My Season in 12-degree (Fahrenheit) Hell Jan. 28-29

14:00-14:30 - Looked up from work to realize there was 3 inches of snow on the ground. Most of the rest of the staff had already left around noon to create the traffic bottleneck I was surveying from the second floor of office a few blocks off Barrett Parkway. Bumper to bumper in both directions, which, though visibility was extremely limited, was enough to convince me to wait until it had spent itself somewhat.

14:30-15:00 - Some fellow workers who had waited (like me) later than the rest had already attempted to plow their way home, gotten stuck in place for a couple of hours, turned around and come back to the office, resigned to the fact they would spend the night in their cubicles. Manager said to no one in particular, as he arrived back with overnight bag, that "nobody's getting home tonight, might as well just make yourselves comfortable". Was still conflicted at this point, by now was texting/calling wife every 10 minutes to reassess the hopeless situation. She kept saying, "You better get on the road now, and don't take 75-South, go 41". Left office for home. Snow scraped off the windshield & windows with ease, which indicated it wasn't ice yet, just fluffy snow.

15:00-17:00 - Trek from Vaughn Road to Barrett at Cobb Parkway Drive a little slippery, but the nightmare of black ice and dangerous road conditions was not upon me yet, which no doubt contributed to the false sense of hope I had of actually getting home tonight. Still had traction driving slowly over the icy roads that were now blanketed. Turned left out of Barrett Summit and within half a block hit backed up traffic, made so by the small compact rear-wheel-drive cars that were getting stuck in intersections and which were incapable of negotiating the slightest inclines in the road. Thanked my Maker for having the wisdom to purchase a Toyota pickup with front-wheel-drive. U-turn and back up Vaughn Road to Cobb Parkway Drive intersection, where I crept past Carl Black dealership to Barrett. Joined the 100's of other hapless souls stacked up waiting for deliverance. Eastbound to 75 was not as bad as Westbound to 41, so I thought I had made the better choice. An hour to travel one block east on Barrett. Wind and snow storm near height of their fury at this point. At next intersection took an immediate right onto the web of side streets that feed all the apartment complexes you can see from 75 going north around 575 interchange. Discovered they were practically deserted, save for a few abandoned cars that owners left to trudge uphill on foot to their apartments. Parallelled Barrett for about 3 blocks, then merged back into eastbound traffic -- now just 2 blocks from 75, instead of 5. Inched up the entrance ramp to 75 south, always finding myself behind an over sized truck so my ability to see the problems ahead nil.

17:00-19:00 - Once on 75 south, could see Cobb Cty. police cars had blocked off 2 leftmost lanes of southbound traffic, so all of us were scrunched into the rightmost 3 lanes. Flares sputtering every 100 feet to demarcate the Do-Not-Cross line. There we sat, travelling inches per minute (if that). Situation aggravated by 575 southbound traffic merging into 75 south just ahead of where I was. Most frightening of all at this stage were the 18-wheelers -- which you normally think of as the invincible ships of the road that nothing can stop -- helplessly stuck with their middle axles spinning madly in place and not moving at all. Even more frightening was to witness this happening mere feet from my passenger side. What if the driver suddenly gets traction, or doesn't, and jackknifes into me? At this point I saw I had made a tactical error by choosing 75. I gradually over the course of the next three-quarters of a mile eased over to the right side of 75 with the thought of getting off at the 120 loop. Everyone was bunched so close together and the iced-over pavement was so thick, you couldn't see where the lanes began-ended, or where the shoulder of the highway was. People were starting to try to make their own lanes over on the right side. This was increasing frustration by a factor of 10. As I made a lane for myself in an attempt to get to the westbound exit from 75, motorists would swerve out into my path as I approached, I guess to menace me into staying paralyzed along with everyone else. "Back in line, Jack! You're going to suffer just like everybody else!" Crept along in this way until -- miracle! -- I came abreast of the jack-knifed tractor-trailers in the left hand lanes that had caused this backup to start with. At this point there were just a handful of us drivers in the spout of the bottleneck, as it were, suddenly freed and who could see a deserted twilight ghost town on 75 ahead. As we lucky few cleared the wreck site one-by-one, we had the whole of the southbound lanes to ourselves. I picked up speed to maybe 10-15 miles an hour (this was like lightning compared to the previous 2 hours) and began making real progress towards the perimeter and home.

Then, through a momentary lapse in rational thinking I can only attribute to the stress and strain of driving in this natural disaster, I decided I should get OFF 75 and switch over to Marietta Parkway-41 before I hit another logjam on 75 south. This even though I had 75 all to myself (with the exception of a handful of other commuters). Got off at west Marietta Parkway, traveled west to intersection of 41 and turned south onto 41. This put me a few blocks north of Delk Road and after that Dobbins AFB on the right. This was probably my biggest mistake of the night.

19:00-21:00 - Ahead on 41 I could see yet more bumper-to-bumper southbound traffic, but I thought I was better off on surface streets than the bleak wilderness of the interstate. This was where the black-ice menace was starting to really get to drivers. People with no experience driving on ice were flooring their gas pedals, spinning insanely in place, churning up huge clouds of white smoke and burning rubber that was nauseous to inhale and impossible to avoid. Ahead I could see the deserted stretch of 41 with no vehicles on the uphill side, but even that didn't warn me, as I had negotiated the icy roads well already, and ass-u-med I was capable of traveling them. At the bottom of the "Bell Curve" where 41 banks upwards over Delk Road and there's Dobbins on your right, other trucks and cars were struggling to get uphill in an every-man-for-himself situation. One driver had removed his floor mats and was putting them under his back wheels, spinning out while he tried to move forward 1 floor-mat-length at a time. Another driver was putting what looked like a sopping wet dishrag under one wheel, in a vain effort to get traction from that. A self-appointed traffic cop directed me around his stuck vehicle on the left side, which put me in the oncoming lane of northbound 41 traffic, which sat there waiting their opportunity to forge ahead. At this point I became stuck and started spinning in place. The northbound traffic inched forward menacingly, as I was now aggravating a near hopeless situation and blocking their bid for freedom and escape.

