Bring It On

Now's not the time to bunker-hunker: I accept the nomination of Samuel A. Alito as the newest Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. There, that ought to do it. Next? How about J. Michael Luttig to replace Ruth Gator Ginsberg sometime this Spring?

It's hard for a conservative not to be feeling his oats. This is just a great time. They can't stop this guy. Two reasons:

First: Qualifications, etc.

Second: Each honorable Republican Senator has looked deeply into his individual conscience and has discovered...that there's a base out there that can hurt them!

What a stunningly splendid development has come from Harriet. Before Harriet I was a little worried: Could we hold squishy New England? DeWine? MaCain? Graham? What I know now is that passion, commitment, and intellectual stature has EXPLODED! from the right. You can't fight against that combination, at least not without trepidation. I don't think we're going to see any ego grandstanding this time. The pleasures of a little press aren't worth a primary defeat, and that now has got to be a part of the conscience of every gentleman.

I don't think the right is crowing, and I don't think they're complimenting each other on their muscle, I don't think they intend to bully; I think that what they've found is that what individually each thought was a personal and intellectual persuasion, is actually a passion immediately and instinctively felt by millions; and that means it's a movement, and a deep one, with staying power, and this is something that tends to be noticed, both by enemies and by friends. And that gives friends both energy and spine, which means victory.

A splendid faith is splendidly rigorous. It has at its core some accepted tenet, in this case that the Constitution is a controlling document, but after that it's all intellect and there's only one side in this fight with developed intellect. "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive / But to be young was very heaven." This is a good time to feel great, and, largely, it will last. Delight will fade, work will tire, but the testament has been made: There is a conviction out there that there is a proper structure of government, that there is a proper concept of nation, and that is a faith, a very strong faith. It can preserve a nation. Bring It On

No Need For Anger

Had to go for a four hour drive through the country. Gray day, dark day, though moments and spots of piercing sun. There's drama in passing through the edge of Fall; occasionally I saw a yellowed tree amidst that dark and brown hit by a ray of sun like an explosion. And on the radio they are discussing Alito. I don't know a thing about him but he apparently is competent to argue a constitutional perspective. What a great day.

Week In Review

Week In Review

Back at my computer now after four days gone, there-abouts, I've decided to type up my morning notebook-muse of 24 hours ago, there-abouts. My intent now as a beginning blogger is not only to write about public events but also to trace my personality. The justification is simply interest. --To blog is to be self-conscious. I want to follow my mind as it moves from discomfort to finding it natural to publicly express private thoughts.


7:57 A.M. My mind certainly has no interest in writing this morning though it has been musing... I'm a little shy on sleep, that might be part of it. There's a certain, "I don't care" element in sleepiness, and it's hard to summon force when you don't care, even when the ideas are entertaining, --and the best I can say of my ideas is that they're pleasant to me; I certainly can't argue that they're insightful.

On the Meirs withdrawal? I think Bush will now nominate a justice "in the mode of Scallia and Thomas". I think he thought that's what he'd done with Meirs. I think it was an eye-opener to him to discover that she wasn't the mind he'd thought. That doesn't mean he doesn't continue to consider her a valuable aide, it's just now he recognizes that his affection caused him to imagine faculties that were not present. I ascribe to him this personal insight --that he recognizes now that he made a mistake-- and in his next nomination will pay more attention to more objective observers. I presume he does want a justice who rules according to the constitution and I presume he feels no animosity towards his base that so criticized Meirs.

On the indictment of Scooter Libby? I note that the press is still talking about Iraq while the indictment deals with a memory lapse, or possibly with a repeated lie, seemingly minor, about something not a crime. There couldn't be a further separation between what the press wants and the actual charge.

