(no subject)
It was the second snowstorm in two weeks. Not quite as bad as the last one, when it took SilentQ and I an hour and a half to drive the length of a city rendered vast and desolate by winter's blanket. Yet, it was bad enough to snarl Mothra in traffic and get him to cancel the club's staff meeting. Fred and I had arrived early and were talking about holiday parties and Hardcore Zen while Tool was in the back, programming dancefloor lights. When Mothra cancelled, we just bundled ourselves back up with me offering the guys rides back home. None of them actually live anywhere near where I was going, but it was nasty out there and the less time spent in it, the better.
I had the car radio tuned to NPR, and we heard about ten seconds of Mario Cuomo before I kicked the CD player back to Unknown Pleasures. Not that I have anything against the former governor, I actually like his show a lot, but I'd been listening to the news about Saddam Hussein all afternoon, and I was reaching saturation. Earlier, the BBC was interviewing Caspar Weinberger and Reagan's former Secretary of Defense was positively gleeful.
"Yes, it'll be interesting to see what Saddam will be saying about his French, German and Russian allies. I'm sure he'll be talking about a lot of things that will make Mr. Chirac quite uncomfortable."
"and what if he says anything about how the administration that you worked for backed him as well?"
"well, then he's a liar. We all know that nothing he says can ever be taken at face value."
Ah, poor man, all of his Iran-Contra doubletalk training was obviously falling apart.
Regardless, we didn't talk much of politics1 on the drive, mostly focusing on holiday plans and swapping blizzard stories.
"You know," I said, "there are some days when my parents in California ask me why I like living in Boston, and my usual reply is that I like having seasons." and I'm tapping breaks on a downhill run through a barely ploughed street, skirting the edge of stopping and sliding. "but nights like tonight make me wonder how much I love these winters."
and while the griping and bitching is sort of de rigeur, I have to admit that I do love the sight of snow swirling over a frozen river. It makes the air look animated, as the individual flecks and flakes trace the eddies and swirls in a storm's progress. It changes cities and turns them into fantastic lands where streets turn into open plains crossed by skiers and stubborn cyclists, and bulldozers look like ghostly oliphants with eyes of fire emerging from a grey haze. It makes me think of my first winter in Vancouver, walking the four blocks to school and thinking that the bowed, snow-capped trees looked like a cathedral of ice, and it reminds me of Christmas shopping in New York, holding my mom's hand as we crossed to a department store and sticking my tongue out to catch a strange jewel floating down from the sky.
1 and, seriously, people who are concerned about how Saddam's capture affects the state of Iraq should neither gloat nor lament on how this affects the 2004 election. It's more important to dodge the politics and think about the best venue for trying Saddam. Tacitus (who is an interesting and readable war hawk blogger, at least insofar as he doesn't resort to as much name calling as other A-list right-wingers like Lileks or Instapundit) tries to makes the case that Hussein should be tried by an Iraqi court in Iraq, which I generally agree with, but I'd take issue with his knee-jerk rejection of international courts, which might have had some problematic implementations, but one can still make the argument that they are needed when nations who create their own tribunals swing towards either lynch mob or whitewash forms of justice.
I had the car radio tuned to NPR, and we heard about ten seconds of Mario Cuomo before I kicked the CD player back to Unknown Pleasures. Not that I have anything against the former governor, I actually like his show a lot, but I'd been listening to the news about Saddam Hussein all afternoon, and I was reaching saturation. Earlier, the BBC was interviewing Caspar Weinberger and Reagan's former Secretary of Defense was positively gleeful.
"Yes, it'll be interesting to see what Saddam will be saying about his French, German and Russian allies. I'm sure he'll be talking about a lot of things that will make Mr. Chirac quite uncomfortable."
"and what if he says anything about how the administration that you worked for backed him as well?"
"well, then he's a liar. We all know that nothing he says can ever be taken at face value."
Ah, poor man, all of his Iran-Contra doubletalk training was obviously falling apart.
Regardless, we didn't talk much of politics1 on the drive, mostly focusing on holiday plans and swapping blizzard stories.
"You know," I said, "there are some days when my parents in California ask me why I like living in Boston, and my usual reply is that I like having seasons." and I'm tapping breaks on a downhill run through a barely ploughed street, skirting the edge of stopping and sliding. "but nights like tonight make me wonder how much I love these winters."
and while the griping and bitching is sort of de rigeur, I have to admit that I do love the sight of snow swirling over a frozen river. It makes the air look animated, as the individual flecks and flakes trace the eddies and swirls in a storm's progress. It changes cities and turns them into fantastic lands where streets turn into open plains crossed by skiers and stubborn cyclists, and bulldozers look like ghostly oliphants with eyes of fire emerging from a grey haze. It makes me think of my first winter in Vancouver, walking the four blocks to school and thinking that the bowed, snow-capped trees looked like a cathedral of ice, and it reminds me of Christmas shopping in New York, holding my mom's hand as we crossed to a department store and sticking my tongue out to catch a strange jewel floating down from the sky.
1 and, seriously, people who are concerned about how Saddam's capture affects the state of Iraq should neither gloat nor lament on how this affects the 2004 election. It's more important to dodge the politics and think about the best venue for trying Saddam. Tacitus (who is an interesting and readable war hawk blogger, at least insofar as he doesn't resort to as much name calling as other A-list right-wingers like Lileks or Instapundit) tries to makes the case that Hussein should be tried by an Iraqi court in Iraq, which I generally agree with, but I'd take issue with his knee-jerk rejection of international courts, which might have had some problematic implementations, but one can still make the argument that they are needed when nations who create their own tribunals swing towards either lynch mob or whitewash forms of justice.