Struggling to keep my wits, I made the incremental reverse-inch-forward-reverse-angle-in-a-semicircle movements to get myself turned around and headed back north on 41. As northbound traffic realized my predicament, they moved forward even more aggressively, shooting past me with no concern if we collided.

Eventually I got myself reversed and going back the way I had come, until I got to the other end of the upside "Bell Curve" I had gotten in to start with. This was opposite where Carey's burger joint used to be, and is a used car lot now. As I inched uphill with the other motorists, we all started hitting the icy incline and commenced the spinning-in-place that was the occupational hazard of being in traffic this night. A red Impala in front of me driven by a woman (judging by the ringlets I could see silhouetted in the windshield) got stuck and did the stupid maneuver (much in evidence this night) of simply gunning the accelerator and churning up the now-familiar billows of white smoke and burning rubber that had become the sulfur and brimstone of my private hell. Behind me, a few more road-worthy vehicles like Hummers or Jeeps or heavy pickups with lug tires, were simply jumping the curb on my right, and plowing up the side of 41, irrespective of anything in their paths. Up ahead, beside AutoNation Nissan Marietta on the right, was a stalled CCT bus or big rig, its emergency lights flashing. At this time I noticed the AutoNation Nissan driveway surface was practically untouched and unnoticed. I thought it might be an alternate route to get around the stalled CCT bus, so when I got even with the entrance, I resumed the incremental 1-step-forward-2-steps-back semicircular movements to find traction so I could go through the dealership parking lot. Just before this point, a couple of good Samaritans were standing on the roadside, filling cups from a bag of sand and tossing them on the road in front of us. This gave me some of the sorely needed traction I required to get up the slight incline into the dealership. I moved forward, past the stalled CCT bus now on my left, and came back out onto 41 northbound just ahead of the bus. A Cobb police car was in the driveway ahead of me, the officer outside his vehicle, surveying his back wheels, obviously stuck. I eased around him and back onto 41. At this point I looked behind me and saw that a string of vehicles were taking the exact same detour I had made through the AutoNation Nissan lot.

Back at the intersection of 41 and West Marietta Parkway, having devoured another 2 hours, I turned east and headed back over the largely deserted path to 75 south again. The few emergency vehicles (ambulances, tow trucks, county snow moving equipment) I would see at all tonight were starting to appear. They were little comfort as they were obviously too few in number to handle the disaster we were experiencing. Turning south onto the entrance ramp to 75, I came upon 2 wrecked cars (whether involved in the same wreck or separate ones, I know not) opposite each other on the shoulders. The one on the left shoulder was nosed down the hillside, the passenger door open and a short black-haired woman (Hispanic? Indian?) standing outside holding what looked like an infant wrapped in blankets, waiting to be rescued. Opposite her was another car -- this one with no one in sight -- jackknifed over a ditch, straddling a ravine with no ability at all to get traction and get itself back on the road. I eased past them and came -- once again -- upon an almost completely deserted 75 south, still the "twilight ghost town" I had noted a few hours before. As I and a handful of other drivers had 75 south almost to ourselves, I started making real progress again, full speed ahead to around 20 MPH, speed of light compared to earlier.

21:00-23:00 - As I approached Windy Hill, I could see further down 75, and fanning out to the east and west on 285, the reflected light of all the stalled traffic once it hit the perimeter. Here I reluctantly made the decision to once again exit 75 and take my chances on the surface streets. Yes, even on the Cobb Parkway I had just spent 2 hellish hours on. At the intersection of Windy Hill and 41, I had a clear view all the way down 41 to 285 and beyond. Could see the peaks of Cumberland Mall and Cobb Galleria; could also see that 41 south was completely immobile as it had been further north. Thinking if I simply continued west on Windy Hill through the 41 intersection towards Smyrna, some alternate route would eventually reveal itself and I could make it home tonight. After a couple more blocks going west on Windy Hill, I saw traffic backed up from the intersection of Atlanta and Windy Hill roads. I quickly made one of many illegal maneuvers and did a u-turn on Windy Hill and headed back toward 75. Crossing over 75, I thought I might be able to stay on Windy Hill until it hit Powers Ferry, until I saw eastbound cars stuck on the other side of the overpass. I realized continuing in that direction was another "Bell Curve" that would dip precipitously downward and then bank up in a fatal 45-or-steeper-degree hill that I would never be able to negotiate, so I made a U-turn in the middle of the overpass and headed back toward 41 -- again. I made the U-turn right in front of a Cobb Cty. police car, but no one was handing out tickets tonight. At the next red light I made a U-turn back to the overpass, past Circle 75 Parkway (which I immediately saw was lined with cars on both shoulders and sloping downward way too steeply to even entertain taking).

Just before I crossed the Windy Hill overpass for the third time I saw an entrance ramp to 75 south, however it was not merging into the lit-up traffic jam I had seen earlier. It was dark, not being used at all, almost as if the rest of humanity had forgotten it was there. I overcame my fear of the unknown and reliance on "safety-in-numbers-take-the-same-route-everybody-else-is", and dove down the entrance ramp. It parallelled the stalled traffic I could see beside me. Up ahead were splits to take you 285 east or west, depending on your destination. I knew 285 in both directions was a parking lot, so I continued straight ahead on the ramp in the direction of 75 south. Before I saw another vehicle anywhere I spied the exit for Cumberland Boulevard at Cobb Energy Center. Great! Cumberland to Akers Mill was fairly level surface streets and apparently had not been discovered yet. I crept down Cumberland Blvd. and turned onto Akers Mill without incident, passing dozens of abandoned cars on both side of the 4-lane. Once on Akers Mill, I encountered more abandoned vehicles and knots of people who obviously lived in the apartment complexes that ring 75-285 coming and going. Just before the 3-way intersection at Powers Ferry and Akers Mills was the steep downward slope that vehicles ahead of me were already losing traction on. Westbound vehicles on Akers Mill were simply ramping up onto the shoulder and bypassing the stalls; on my side, a girl in a small hatchback was stuck on the shoulder headed in the same direction as me. As I attempted to drive around her, my truck started spinning in place. I stopped and tried to back up but the truck started sliding on its own, irresponsive of what way I turned the wheel. If I made another maneuver I feared sliding into the "girl-in-the-hatchback-stalled-on-the-shoulder", so I just sat there, immobile, neither one of us daring to move. Eventually she made the life-saving decision (for me) to make a u-turn and head back on Akers Mill towards Cobb Galleria. With any risk of hitting her out of the picture, I forged ahead on Akers Mill, now a mere 3 miles from home, give or take. After going through the light at Powers Ferry, the traffic was stalled as far as I could see, inching forward -- if at all -- at the going rate of about 1 mile per hour.