On Iraq? There is no magic in a number. "2,000" is not more impressive than 1,998, or two thousand and forty. What the public understands is that in war there is death, and considering the scope of what is being attempted, the death has been moderate. --To discuss this carefully would be to discuss the various degrees of political sophistication, but in general, those who support the effort recognize the price can be born, they merely want it to end and they do see the new Iraqi constitution as significant. To those who simply want withdrawal, "2,000" is a celebration, and those with more understanding don't find that celebration pleasant.
In general I don't think Iraq is any longer a powerful political issue. It's been too successful, step after step, and its final success --in as much as a democracy can be established through an occupation-- now seems assured. The proof of that is the constitutional election where there was no coverage! Or very little. Networks didn't even schedule time, because they knew they would be reporting good news, bad news for them, and they didn't want to do that. If the press, in this back handed way, recognizes victory, then so too does the general public, and you can't have a powerful political issue where the outcome is deeply known and widely accepted. You can have noise, but the noise will be heeded only by those who find it music.


On Iraq? There is no magic in a number. "2,000" is not more impressive than 1,998, or two thousand and forty. What the public understands is that in war there is death, and considering the scope of what is being attempted, the death has been moderate. --To discuss this carefully would be to discuss the various degrees of political sophistication, but in general, those who support the effort recognize the price can be born, they merely want it to end and they do see the new Iraqi constitution as significant. To those who simply want withdrawal, "2,000" is a celebration, and those with more understanding don't find that celebration pleasant.
In general I don't think Iraq is any longer a powerful political issue. It's been too successful, step after step, and its final success --in as much as a democracy can be established through an occupation-- now seems assured. The proof of that is the constitutional election where there was no coverage! Or very little. Networks didn't even schedule time, because they knew they would be reporting good news, bad news for them, and they didn't want to do that. If the press, in this back handed way, recognizes victory, then so too does the general public, and you can't have a powerful political issue where the outcome is deeply known and widely accepted. You can have noise, but the noise will be heeded only by those who find it music.


So, the real war is in America, Democrat against Republican, two factions vying for power. On the Democrat side it's all about power, which is why they will make any charge against America as long as it hurts Bush; with the Republicans it's about power too, but power with a purpose. This is why the next Supreme Court nominee can be so important, it can be an argument about the function of the court within the structure of the government. It can be Philadelphia 1789 all over again, and that would be good for America.


(This is a good entry. I will type it up tonight. I think the tone is approaching normal. The insight is rather average on the conservative side, but at least there's nothing careless in the statement, and I don't think there's any verbiage forced simply for effect)

--So now I post this, then look at the news. At the new nomination. I sure hope I don't have to get angry again.

Blogger Problems

It takes awhile to get used to speaking to the whole world, and then it takes awhile to get used to speaking to an entirely empty world. Then it takes awhile to master mechanics, and this system seems missing supporting software. And it takes awhile to overcome the distractions of detail difficulties...and the distracting attractions of attempting alliterations. It takes awhile to write solid stuff. It's a matter of feeling at home. But it is coming.

I am going to try to link Fox News. I'll try This Way, which is using the templates tab; and I'll try This Other Way, which is using my CompuServe email. Then I've got to disappear for four days.

It takes awhile to get used to speaking to the whole world, and then it takes awhile to get used to speaking to an entirely empty world. Then it takes awhile to master mechanics, and this system seems missing supporting software. And it takes awhile to overcome the distractions of detail difficulties...and the distracting attractions of attempting alliterations. It takes awhile to write solid stuff. It's a matter of feeling at home. But it is coming.

I am going to try to link Fox News. I'll try This Way, which is using the templates tab; and I'll try This Other Way , which is using my CompuServe email. Then I've got to disappear for four days.

Nope, don't work

Try, Try And Try Again

Katrina, the Argument

The evening after Katrina hit I picked up bits of news as I was walking about the State Fair and learned that New Orleans had pretty much passed through the "storm of the century" unscathed, there would be no "New Atlantis", and I felt satisfaction that the excited anticipation of the press had been disappointed.

The next day I found there was flooding. "Okay," I said, "patch the breaks." But one day later I learned there was a "catastrophe" and I said to myself: "Something is screwed-up."

There is now no one who doesn't recognize that everything about New Orleans was very "screwed-up", the only question is the specifics and the blame. I'm going to focus on the failure of the floodwalls.

