps they take 2017 with them. Having listened to many opinions about the past year, I entrust this pair to haul it away on their way out. And then I am downtown. I grab lunch and am on my way to pick up a bicycle which just had $163.83 worth of work done. It's freezing cold. I walk to the stop for the bus to the bike shop. The stop is on a corner which is the very heart of downtown, between the capitol and the state house. Next to this stop, in the frigid air, are a couple of guys is purple robes. The louder one begins yelling about the Native Americans being the chosen people from the bible. He also mentions that the man should run the house. A skinny kid walks by and says, "I'm a sinner. I smoke dope, maaaan..." Surely these are some kind of temporal sentinels. The truth is, each of these years is less like some kind of linear narrative to be filed away when finished, than a mystery to which no single one of us has the key.