I was texting family almost continuously on this stretch -- "I'm almost to Chattahoochee", "I'm over the Hootch", "I'm next to Ray's On The River", "I'm beside Peter Chang's" -- until I got within a block of the intersection at Northside Drive and Akers Mill. A couple of local guys were letting drivers through one at a time to make the stretch from Peter Chang's to the red light, another slight incline of 30 degrees maybe, but on this night might as well have been scaling Kilimanjaro. As I was cleared for "take-off", I inched up the hill without sliding much. At the intersection (Brueggers Bagels on the right, Exxon on the left), an older guy was playing crossing guard and helping people across the street. As I pulled even with him, he slipped and fell on the icy road next to my car, knocked out cold (and I emphasize COLD as he was laid out on the road like a cadaver on a slab at the morgue). Pedestrians and bypassers rushed to his aid, while I ambled on through the intersection, the thrill of victory like nectar in my mouth as I saw my destination was almost within reach.

23:00-01:00 - Bumper to bumper up Akers Mill (the home stretch as it were), on the right I passed the shuttered Wendy's, then the 75-degree entrance driveway to Publix. This was probably the most tortuous stretch of road the entire evening, because home and hearth were so close for so many of us, and people were starting to just lose it. If you hesitated at all in negotiating the icy road conditions, an irate driver behind you would blow his horn and zoom past you, oblivious to the oncoming traffic and anyone else's welfare. Past the intersection of Dupree and Akers, it started getting ugly. [An example: the most obscene looking gold Cadillac SUV roared past everyone on the left side up Akers Mills, convinced that he had the right to get in front of everyone. As the rest of us made our way to the high ground, eventually we saw one vehicle, stuck in front of everyone spinning out and unable to get any traction but holding up everything: the Cadillac SUV, 'natch.] All night anchors had been entreating people to leave some space between vehicles, but now cars and SUV's were sitting on your bumper, so once you got stuck and needed room to maneuver, you couldn't go backwards to get traction, and forward was only spinning out. The Sandy Springs Fire Marshal's red SUV was parked up ahead on the shoulder, I guess trying to give the appearance of doing something, but no one was paying attention to authority. 2 good old boys were giving random vehicles a heave-ho, but as we neared the 3-way stop at Heards Ferry and Akers Mill, just below HIES FAB, it became obvious that the westbound traffic on Akers streaming past all us eastbound travellers were vehicles that couldn't make it the last bit up Akers. One of the good old boys told me they had spread out some pine straw on the sidewalk on the right hand side of Akers, and a couple of 4-wheel drive vehicles were jumping the curb, churning up the sidewalk to Heards Ferry and beyond. As we stood there, making the best of the situation, another maniac -- this time in a dark SUV, maybe a Jeep Cherokee -- bulled past everyone else going up Akers Mills towards certain defeat. Even in almost pitch darkness you could see the front and sides of the SUV were badly dented and mangled. One of the good old boys shook his head and said, "Man, he's been slamming into cars all the way up the road tonight. I mean, he's just destroyed his car trying to get through!" What about the drivers he's slamming into and damaging for no reason, I thought?

Turning back to the matter at hand, he said, "If you can get up on the sidewalk and get past all these struck cars, you're home free!" His confrere said, good-naturedly, "Better get a set of those knobby tires 'fore next year!"

My heart sank as I realized I could not get the traction to get off the road onto the sidewalk, so I made the bitter decision to reverse myself and go back towards Powers Ferry and the Wyndham Hotel.

Back down the hill I came to the empty building that used to house Shorter University on the right, and decided I would leave my truck parked there as the lot was mostly deserted but very well-lit, and go the rest of the way to downtown Sandy Springs on foot. I parked a couple of spaces over from another truck, where I could see the driver had simply let his seat back and was going to make a night of it right there. I backed into a space under a bright lamp and got out, only to realize that I was not dressed warmly enough to survive walking to my house. At this point I capitulated and decided to go to the Wyndham hotel lobby, which I already knew had no vacancy, but maybe there was a warm square of carpeting reserved for me. I turned onto Northside Drive and then into the joined parking lots of Powers Ferry Animal Hospital and Wells Fargo branch. Circled a couple of times until I found a stretch of curb in the WF lot where I thought I might park and not get sideswiped, a major concern now that every available parking space was double-triple-quadruple parked. 

01:00-06:30 - Having wedged my truck into the Wells Fargo branch lot -- where I noted as elsewhere every handicap parking space remained unoccupied -- I weaved amongst the bumper-to-bumper-4-lanes-northbound traffic on New Northside Drive to 285-E entrance and beyond, over the Wyndham hotel parking lot. Any other time this would have been a life-threatening act, but no one was moving. I had been-there-done-that already for the last 9+ hours: waiting patiently for the car in front of me to inch forward one centimeter, to sustain my hope that I would make it home safe and sound and be able to tell myself that this night had really never happened. As dismal and inhospitable as the Wyndham lobby floor appeared, I couldn't bear the thought of sitting in my truck another 10 hours like these maniacally driven motorists. At this point I didn't care where I stayed and with whom, I had to get indoors.