First, how much stress did the floodwalls experience?

From the very first it was said: "The levee system was built only to withstand a Category 3 hurricane. It faced a Category 5...Whoops, a Cat 4. What can you expect?" In fact the WaPo article of yesterday argues it was a Category 3. Very possibly it was only a Category One.

There's some evidence for this in a reassessment of wind speeds being done by NOAA. This reassessment is standard. Hurricane Andrew came ashore as a Category 4, after reassessment it was determined to be a Category 5 and is now so classified. Katrina, the most devastating storm of the century may, at the point of the 17th Street Canal failure, eventually be reclassified as Category One. That would be interesting.

First, two obvious observations: the floodwalls didn't fail until the second day; and the roof tops, seen from the overflying camera, were at the point of the break, in just fine shape, not a tile or a shingle missing.

Here's the article taken from -1 Prometheus: Katrina as Category 1 in New Orleans? Archives , originally appearing in the Oct 4 addition of the Florida Sun-Sentinel.

"Hurricane Katrina might have battered New Orleans and the Gulf Coast as a considerably weaker system than the Category 4 tempest initially reported. New, preliminary information compiled by hurricane researchers suggests the system struck southeast Louisiana on Aug. 29 with peak-sustained winds of 115 mph. That would have made it a Category 3 storm, still a major hurricane, but a step down from the enormous destructive force of a Category 4. Katrina might have further downgraded to a strong Category 1 system with 95 mph winds when it punched water through New Orleans' levees, severely flooding most of the city and killing hundreds. The levees were designed to withstand a Category 3 storm. If verified, the wind information compiled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Hurricane Research Division could have chilling ramifications.

According to hurricane research division findings, Katrina remained a Category4 until it was about 105 miles south of the Mississippi River delta. In downtown New Orleans, the winds were barely hurricane strength because buildings disrupted the flow...


So it's possible that the winds at the point of failure of the 17th Street Canal were not even at hurrican strength! Yet they fell over. Of course, this doesn't consider storm surge, but whatever the surge was it wouldn't have been over something expected of Cat One, and that, certainly, should have been contained by walls built to withstand Cat 3.

But they failed.

Why?

The only conclusion can be that they were defective, either in design, or in construction. (There is argument that a Category 4 storm surge pushed through into Lake Ponchatrain. I dismiss that.)

Some speculation here is in order:

An initial explanation given by the Army Corps of Engineers was that the floodwalls had

The evening after Katrina hit I picked up bits of news as I was walking about the State Fair and learned that New Orleans had pretty much passed through the "storm of the century" unscathed, there would be no "New Atlantis", and I felt satisfaction that the excited anticipation of the press had been disappointed.

The next day I found there was flooding. "Okay," I said, "patch the breaks." But one day later I learned there was a "catastrophe" and I said to myself: "Something is screwed-up."

There is now no one who doesn't recognize that everything about New Orleans was very "screwed-up", the only question is the specifics and the blame. I'm going to focus on the failure of the floodwalls.

First, how much stress did the floodwalls experience?

From the very first it was said: "The levee system was built only to withstand a Category 3 hurricane. It faced a Category 5...Whoops, a Cat 4. What can you expect?" In fact the WaPo article of yesterday argues it was a Category 3. Very possibly it was only a Category One.
There's some evidence for this in a reassessment of wind speeds being done by NOAA. This reassessment is standard. Hurricane Andrew came ashore as a Category 4, after reassessment it was determined to be a Category 5 and is now so classified. Katrina, the most devastating storm of the century may, at the point of the 17th Street Canal failure, eventually be reclassified as Category One. That would be interesting.

First, two obvious observations: the floodwalls didn't fail until the second day; and the roof tops, seen from the overflying camera, were at the point of the break, in just fine shape, not a tile or a shingle missing.

Here's the article taken from -1 Prometheus: Katrina as Category 1 in New Orleans? Archives , originally appearing in the Oct 4 addition of the Florida Sun-Sentinel.

