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Thursday, August 10, 2006
Home 
| | Sat next to a young guy from New Jersey on the flight from LAX to SBA. Nice kid, from Cliffside Park. Funny how I knew immediately he was a Jersey guy, like me. Even though I haven't lived there in 32 years. Made me nostalgic for pizza and subs. I smelled a hint of Home Country pizza on a side street in Cambridge this last week, I forget where. But I really think there's something a little bit different about Jersey Pizza. |
| | Been so long, I really dunno what. |
| | Gotta sleep. Also gotta work. Life rolls on. |
(re)LAXing, sort of
| | Just got into LAX. Sitting in an airport lounge, which is about as crowded as usual. As I'd hoped when I left Boston, we were not greeted by news of a terrorist success against an airplane or an airport somewhere. Looks like I'll be able to get back home to Santa Barbara on time. |
Avoid flying today
| | [Note... I'm writing the below live from Logan Airport. The chronology is not reverse. New comments accumulate at the bottom of this post.] |
| | Something bad happened (they won't tell us), and now the TSA won't let you carry any liquids, gels, pastes or fluids of any kind (pens?) through security checkpoints. Gotta check your medicines, sunblock, water bottels, whatever. This directive went down this morning (it's 4:30am here at Logan in Boston) and has caused a huge backup at the ticket counters and the security checkpoints. I'm sure it's just as bad everywhere, though I haven't looked at any of the news sources yet. (I think I'm at the leading edge of the news, sort of, right here.) |
| | I'm writing this now while standing in line, waiting for the checkpoints to open. Been here awhile. The line is getting longer and the checkpoints still aren't open (now almost 5am). My flight to LAX is at 6:45am and I'm near the front of the line; so I'm one of the lucky ones. I can see that, for most folks flying in the U.S. (and maybe elsewhere), it's going to be a long day today. |
| | Okay, now I'm at the gate, very lucky to be early. On the TV news they're saying that lines are getting longer and longer. It's surreal to be among the relative few beyond the checkpoint. The place seems empty. I'm sure a lot of people are giving up and going back to their homes and hotels. |
| | Homeland Security is having a news conference at 8am, the TV here just said. The threat level is red (critical) in the U.K. and for flights between London and the U.S. It's orange (severe) for flights within the U.S. Some U.S. bound flights have been turned around and are returning, or have returned, to the U.K. British officials, CNN just said, have "disrupted a plot to commit mass murder on an unimaginable scale". |
| | It says they "disrupted" the plot. That's not the same as "stopped". |
| | Reports say that there has been an ongoing investigation, in the U.K. and U.S., of a plot to explode up to ten aircraft, in flight, en route to the U.S.; and that investigators felt a need to "move quickly" in the last few hours. |
| | They say laptops, iPods and other electronics (e.g. "electronic key fobs") are not allowed now on outbound planes from the U.K. I think I got that right. I assume they're talking about carry-on luggage here. People here at Logan are being told to check all their now-forbidden carry-on luggage. |
| | I don't see more passengers coming in. Things are moving slow. |
| | In a little window they're showing live video of packed terminal areas in Los Angeles. That must be a mistake. It's 2:57am there. I fly through there a lot. It's a busy airport, but it's pretty quiet at this hour, normally. Hmm. Maybe International. That might be busy now. |
| | Here at Logan they're announcing that flights are being held "for an indefinite period" because they are missing too many passengers — no doubt being held up at ticketing and security. They haven't said anything about my flight to Los Angeles yet, but I expect they will. It's half an hour from boarding and there aren't many passengers yet. |
| | Source: "This is the real deal". |
| | What are they not saying? Gives me the creeps. I'll be flying while there is a "high possibility of terrorist attacks". In the U.S. |
| | On the phone with my sister. She's concerned for organ transplant patients. |
| | What's the tag for this? How about red810. |
| | Well, they're boarding us on time, they just announced. In about 5 minutes. Wish us (and everybody everywhere) luck. |
| | At the gate now. I always put in for an upgrade to business class, but almost never get it, mostly because flights tend to be packed, and I'm not in the highest frequent flyer caste with United (the airline I primarily fly). At the counter I just asked what they had. "You want row 1 A,B,C or D?" I took D. Should be a good windowseat. Might actually get some nice shots today. After I get some work done. (Got a lot of writing to do. Work goes on.) |
Train arrives
Slurry with fringe on top
| | I've said before that for me blogging is a way to send emails that go cc:world. |
| | But it's not only that. Sometimes a blog post is a note to myself. A public reminder I might be able to find again. Insurance against the likelihood of memory loss, which all of us have, even if we don't always suffer it. Also a way to put a placemark in some distraction while I'm doing real work that's off-blog (a prevailing condition in my life, actually). |
| | All of which is why I'm pointing to Josh Marshall's response to Lee Siegel's calling the blogosphere "hard fascism with a Microsoft face". Siegel's remark was over the top, but of such a short fence that it hardly mattered. Yet Josh's response had a few nuggets I thought were worth marking for recollection. Specifically, |
| | Not long ago I got on the wrong side of the ridiculousness of the proprietor of one left-wing website. And his antics were so dishonorable and shameless that I don't think I'd ever speak to the guy again. Still, I don't think he was a fascist. I think he is, mundane a category as it may be, a dick. Or perhaps I'm the dick. To him, certainly. Still though, I don't think fascism has anything to do with it. |
| | More generally, I think the blogosphere, in contrast to more staid venues for writing, is something like the much more popular and participatory sort of theater culture you had in the 19th and well into the 20th century (you may remember seeing some hint of this funned up in old Bugs Bunny cartoons) where, if the audience didn't like what they were hearing or seeing, they started booing. Or hooting. Or heck, maybe tossing raw vegetables. |
| | I freely admit blogging is an ephemeral form of writing. It's written quickly, usually forgotten quickly. It doesn't lend itself to that sort of rigorous writing and rewriting which is often the way you discover your ideas in your own mind. It is a popular medium on many levels. But it also has an immediacy and when done well, under time pressure, produces an economic form of writing, a concision and getting right to the point. |
| | I saw a quote a few days ago where someone said something like blogging is a boon for information but an enemy of thought. And there's an element of truth to that. In most hands, it's more a medium of exchange than reflection. The technology can leave us with too little time to mull and digest... |
| | I want to remember this last point especially, because for me blogging is a friend to thought. I've always looked at the blogosphere more as a place for reflection — for advancing ideas and enlarging them — than as a "medium" for "exchange". Or worse as pipes or tubes for "delivering content" as if it were slurry. Of course, I'm a broken record on that one. If that's slurry for you, my apologies. |
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