I must say the Wyndham hotel staff were unfailingly polite and accommodating to the probably 200+ stranded drivers who descended on their lobby with "no more room at the inn", so to speak. I saw every chair, sofa, credenza, roundelay and divan already occupied, with wall-and-floor space (against which to lean one's back) filling up rapidly. Although a spent force by this time, I still made a round of the lobby into the side hallways leading to the meeting rooms -- all of which were fully occupied with people stretched out on meeting tables, under tables and on the carpeted floor, as even that was preferable to the marble hallway that bisected the ground floor. The glass doors to the pool area had been propped open (normally only admissible via room key-card) and all the deck and lawn chairs spoken for. I finally made my way to the hotel bar, where people were sitting on bar stools, slumped over sound asleep on the counter -- tho' not from too much boozing this time. Same for the high topped pub tables, and couches. Despite this, there were still dozens of people just milling around the lobby level all night. Too restless to sleep (or staying awake fortified by God knows what additives) walking endlessly around the ground floor. I settled into a corner of the landing where the bank of elevators were ferrying the few lucky souls who had fluffy beds, locked doors, privacy and temperature control to greet them on the upper levels. My bed for the night was a 2-foot-square patch of marble floor between a potted fake plant and a sandwich board advertising the "best entertainment, food and ambiance" to be found in metro Atlanta, natch.

It was here, propped up on one side by a roughly 20-gallon urn topped off with fake moss, that I drifted in and out of sleep deprivation sitting cross-legged (until the cumulative paralysis of this position forced me to shift into an accordion-like human ball for scant more comfort) for the next 4-5 hours. Every hour give or take, I would wake from a painfully cramped nap to check the time, hope always dashed that it was never later than I thought it would be.

I also have to single out the weather witch on the Fox channel who was positively gloating every 10-15 minutes as she warned people to "stay at home, don't get out in this weather if you don't have to", oblivious to the fact -- or else relishing it supremely -- that 100's of 1000's of us were nothing of the kind and this belated advice was pointless. I must say all the Atlanta anchors -- even the live reporters out in the melee at the worst intersections and traffic stalls and wrecks -- were positively beaming with the certain knowledge that when their shift was over, they would be whisked away to a nice warm bed and the comfort of home. As if that weren't bad enough, the Fox weather witch went to great lengths over the course of the next 5 hours to remind everyone of us that it was meteorologically impossible for the weather to get warm enough to melt any of the icy roads for at least another 24 hours, the implication being "wherever you saps are at the moment, that's where you're going to be stuck for the next 36 hours at least!" She did throw out the teasingly tantalizing false hope that there might be a 1-2 hour window mid-afternoon today, Wednesday the 29th, when it might, just might warm up enough to give us poor souls a small window of opportunity to hit the road again and make it home.

At this point, the ones who weren't stretched out on the floor or curled up in a chair sound asleep, really began to resemble the walking dead. One older white-haired guy wandered pathetically around the ground floor looking for his car keys that he had somehow mislaid, allowed out of his sight. I had kept my car keys, wallet and half-consumed jug of Power-Ade buttoned down secreted inside my jacket, as though I were an inmate in communal quarters at Fort Leavenworth or some other maximum-security facility even worse.

I began to move around at 06:30 trying to stay in motion, although I was so whipped from the last 15 hours, that I occasionally slumped into a folding chair -- which actually were starting to free up from the occupants the night before who had gotten some sleep and were up-and-about. This didn't work any better than the floor space next to the elevator bank, because these seats were situated in the long curved breezeway (and I emphasize breezeway) that bisected the lobby. At both ends of this corridor were double glass doors that -- by law -- had to remain unlocked at all times. Because of that, they were constantly being opened and closed, and allowing icy blasts of outside air to careen through the hallway, bounce off the walls, down the corridors of time over, under, around and through us.

Like the walking dead, I had my fill of this very quickly and drifted back toward the hotel bar, which was carpeted and easily the most densely populated area because of the big-screen TV that many clung to as survivors to a life raft, aching for some -- any! -- good news from the talking heads.

Unable to sleep under these conditions, I found a group of friendly talkative older people sitting on bar stools, trying to make the best of the situation and comparing notes. Sitting in the straight back bar stool also helped me stay awake, since sleep in the icy corridor was impossible. I started thinking things like, "I wonder if this is what political prisoners in Guantanamo Bay -- and various other rendition centers the US maintains around the world -- are subjected to in order to get them to 'confess' to the terrorist acts the military-industrial-security state can't live without?"

One interlocutor, a self-confessed retired cop from Kentucky who was passing through town on his way to Louisiana when fate struck, told me of the numerous back surgeries for fused disks he had had over the years, and how the Percodan-10 painkillers he was popping like M-and-M's weren't helping a bit. We commiserated some more, until he said he had to get moving again as the pain was too great sitting upright....and lumbered away like the walking dead we had all come to resemble. 

06:30 - 11:00 - I quizzed a lady from our group who had left briefly to check on her car, parked across the street like mine, and assess the desirability of leaving the safety of the Wyndham to risk a shot at getting home. Another member of our impromptu entourage -- short stocky guy in a baseball cap walking with a cane -- chimed in that "Nobody's going anywhere today in this weather. Might as well just enjoy it while you can, least 'til mid-afternoon!" Obviously he had taken the Fox weather witch's pep talk at face value that all hope of escape today was hopeless. No thanks, buddy, I don't get my marching orders from the big networks, and certainly not at second- or third-hand.

The general manager was much in evidence this morning, pledging to get the heat turned up in the back of the lobby where I had spent the night, setting up the hotel restaurant to handle the sudden influx of 200+ visitors for breakfast. When it was announced that they were ready on a first-come-first-served basis, the line to get seated stretched from the hostess's station, through the bar and out into the elevator lobby in seconds. They had already wheeled out 2 big urns of Starbucks coffee and set it up in the lobby for free. I must say, they really did take the "hospitality" in their industry name seriously for a bunch of us what-amounted-to freeloaders looking for a warm spot to crash a few hours.   