• "Hurricane Katrina might have battered New Orleans and the Gulf Coast as a considerably weaker system than the Category 4 tempest initially reported. New, preliminary information compiled by hurricane researchers suggests the system struck southeast Louisiana on Aug. 29 with peak-sustained winds of 115 mph. That would have made it a Category 3 storm, still a major hurricane, but a step down from the enormous destructive force of a Category 4. Katrina might have further downgraded to a strong Category 1 system with 95 mph winds when it punched water through New Orleans' levees, severely flooding most of the city and killing hundreds. The levees were designed to withstand a Category 3 storm. If verified, the wind information compiled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Hurricane Research Division could have chilling ramifications.

• According to hurricane research division findings, Katrina remained a Category4 until it was about 105 miles south of the Mississippi River delta. In downtown New Orleans, the winds were barely hurricane strength because buildings disrupted the flow...

So it's possible that the winds at the point of failure of the 17th Street Canal were not even at hurrican strength! Yet they fell over. Of course, this doesn't consider storm surge, but whatever the surge was it wouldn't have been over something expected of Cat One, and that, certainly, should have been contained by walls built to withstand Cat 3.

But they failed.

Why?

The only conclusion can be that they were defective, either in design, or in construction. (There is argument that a Category 4 storm surge pushed through into Lake Ponchatrain. I dismiss that.)

Some speculation here is in order:

An initial explanation given by the Army Corps of Engineers was that the floodwalls had been over-topped, erosion at the outside base occurred, the base weakened, the walls failed. I don't believe that's true, any more than I believe that Lake Ponchatrain was filled by a Category 4 surge; but I don't believe it was a lie, I don't believe it was a cover-up, I think it was an attempt to give a rational explanation of the otherwise inexplicable. But it's not the right explanation.

The first "clue" I heard pointing in the right direction (unattributed) was this musing: That the walls that failed seemed to be the walls that had just been rebuilt. This isn't really a "clue", it's in fact, thee explanation, just minus the details: They were built bad.

Lisa Myers of NBC has done some excellent work on this in a Sept. 30 article containing this PDF regarding Pittman Construction .... But I see it's getting late. Perhaps I'll do further work later. Right now I want to see if my links work.

Katrina: Man Made Disaster

Yesterday I wrote this email to a friend. The links don't work (I'll try to get some to work later), and there are misstatements, but it will get the ball rolling. Throughout the dayI'll make further posts.

In general it's been my sense since the day after Katrina struck that the whole disaster was man made; that is, that if the floodwalls collasped after the hurricane passed, then their failure was not due to the fury of the winds and water, but through the failure of construction; and I don't believe that construction could have failed without corruption; that is, that the monoliths holding in the flood waters were just built bad. (Enough bold type). I'll try to get my arguments and evidence out in subsequent posts. (This particular reference I first found in National Review's The Corner.


Dear John,

Investigators link Levee Failures to Design Flaws
(The Washington Post}
By Joby Warrick and Michael Grunwald, Page A01, October 24, 2005
NEW ORLEANS -- Within a space of 15 hours on Aug. 29, three massive, concrete floodwalls in separate parts of the city suddenly fractured and......

Rumsfeld Orders Independent Levee Probe (washingtonpost.com)
October 20, 2005
NEW ORLEANS -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has ordered that an independent panel of experts evaluate the performance of New Orleans area....


Just ran into these. Can't read either article because the Washington Post requires a subscription, but it seems like they're finally getting to where I was two months ago.
In general the Army Corps of Engineers decides on the design in terms of picking what design to be used in a specific situation; a contractor is then selected (by the New Orleans Levee Council) to do the construction according to those specifications. In the Pittman Construction, Inc. appeal for more money (previous email) vrs the Army Corps of Engineers, the Corps argued they didn't deserve more money because 12 of the monoliths didn't meet specifications anyway, though the Corps had accepted them rather than insist they be redone. Their acceptance was probably because they were tired of fighting with the NO Levee Council, which probably thought everything was just fine and had other things to do with the money (federally appropriated for levee construction) rather than spend it on actual construction of levees.
The Rumsfeld order probably is due to his sense that the Corps was dragging its feet because their culpability was that they had accepted inferior construction.
The Post article, by emphasizing "design" is probably trying to pin the blame on the Corps, rather than on Pittman and the Levee Council.

