We missed the explosions by almost three weeks but...
Looking back a few weeks to The Walk across Wales it is eerie to remember riding the central route through London and either getting off or transfering at and riding by the three stops of the major Tube explosions. I don't have anything profound or otherwise on the topic. I just feel a strange connection. The images of the areas keep coming back. These are Images of people lined up to get on or off the cars, of the ride, half mesmerized by the bobbing motion and the white tiles of the stations, my head coming up and round occasionally to see and smile at my children. It must have been that way that day.
... Images so mundane and everyday, and all at once transformed and transmuted forever.
Texas?
Why is everyone I know moving to Texas?
Well, other than the fact that houses that sold around here in 1970 for $32,000 are now going for $400,000 to $500,000 and you can get twice the house for one third to one half the money in the Dallas areas. Other than that, I can't see why they are all moving.
Ok, there is this. Everyone says, " you know how you think of Texas as all brown and desert, well, its beautiful and green and everything is new".
Whole neighborhoods in the Dallas suburbs now have acquaintances and family members from a five mile radius around here. And a friend, who now has family (and friends, our joint friends) in that area, told me last night that "you never even hear a Texas accent". "Everyone in the suburbs is from out of state". He didn't mean that pro or con, just as a statement of fact.
Everyone likes a southern accent. If you've got one, keep it.
I tried to pick one up when, as a westerner, I lived in Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia. I had no success. However, suddenly, after forty years, when addressing a group a couple of months ago, a "Y'all" popped out, surprising all of us.
hmmm.
But a quiet self contained British public
Is it just me or or do others think that the journalists reporting the London explosions are all the stupidest people any of us have ever met or heard?
I just heard the following statement from the mouth of a TV reporter confirming what I have felt all day.
" Panic on the streets of London and panic underground
but down here it is eerily quiet
as passengers grope their way out".
There followed pictures of passengers deep in the underground "tube" calmly making their way out or quietly waiting.
What the Hell?
First there was no sign of any, stress any, panic on the streets. so that's ludicrous and secondly, the reporter who said there was "panic underground" is the same one who in the same breath said "but down here" That is, "Underground" "it is eerily quiet". Or in other words, there was NO panic underground either, just calm, brave people going about the task of getting out, without any panic. Apparently journalists are either in need of panic to sell their stories or they are the most frightened people in the western hemisphere.
All day long all I have seen is calm contained people, in the midst of the debris, and all I have heard is journalists trumpeting that "Panic" ruled the streets.
I am tired of this.
And another thing.
Twice today I have heard talking heads explaining why America is in danger and then explaining in detail just how terrorist might best attack us at various carefully delineated weak points utilizing tactics that they, the terrorists, might not have thought of by themselves. What is this, a crash course for terrorists? What lunacy. Are these journalists idiots or willfully blind or dont they give a damn?
He's got high hopes He's got high apple pie in the sky hopes
From a news story friday, July 1, 2005
"Board president .... called ..... the most qualifed candidate and said he hopes she can improve test scores. The school system educating 16,000 students was placed on a state watch list last year because less than 1 percent of its English-learning students did not meet required test scores."
Its always that last less than one percent isn't it? Or is there possible confusion over did and did not? Hmm?