After engaging in some primitive ablutions in the rank-smelling-and-now-depleted-of-any-paper-products men's room, I decided to go next door to the Waffle House (God bless their "we're-always-open-we-never-close" hearts) for a lumberjack breakfast, suddenly aware I had not eaten in close to 24 hours. Exitting the double-glass doors at one end, and issuing an icy blast of my own into the lobby, I took cautious steps across the sidewalk in the direction of the WH, passing 2 hirsute robust guys enjoying the outdoors. As I passed them I suddenly came upon my second witnessing of an injury, paramedics loading what appeared to be an older white guy strapped to a gurney into the back of a flashing ambulance. I saw next to this the pathetic pile of possessions the guy had apparently been ferrying across the lot to his car, when he slipped and fell. 

I weaved and bobbed my way past the ambulance, steadying myself on car door handles, railings, bumpers and trunks. Glancing through the windows to the packed SRO inside of the WH, I imagined customers making odds if I would get to the restaurant without injuring myself, or coming a cropper on the ice. 

I made it indoors where a single diner was vacating the first counter seat nearest the door, just in time for me to occupy it. The WH staff was rocking, full-tilt boogie with all the business, doing what they do best in exactly this situation: wall-to-wall people placing orders, serving up coffee, refills and plates in short order. My waitress was positively beaming with efficiency as she took my order and set it out in near-record time minutes later. The ponytailed, baseball-capped head chef was grumbling about something. The guy next to me asked our waitress what was eating him. "Aww, don't mind him, he's just done 3 shifts back to back." Well, no wonder. 

Amazingly revitalized by the WH infusion, I downed a refill of coffee and left her a 75% tip (just for working on a day like this). Walking back across the WH parking lot and up the sidewalk beside the Wyndham, wondering when I would be delivered from this purgatory, I suddenly became aware of a phenomenon I had ignored since coming outside: water dripping off the soffits, tailpipes and overhangs. "I'm melting!" I continued past the front of the hotel, choosing my steps carefully but also noting the slushy ice and mud that was definitely starting to break up.  

Didn't look back as I crossed the still deserted street, started my truck (miraculously unscathed & undamaged, although most of the surrounding vehicles had already departed from night before) and edged my way out onto New Northside Drive. Looking right, I had the entrance ramp to 285 East, but opted instead to turn left (illegally) and travel the wrong way down the one-way New N'side Drive to the intersection with Akers Mill. A Sandy Springs cop car waited at the light eastbound on Akers Mill, but paid me no mind as I turned in front of him. 

Once again I began to retrace my steps up the last stretch of Akers Mill from the night-marish night before. Nearing the 3-way intersection of Akers & Dupree, traffic started to stall again as drivers hit the still-extant ice patches and began spinning out. I found myself in a now-familiar situation where I needed to roll back slightly and angle my tires for better traction, but a small compact was right on my bumper, so I sat in place, stagnated. A young couple was walking west down the sidewalk past the office park where I wanted to pull in, circle and perhaps get a good running start for negotiating the last stretch of Akers. 

I waited patiently for the couple to cross in front of me, and they must have appreciated my consideration, because once they had crossed, they both put their shoulders to the back of my truck on either side and gave me an encouraging push....enough to get me going again. 

Finally attaining the 3-way stop at Akers & Raiders Drive, I chose to go right, which would take me past the HIES FAB. What had seemed a "walk in the park" any other time of the year, today was a geographic, mechanical, physical and logistical impossibility, as the drive up Powers Ferry suddenly became more daunting, forbidding and altitudinally impassible than ever. After spinning out a few turns, I inched back down the hill, into a private drive, turned around and headed the other way down Raiders Drive towards Riverwood High. Crossing the 285 overpass, I congratulated myself on another of the few good judgment calls I made as traffic stretched bumper-to-bumper on 285 in both directions. 

At Raiders & Heards Ferry (with Riverwood on my left), turned right onto Heards Ferry for what now realistically seemed the home stretch. Abandoned cars from the night before dotted the trek up Heards Ferry, such that those few of us on the road had to weave from left to right slowly up the road to the light at Riverside Drive. We were grateful for the occasional patches of hay some residents had thought to throw on the street, more bales sitting by the roadside, at the ready. 

At this stage, the sun was out, ice visibly melting, and Sandy Springs finest patrolling the stretches closest to downtown. East of Riverside Drive on Heards Ferry I hit another icy patch and stalled. Impatient exasperated motorists zoomed past me as I took my time to get repositioned for the final shove home.

I got good momentum and was cruising up to and (I hoped) through the 3-way light at Mt. Vernon and Heards Ferry, when the light caught me again. I found myself stopped on one of those slight inclines that had been anathema to vehicles like mine over the last 24 hours, but when the light changed, miraculously I didn't spin out and just eased through the green light and onto Mt. Vernon, mere steps from downtown. 

Past Arlington Cemetery, ironically still among the living, I was home within minutes, feeling like Odysseus of yore. 

 

                

Letter To An Irrelevant Press-titute

XX-XX-XXXX

Stephanie Ramage, News Editor
The Sunday Paper

RE: Your Column on ‘Regulating The Internet’

Dear Ms. Ramage:

I read with keen interest your somewhat exasperated piece in The Sunday Paper headlined "Regulate The Internet", where you advocated more gatekeepers for cyberspace and patted your industry on the back while assigning it all manner of courage under fire, heroics and toughness that it doesn't deserve.

Beside the fact that I think you would feel much more at home in government work (dictating where people should get their information from, constricting rather than widening means of mass communication, possessed of rigid concepts about what's right and wrong for other human beings, countries, geographic regions, galaxies, etc., etc.), I have to admit I am still touched when your newspaper calls and pleads with me to renew my subscription for ever decreasing amounts of money. Sometimes, just to humor myself and give AJC the benefit of the doubt, I renew in the hopes that a random attack of courage and truth-telling has swept through newsrooms nationwide. But I am always bitterly disappointed, I must add.

Since the tone of your column suggests you truly don't have a clue about what has happened to the gathering and dissemination of useful information in the last 10 years, allow me to point out some of the many reasons you and many of the dwindling number of your newsroom colleagues are so hostile and resentful of the internet. I offer this as someone who worked for years in print journalism and who now -- along with millions of others -- gets his news and information from the internet.