And as I noted in my earlier email, what you just experienced in Miami this morning was almost exactly the same, only a little more severe, than what was experienced by New Orleans at the point of the 17th Street Canal failure, and I doubt that the damage to Miami proper was that great.

So things are finally getting where they should be and my contention that the floodwalls simply fell over is being established.


--I did find the Post article in the Montana Standard (www.mtstandard.com/articles/2005/10/24/newsnationworld/hj...)

Revlevant excerpts:

• "Within a space of 15 hours on Aug. 29, three massive, concrete floodwalls in separate parts of the city suddenly fractured and burst under the weight of surging water from Hurricane Katrina. The breaches unleased a wall of water that swept entire buildings from their foundations and transformed what might have been a routine hurricane into the costliest storm in U.S. history --Now, eight weeks after the storm, all three breaches are looking less like acts of God and more like failures of engineering that could have been anticipated and very likely prevented."
  
• "The walls and navigation canal were built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers...." (Not true, the walls, at least on the 17th Street Canal, were built by Pittman Construction).
• "Experts now believe Katrina was no stronger than a Category 3 storm...." (Actually, at the 17th Street Canal Katrina was probably no more than a Category One).
  

More in a few hours.

"In Tone"

Watching the Vikes. Half-time.

That little post I did last night felt good. I'd been reading and it just popped into my head. it feels good to find I can so naturally think in this orrientation.

I do note I'm still not quite "in tone". There's still some nervousness, some forcing for force and effect. --More posts. It will pass.

"Happiness is not a man's duty; to be worthy of happiness is a man's duty." Though this is in qoutes it's actually a paraphrase of Kant. I think Kant also said: "It's not a blogger's duty to be read, it's a blogger's duty to be worthy to be read."

Missing the game. I'm not much good with the mechanics.

Conservatives?

Been reading. Feel like a minnow among millions, flashing about...watching Harriet Miers drown.

Who is their who doesn't recognize she can't swim?

She 's still in the George Bush boat and she's already gulping for air. What happens when she's finally plopped into the pool in front of inquisitors? Unless she's allowed to float she'll sink. Poor Harriet.

This really is the most complete comedy of pretend I've ever seen in my life, that she belongs on the Supreme Court...

Personally, I suppect Harriet is not a nice woman, that she's grasping and ambitious; that she's manipulated herself into this position; that shes not the victim of imposition, the foolish request of a stupid inspiration, but that she's right where she wants to be, and expects to succeed once she has a chance to present her side of the matter: I'm-a-girl-Promote-me-That's-what-you've-always-done-before.

America's greatest Affirmative Action success story!

And there are people who support her?

Bed time.

Blast it, I see four typo/misspellings. Got to get the spell checker to work

Harriet As Katrina

I guess there is a certain pleasure in seeing a great man laid low. Very Greek, you know. The tragic hero falls not from some outside force but from some fatal flaw within, a hubris, some weakness. It makes a King a man, and in that there is pleasure.

But I am not pleased that George Bush is laid low. He's fine on the waor of terror (Islamo-Fascists) and that he do well on the problem of the Supreme Court (Priestly Fascists) had been my hope. But he's not done well, he's done wretchedly, and in explanation therein I find his flaw, he fell for a lady.

For those who don't appreciate the bright-eyed enticement of a Harriet let me tell a story.

As a young man I had a great interest in a truly lovely girl. A very bright girl as well, at least far better in class than I. I attempted deep discussion, we didn't communicate. "What a deep and complex mind this girl has," I said to myself, "I just can't figure it out." Years later, the ardor having passed, I did figure it out: there was nothing there. Lovely, yes, as was appropriate to youth, and bright, yes, she sure could take a test, but a mind utterly untroubled by thought. That complexity I saw was a projection, not so much of any complexity I had yet achieved in my own thought, but a projection of the complexity of those things with which I struggled. "So calmy she faces these issues," I thought, and as, in-beauty-is-truth, I recognized that her understanding was beyond anything I could fathom... In fact she didn't have the faintest idea what I was talking about. I've since come to recognize her as sweet and nearly perfect; just not deep.

