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Monday, September 18, 2006

Jay: Ed King

Former Massachusetts governor Edward J. King, not to be confused with contending candidate and talkshow regular at the time Edward F. King, has died at the age of 81.  I always regarded Ed King highly, and was pleased when he was elected over Dukakis.  What a shame it went the other way four years later.  But at least the sequence of governors eventually led to Bill Weld.

What do we have to do to get another Bill Weld, anyway?  Sharon has a favored candidate (or lack thereof) poll today and the choices are downright grim.  Except maybe none of the above, which ought to be but sadly isn’t a real life option.  Imagine being able to reject them all with NOTA, then holding a redo election in which none of the rejects could run.  Hell, yeah!

But really, Bill Weld was a stealth libertarian, and we are still enjoying the results of his time in office.  We should do that more often.

King wasn’t bad either, being so conservative compared to the plunder as usual crew.  Rest in peace, Governor.


04:42 PM | News • (0) Comments • Permalink

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Jay: Duct Tape, The Force, and… Oprah?

This is weird.  I just happened to run across attribution of this quote about duct tape to Oprah Winfrey of all people.  I happen to know that it originated with a guy named Carl Zwanzig.  I first saw the quote online in the early nineties, and while I don’t know the guy per se, we’ve run in the same SF fandom circles, and I think maybe I wrote him a check when I was treasurer of Arisia.

Oprah?  I mean really.


11:32 PM | News • (0) Comments • Permalink

Deb: It’s going to be a snarky day.

So I see this NYT headline this morning: Speed of the Spread of Flu Is Linked to Airline Travel and my first thought is duh, really?

Of course, my second thought is, well it’s a lovely thing that they’re killing the airline industry then, isn’t it?  I mean, it’s a two-fer, right?  No planes, no terrorists (bwhahahaha...if life were that simple I’d be queen of the world) and no planes, no flu!  Right?  Right?

Very safe.

*looking for a brick wall*
*found!*
*bangs head*


11:38 AM | News • (0) Comments • Permalink

Monday, September 11, 2006

Jay: History Gone in a Puff of E-mail

I had thought I’d be different this year.  Instead of posting pictures and recycled memories, and apart from my anticipatory post that’s down on what 9/11 has made of us, and even instead of posting a longer version of the down post that posits a better response and set of subsequent events, I came up with another idea.  E-mails from the day.

On September 11, 2001 I went to the computer to check e-mail and so forth, then went to MSNBC as was my habit before I read many blogs.  The picture made me run to the TV.

The rest of the day I went back and forth between the TV and computer, trying the web, but mostly on e-mail and Usenet.  I corresponded repeatedly with the receptionist at my client, where nobody did much work that day.  She was the only one who had no real chance to get away from her desk and watch the TV in the big conference room, so I was supplying news and rumor as I heard or read it.

I wanted to review those and, unless it seemed unworkable, excerpt them here to give a glimpse into the feel of the day.  Yes, I keep e-mail that long.  I do have e-mail from Spetember 2001 archived on this computer… but none from 9/11.

Which makes sense, because at that point I hadn’t configured my e-mail account at the client to forward me a copy via the internet.  So I checked internal e-mail.  Apparently at some point the September 2001 e-mail seemed Just Too Old to me.  Folder’s there; mail’s gone.  2002?  No problem.  Damn!

Which perhaps leads me back to posting nothing further at all, or elaborating on how we went astray.  We’ll see.  For now there is work calling me and it will not be denied.


10:09 AM | News • (0) Comments • Permalink
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