· The internet offers UNFILTERED news. Good stories and exposes on government corruption don’t get killed before they reach the public, passing through layer upon layer of editors, each with his own agenda and his corporate master's prejudices breathing down his collective neck. Those shoestring internet operations and bloggers were calling this administration on its lies ramping up to war when you all were standing around with your hair on fire, insisting you couldn't see or smell any smoke.

· The internet operates without large central corporate control, sparing us the Pravda-like uniformity we see in the TV news networks and daily newspapers (LA Times, NY Times, AJC) where the lead stories are handed down by a very tightly knit and small clique of "deciders". An excellent early dissection of the gradual rollup of media ownership into a handful of multi-national corporations can be found at http://www.thenation.com/archive/detail/9609177535.

· For many, many years now the mainstream news outlets have been little more than cheerleaders for the federal government, as well as unskeptical, uncritical regurgitators of whatever comes out of the White House press secretary's mouth (including LIES that stampeded the nation and congress to an illegal war in the Mideast. Cf. recent confessions of Scott McClelland about Plame-gate for more insight!). I understand your loyalty to strong central government but I can get the same information you routinely peddle from a thousand dot-gov websites.

· The mainstream media has developed a disturbing practice of devouring its own, as witnessed by the case of former Fox News reporters Steve Wilson and Jane Akre, who lost their jobs and a legal appeal for no other reason than they told the truth. Visit http://foxbghsuit.com for the lowdown. Theirs is the kind of courage your industry relinquished years ago, which explains why they are no longer at Fox or CNNABCCBSNBC (take your pick).

Yes, I know there is a lot of crap out there on the internet, things that stretch credulity and insult our intelligence. You seem to suggest that picking up a fresh copy of USA Today, NYT or AJC edition will somehow enlighten and shield us from falsehood, but you should take a closer look at your own information house of cards (Jayson Blair, Stephen Glass, Judith Miller, Theresa Rice on and on and on).

The mainstream media through a long slow march to centralized ownership has surrendered its role as the fourth estate to instead become the fourth branch of government (and a vividly useless branch of government at that).

The same internet news services you and your colleagues look down on sneeringly can get credentialled and hit federal officials with tough questions at press conferences too. The difference is those internet news agencies will PUBLISH what those officials said, then follow up and check on those officials' claims for accuracy, and even – miracle of miracles! -- expose those claims as lies if need be (and the need gets greater and greater with each passing hour).

Also, I wouldn't be too quick to throw stones at various glass houses. Mainstream news services have now taken to monitoring the internet for breaking news stories, then STEALING those leads without so much as a by-your-leave to the actual reporters who did the work you and your industry have so markedly failed to do in recent years (check I Am Facing Foreclosure for a recent example).

Anyway, cheer up, there are growing opportunities for truth seekers in cyberspace as the mainstream newsrooms accelerate layoffs and descend into triviality ('Potter Author Reveals Dumbledore Is Gay!' 'Brittany Spears' Sister, 16, Pregnant!'), while the lies gushing out of Washington DC go ignored, unchallenged and unvetted by you and your colleagues.

Sincerely,

P.S. Since you bring up the spectre of lax domain name registration, why don’t you track down some of those “al-qaeda recruiting websites” the government was waving at us awhile back, until it was revealed the sites could all be traced to servers located in Texas and Virginia?

Manhattan Diary 11/9-12

DAY 1... Leaving Atlanta was easier than it has ever been since the Bush dictatorship began. It was almost as if there was a "new spirit" amongst the myriad government workers that now attend every action and facet of American life. TSA personnel, particularly, were easygoing, personable and disarmingly chatty. I think the 2-days-old election results signalled widespread disgust with the rolling disaster of the Bush presidency. Since Bush is synonymous with unprecedented expansion of government, I think the bureaucrats we encountered were trying to appease and mollify an angry electorate.

Some delay at LaGuardia awaiting ground transportation to the City. Talked to an older lady who divides her time between Atlanta and NYC as a tour guide. She (naturally) gave us sightseeing tips: one was to take the Staten Island Ferry roundtrip from South Seaport, which she said provides an impressive up-close view of the Statue of Liberty in passage. As the wait stretched into 30 minutes, the three of us pooled resources to rent a limo into town, rather than spend more time queued up on the sidewalk. Just about that time the Grand Central shuttle lumbered into view and we boarded that, leaving the limo driver without a fare.

Still, things have gone so smoothly since we left home this morning, if they were always this painless I would travel a lot more.

Cruising into NYC via the turnpike, there was a young kid sitting behind us. Judging from his accent he was from Texas or thereabouts. He was on his cellphone to a friend long-distance, bemoaning how let-down he was on 1st impression. He was saying things like, "I wish I hadn't come here." "I don't like what I've seen so far." "I can't wait to get back home." I must agree the route from LaGuardia thru the Holland Tunnel is depressingly grim, but untold riches await anyone with a little patience and a sense of adventure.

Of course the goal of this visit was to see and hear author and bon vivant Gore Vidal, who has just turned 80 and published the second -- and presumably final -- volume of his memoirs this very day. Such accounted for the urgency of our mission. He can't have much time left. Or does he?

After check-in and other touristy housekeeping accomplished, our next bit of good luck was getting mis-directed to a "Members Only" line of patrons waiting to be seated for the Vidal event at the 92nd Street Y that evening. Two old ladies in front of us -- savvy native New Yorkers both -- were being hassled by the usher for not having clearance to be in such an exclusive queue. While she was engrossed in this melee with the seniors, we presented our tickets and floated on by into a nearly empty auditorium with our choice of seating. As we made our way to the front of the stately theatre, we could hear the old ladies giving the usher what-for ("You let those 2 people in and they aren't even members!")