And so I recognize Harriet. It's true Harriet does not have the loveliness of youth, but she does have the one great loveliness that Bush prizes above all else, the absolute devotion and loyalty expressed in bright eyes as she looks upon him. I've argued this idea before, that what Bush sees when he sees her is himself, because...there's absolutely nothing else to see!

So anyway, by this perception, which pretty much came in the first hour, I find it a bit silly to puzzle over her qualifications, there are none; I find it silly to puzzle over his deep strategy, there was none; and I find it odd that people find it odd that the nomination has been so ineptly handled; a man enamored is always inept.

So much for George Bush the Greek Tragic Hero. What about Katrina, who to my ear doesn't sound so much Greek as maybe German, or Russian? Supposedly she destroyed New Orleans. This is a stick of mine, but I don't think so. I think by the time Katrina hit the floodwalls there wasn't much more force in her than there's intellect in Harriet. Other things than force destroyed New Orleans, but that's another post. What's the same is this: It wasn't the girl that destroyed the government, it was the government that destroyed the city. This whole abysmal mess, this great damage to the conservate cause, to this administration, to the unity of party, is a creation of George Bush, not of Harriet, and not because he's not a man of intellect, but because in this case he's a man blindly enamored of devotion.

Sometime later I'm going to consider the strange case of Hugh Hewitt. Just what in the world is his...ah...tragic flaw?

Blogthink

Morning duties done, time for a brief assessment of yesterday.

• I seem to have passed through the stage fright, not through new insight or achieved philosophic remove, but simply through doing it. Blogging seems much like any other presentation; once you start talking you relax.
• However, there does seem more noise than force. That indicates some remaining self-consciousness. Again, I think that will leave within just a few more entries. I would prefer to be my normal genial and understated self.
• Have got to work on mechanics. Spell checker doesn't work, can't do links, haven't done a blog roll... In general haven't the faintest idea of what to do mechanically, and additionally think my system is screwed up...or out to get me...?
• The muse which becomes blogthought seems wholesome. It's possibly better than pacing back-&-forth alone in my room arguing inside my own head with Aristotle or my nephew. I do win all those arguments but one can do too much of it.
• And the reason for making this entry is that the new blogger experience is interesting and I intend to follow and note these matters and at some point put them together into a chronology; for bloggers only, but one that will probably be recognized my many as their own.
  
• And now I've got to get some sleep. --Since this is only a 3 day-a-week exercise I really ought to get on a more firm schedule.

More On Harriet

Harriet is a historical event, sort of like Katrina. It has to do with George Bush, his administration, and the facture within the Republican party. It may also have something to do with Harriet Miers.

First, all criticisms begin or end something like this: "Harriet Meirs is a good and decent woman, intelligent and able, just not suitable for the Supreme Court." These are gentlemen speaking. They must say something nice about the lady. In fact, she is not a "good and decent woman," she accepted the nomination! This indicates either self-seeking or very poor judgment.

Considering that self-seeking is an arguable charge, but given that she has no mind, will she be a safe political vote?

Ignoring that a "safe political vote" as a concept is a constitutional debasement, and ignoring the flux and uncertainty of issues to come and not yet known, does she have the cahracter to maintain what presumptively we will accept are her conservative sensitivities? She has constancy and "steel in her spine"? Who see that steel?

George Bush. George Bush has done a very stupid thing, he has nominated Harriet Meirs. He continues to do a very stupid thing, he continues to support Harriet Miers. Each day they converse. Each day he looks deeply into her eyes, he sees strength, courage, decency, and a proper constitutional philosophy. Deeply in those eyes of the sycophant Meirs, who has hitched her wagon to his star, he sees those characteristics by which he has structured himself. "How can people not support this marvellous woman?" he muses; and angered, continues his support. I do think he is a great president, but what he sees in those bright eyes of Harriet is the reflected image of himself. And he is the only one who sees Harriet as himself.