Due to a last-minute substitution (or false advertising), Dick Cavett did not conduct the interview with Vidal as promised. Instead Jay Pareni, a college prof and voluminously-published writer -- although obviously not in Gore's league -- was the host, yet an able helmsman was he. Vidal was helped on/offstage by a young acolyte in coat and tie who looked to be college-age, maybe slightly less. Vidal walks with a cane and is sadly feeble, but once he was seated and began speaking, his regal (although that wouldn't have been Gore's choice of words -- he believes in regicide) and commanding diction flooded the room.

After a short reading from Point To Point Navigation, he brought the house down with an anecdote from his last visit to the Y, "on this stage, in this very chair". It involved a maddening housefly that kept buzzing in front of his face. He kept grabbing at the fly, shadow-boxing as it were, then recalled a scene from the original Fly movie with Vincent Price where the human fly is caught and plaintively squealing "Help me!" "And I realized it was Truman Capote."

In one swift -- Swiftian? -- motion Vidal had tied together his lifelong fascination with the cinema, famous literary feuds and his amazing gift for mimicry, which was in evidence throughout the evening. He had Capote, Tennessee Williams, Reagan and Nixon nailed. He ranged over history, politics, celebrity, film, the "craft of writing", but only a bit as he said, "I don't like to talk about my own writing". He said "If people are interested in my books they will seek them out".

He is, as I had hoped, a marvellous raconteur, not surprising from his many appearances over the years on film, TV and in public. It was very moving to be in the presence of someone who has witnessed so much of American life as a participant and chronicler.

He talked of how his grandfather, Sen. Thomas Gore of Oklahoma (b. 1870) had known Robert Lincoln, son of Abraham. With a background like that, he said, "I had all the subjects I needed for a literary career".

He struck another chord with the audience when he responded to Pareni's question of how do we get out of the mess we're in? "Restore the Constitution", he said to thunderous applause.

Returning to his squabbles with Capote, he said the latter died "tragically" in the home of Johnny Carson's ex-wife, and that he -- Vidal -- wished to die in Johnny's house. This brought out an amused response, as Carson himself has predeceased Gore by years.

He talked for the better part of an hour, brimming with tales from an amazingly productive and colorful life: published novelist at 19, candidate for political office, MGM screenwriter with Ben Hur and Suddenly Last Summer to his credit, on and on. When asked about America at the dawn of a new century, he noted how so much advertising -- on radio as well as TV -- is consumed (apt phrase) with borrowing and debt, mirroring our national decline. Then he grew very conspiratorial, rubbing his palms together and imitating a lender ("Hello, friend, are you a homeowner?"), cackling at the mock prospect of raping another victim in the mortgage money shell-game. Sensing his guest was becoming enervated, Pareni ended the talk and the boy reappeared to help Gore from the stage. There was a moment when Vidal appeared very unsteady and in danger of falling, but he got his equilibrium back and rose to full height -- Caesar-like -- and got a warm and enthusiastic sendoff from the soldout crowd.

The line to purchase an autographed copy of his new book was interminable and didn't budge for what seemed like an hour. Kathy ferried back and forth between the reception room where Vidal was rumored to be exitting through, and the lobby where I was queued. She had my 1st edition of The City And The Pillar ready to be signed if an opportunity presented itself. And it did, from the same young man assisting Vidal onstage. He whisked my book backstage where Vidal was holding court with some Y patrons who had no doubt paid big bucks for a private audience.

While waiting in line, Sting of all people mosied through the hallway with a kind of hang-dog look on his face, shuffling like he didn't have any definite purpose at the moment. Part of the allure that is New York: a rock star showing up at a high-toned literary feast. I would not have pegged Sting as a Vidal fan, but this visit was to be full of shocks and surprises.

We spoke with a schoolteacher from New Jersey who, like us, had been galvanized into action from the minute he heard Vidal would be in town. We were among the hard core of committed Vidalians waiting for a possible brush with the great man of letters. He was rejoicing at Vidal having signed his copies of Lincoln and Burr during the same foray Vidal had signed my copy of City. The schoolteacher noted that Vidal signed my book on the title page, increasing its value exponentially.

Finally the Y stage manager, a stocky hypertense fellow, came out and asked if we were waiting to see Vidal come through the lobby. When we all answered in the affirmative, he revealed that Gore was exitting by an outside entrance and wouldn't be coming our way. With some haste we small band of Gore cogniscenti left through the front doors of the Y and made for the corner of Lexington and 92nd St. Looking eastward we uttered a collective gasp as we saw Vidal being pushed up the sidewalk in a wheelchair to Lexington where a taxi awaited. Gore in the flesh! At arm's length!

I admit to being transfixed to my spot on the sidewalk in his presence, frozen, as it were. Kathy prompted, "Well, this is your chance." I approached and shook Vidal's hand as his ubiquitous young handler whispered, "This gentleman came all the way from Alabama" (Atlanta, actually, but who's quibbling?). I thanked him for previously signing my copy of City and blurted out something along the lines of, "If we still have the freedom to come and hear you publicly criticize the government, I feel there is hope left for America". Vidal replied "We are at one in that accord".

While Kathy digitally documented the occasion, I stood in his aura as others clamored to have their own mementoes certified, as it were.

Then he got in his cab and was gone. There was a definite afterglow to "being there". We walked north up Lexington towards the metro station alongside the schoolteacher, chatting excitedly about the event. He tipped us off to a street vendor who sets up at the corner of 53rd and Sixth Avenue between 8pm and 5am, who reputedly has the best and cheapest gyros or falafel or something, in town. He also recommended the just-reopened J. Pierpont Morgan Library, which turned out to be a couple of blocks south of our hotel on 41st.

Finished off the night with late dinner at P.J. Clarke's, a perennial favorite. The fortyish -- fiftyish? -- bartender in striped shirt, suspenders and bowtie pulled me a Brooklyn Lager draft just as he did the last time we were here almost a year ago. Same barkeep, same lugubrious expression on his face.