How long will George Bush remain this stupid? It's hard to know. This is self-knowledge. It has nothing to do with political instinct or even political genius. It has to do with the life experience of failure of friendship. George Bush has done very well with his friends. As far as I know he's never yet suffered treachery, disloyalty, or the simple failure of a friend to live up to the image of that friend he has in his own mind. It has to happen once or twice for a man to recognize that it can happen. Will he soon recognize that failure of his own perception? I don't know. If he does he'll withdraw the nomination. I do trust George Bush to do the right thing when he has the right understanding.

And Harriet? In three years George will be gone and her steel will be gone. She'll be in DC. She won't be with her mom, she won't be in Texas, she won't be in her church. She won't have the supports that have sustained her her entire life. She'll be putty, she'll be flattered, she'll be Souter.

Ha! Just after my last post, suggesting that in accepting the nomination Miers may have exercized self-seeking I note that The Smoking Gun has something on the matter. "I did not want to be considered."

Who Can Forget Harriet

People remember where they were the morning of 9/11, some people remember where they were the day Kennedy was shot. I remember Oct 3rd.

I was pacing back and forth in my house, groggy-eyed, sipping coffee, waking-up from a late night, and I turned on the tube because I knew there was going to be an announcement. I don't remember the time. Reading the big hand and the little hand so very eary in the morning was as yet beyond my achieved mental capacity. I was still sort of aiming at finding my feet. Once I've found my feet, and recognize them as, indeed, my feet, then I know my day has started.

I heard the announcement.

Now, I'm uncertain which is faster, a split second or an instant, but somewhere within one or the other of those two designations I felt rage, and I did indecent things toward the TV.

I later found out I was an elitist and cynical. I'm a carpenter. The men who make the charge of cynicism and elitism against those who have experienced rage, are foolish.

Rage: instinctive, immediate, pure. Rage is in response to violation. The violation is two fold: A broken promise by a man trusted; and a missed opportunity in a matter of immense importance to a beloved nation.

In addressing this rage these are the only two factors to be considered. Men who do not address these two factors are foolish men.

And 9/11? That led to the most severe reassessment of American foreign policy I've ever under gone. Oct 3rd? This is leading to reassessment as well. Oct 3rd...? Oct 3rd does not have the resonance of "9/11". Lets simply call it "Harriet".

Entering History

In the interest of entering history I enter my 2nd post (2nd public post, depends on how you count).

If there is movement there is history. Of course, there has to be a ripple before there can be a wave and there can't be a ripple until there has been a hit...but the thought has been pitched --without aim and pitched softly--but it is out there. What an odd and exciting sensation, to have a thought outside of the skull and to have it flying free, amazing. I suppose you get used to it in time but just now it's amazing.

--Just made a small note in my journal. What a different sensation.

--Two things to note about a blog:

• Over writing. Never happens in the journal.
• Loss of intellect. Never happens in the journal either

Lack of intellect, yes, that happens. Intellect is a scarce commodity, you grab it when you got it. But this is not that, this is more like stage fright. You face the audience and your mind suddenly goes blank. This is interesting, since as yet I know my blog is unknown and my system is so screwed up anyway that I can't even do my own links. Yet there's the fright, the loss of the sense of a comfortable and known personality, personal identity suddenly nonexistent, the mind vacant.... Interesting. It will pass. The awesomeness is just in the awareness of the concept, the World Wide Web, public exposure...a kind of nakedity. However, the exposure intended is honorable. Rather uncomfortably exciting, but honorable. I'll get used to it.

Three days now before I'll again be back in front of my computer, at which time I'll try to make my 1st cerebral entry. --And there is the vision as well of being alone on stage in front of a million empty chairs. That's an odd sensation too.

Whisper to the World

To create a blog is to create a personality, it's the personality that can speak private thoughts publically. I don't mean private matters, I mean thoughts that the mind has as it struggles to understand its world and experience. An individual world is a small world and a small experience and so the mind must be small too as it casts its thoughts to the whole of the World Wide Web. How hollow, huge, and frightening is that thought!

But a blog is a conversation as well. It's really no more than an email to a friend, not so intimidating then, though in this case the friend is not known and who knows where he resides?

And the conversation might be of small things or might be of large, but who thinks, whether the topic be small or the topic be large, that among the vast millions of this earth he is the only one speaking those matters or having those thoughts? In fact, one man's mind is another man's mind, only where that other man might live no one can know. And this is the glory of the net: because it can go anywhere it can touch anyone, and so the conversation is not between me and thee but between me and millions. Each man speaks to another, and in time, in some sense, each speaks to all. In this way the conversation is not small but immense...or at least this is the concept.

This is a sort of preamble to effort: Blog conversation, though disparate, disjointed, disorganized, is the connection potentially of every man to every other, in agreement or disagreement but in conversation. The blog, a new blog, is a whisper to the world. Who knows who will hear? The individual posts are the ephemera of thought, but the things spoken of are history. To enter a blog is to enter history, and this is my intent.

It is to be noted, incidentally, that this is a statement of concept. it is possible that an individual post might be trivial, we all sometimes have spoken of the trivial. But the concept is huge.

This Is A Public Forum

Dear Jute,

This is a public forum, it's not meant to be a substitute for email, but I'm trying to learn how to do entries. My big problem (biggest problem) is that I can't get the spell checker to work. So I'll use simple words. And I won't mention anything about your secrete life.

Your email: Quite cute, with the little moving figures. I thought I'd try it too and downloaded SmileyCentral. Didn't work. What I got was a virus,: Trojan, MulDrop.1326. Didn't seem to do any damage but you might want to check your own system.

The bike:

• Thursday 20 minutes
• Friday 21 minutes (Pushing, pushing)
• Saturday 30 minutes!!!
• Sunday 30 minutes; pulse rate, 138 at the end.
• Monday, walked down a steep embankment and my knees didn't hurt! I certainly am making progress.

In general I'm delighted with the bike as a theraputic instrument. I'm pretty excited that after nearly two years of running on painful legs I think I'm healing up.

That's enough for now, I just want to see if this post works. I'll write an email sometime latter.

Dear Tom,

The only way to learn how to do a blog is to do a blog. Somepeople are very slow learners.

First:
Tell your wife she makes a splendid sandwich. After my walk I decided to have half of one. That's absolutely all my body needs. I ate both halves, and now I'm discipling myself not to eat another.

Second:
I have no idea how I got the address I have. I know my first attempt to set up a blog didn't work. I tried a second, wannagetaburger --that had to do with a fantasy of how I would go about impressing Ann Coulter enough so I could ask her for a date-- and that was intended to be both the title and address. I got the address, somehow my first attempt became the title. To do a post I have to go to Mozilla (Compuserve won't work), go to blogger.com, just click sign-in, and I get threedaypost. I make my entry, and post. I presume the post is instantaneous. I will now find out. sabdwitch...Oh dear, my spellchecker doesn't work. This could end my career right here. Will have to fuss with it.

Sandwhiches

Dear Tom,

The only way to learn how to do a blog is to do a blog. Somepeople are very slow learners.

First:
Tell your wife she makes a splendid sandwhich. After my walk I decided to have half of one. That's absolutely all my body needs. I ate both halves, and now I'm discipling myself not to eat another.
Second:
I have no idea how I got the address I have. I know my first attempt to set up a blog didn't work. I tried a second, wannagetaburger --that had to do with a fantasy of how I would go about impressing Ann Coulter enough so I could ask her for a date-- and that was intended to be both the title and address. I got the address, somehow my first attempt became the title. To do a post I have to go to Mozilla (Compuserve won't work), go to blogger.com, just click sign-in, I get threedaypost. Make my entry, and post. I presume the post is instantaneous. I will now find out.

aaaaa

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