DAY 2... First stop, the Morgan library with -- to hear the schoolteacher tell it -- an awe-inspiring collection of antiquarian books, furniture and art. The Gutenburg Bible regrettably had been temporarily removed for some purpose and that was a letdown. Still, there were copious musical manuscripts by Mozart on display, along with voluminous sketches by Rococco masters such as Fragonard and Tiepolo. Upstairs in a new wing of the library was an exhibit devoted to Bob Dylan, with music, personal belongings of Dylan's and others from the folk era (Woody Guthrie, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, etc.), manuscripts and records. We wondered what the irascible financier J.P. Morgan would think of some of the exhibits being mounted on his home turf, in his name. Spinning?

Then it was up to Columbus Circle, where the 59th St. metro station was temporarily closed for a crime-scene investigation. Cops and military personnel everywhere -- that is the bitter legacy of the Bush era, a pervasive feeling of living in a garrison state, your-papers-please, a low-level continuous fear that permeates everything. Just as Gore predicted and has railed against for decades. I concur totally with Vidal, who disposed of Bush in his talk with one well-aimed phrase after another, culminating with "he's a goddamned fool".

We marched on our stomachs for most of the day, stopping off at the Times Square TKTS booth long enough to decide we didn't want to spend the rest of the afternoon queued up for half-price theatre tickets.

That night we caught the Charles McPherson Quartet at an uptown club called Smoke. Tho' very much a Parker disciple, McPherson disposed of The Bird -- another glorious counterpoint to Vidal's -- with the first number, Au Privave. Most of the set was a showcase for McPherson's own works -- Marionette, A Tear and A Smile -- though interweaved with those originals were alternately moving and blazing takes on Goodbye Porkpie Hat and Cherokee. His band consisted of bassist Ray Drummond, McPherson's stepson Al on drums, and a young turk on piano named Jeb Patton. During Patton's solo on the show-ending "Cherokee", he looked like he almost knocked himself out as he flopped back against the wall directly behind his chair, exhausted from his creative labors.

At one point, as McPherson stood just off stage left (which was just a foot-high riser in the front of a cramped dining room) during a sideman's solo, a bulky black patron exitted the men's room adjacent to where Charles was hanging out. I immediately recognized the jazz critic Stanley Crouch. Few public figures in jazz are as...unphotogenic as Stanley, but it bespoke how important a Charles McPherson gig is.

We were surrounded at other tables by Europeans mostly, I overheard French and German being spoken. I guess that made Kathy and me a Maginot Line of sorts.

Upon leaving Smoke, we found ourselves still invigorated, although it was almost midnight. We hopped an MTA to the west fifties, where Iridium was hosting a late show by Marc Cary. Having owned a couple of Marc's cd's, I knew he was well worth the nominal $10 cover. Plus the Iridium is a great venue in the tradition of Ronnie Scott's and the Village Vanguard. Marc was fronting a sextet he called Abstrak Blak. They played a heady mixture of jazz, hiphop and rap, but with enough of Cary's straight-ahead keyboard artistry to keep me rivetted.

About two-thirds of the way through the after-midnight set, a short black dude, very dishevelled and obviously intoxicated, poked his way through the crowd to stage left and grabbed Cary by the arm. He looked to be your typical maudlin drunk moved by the moment to interfere with the performer. Cary seemed to agree, as he attempted to brush off the pathetic figure. I imagined him pleading with the drunk, "Not now, brother", "Maybe after the show", "Thanks man, now cool it". The fellow staggered back to his table, then almost immediately bounded back onstage, trumpet in hand. Roy Hargrove! Roy proceeded to burn down the house with a fiery solo, then returned to his table, having charmed/knocked the socks off all of us, his erstwhile detractors. The show ended. The crowd was quick to disperse, but Kathy and I hung back as the musicians and their retinue of wives/partners/girlfriends/groupies gathered for photos and camaraderie. I approached Roy and told him how much we admired his work, had seen him on numerous occasions, etc. He nodded with a blissful grin, saying, "Right, right". Roy was out of it, not inclined to small talk with adoring fans at the moment so we made our overdue departure. I later saw where he had just finished a weeklong gig with his big band at another NYC club, so he was probably still unwinding from the stress of that endeavor. Still, what a night!

DAY 3... West Village day. Flea markets, street fairs, garage sales (literally, a 2-story covered parking deck called The Garage), the last on West 25th St. Lots of other people's stuff, some vintage, some antique, nothing I couldn't live without, although I was half tempted by an autograph dealer with a bunch of signatures by jazz greats (Ella Fitzgerald, Stan Kenton, etc.). But I had to pass on all of them. Like most Boomers, I have way too damned much stuff and am groaning from overstock at home.

On previous junkets to NYC, the Time Out guidebook has led us on alternately rewarding and fruitless searches for bars and restaurants that occasionally turn out to be shuttered or nonexistent, but we struck paydirt on one score this trip. Chumley's, at 86 Bedford, is a former speakeasy that retains its Prohibition-era trappings (unmarked double entrances, fake bookcase that opens onto patio) and is steeped in literary lore. Photos of authors and dust jackets of books by same (many of those books no doubt hatched, polished or composed within the confines of Chumley's) grace the walls: O'Neill, Steinbeck, Sherwood, Kauffman. A table in the barroom had a sign indicating it was reserved for a longtime patron which turned out to be an ancient labrador (see below).

Tried an Eagle Pilsner with my shepherd's pie. Loved the place. It just oozed history and the ghosts of great American writers. [UPDATE 11-17-07: our visit to Chumley's could not have been better timed. In April '07 a chimney collapse caused the "indefinite" closure of our favorite speakeasy. Sad! We may never again sit and drink up the history (and brews) that make Chumley's a quintessentially American saloon experience.]

Later got a nickel tour of Ye Waverly Inn, which was under renovation by a new owner and scheduled for a grand reopening in 4 weeks, altho' the owner himself invited us to dinner if we made reservations then and there (their phone isn't connected yet). Even with workmen ambling about, the place looked ready for the dinner trade. Has a very old-New-York, old-money, insider feel. The Edward Sorel mural gracing the walls was magnificent: off the cuff I recognized Theodore Dreiser, Cole Porter, James Baldwin, Marianne Moore, probably others if we had stayed on.

On to Off The Wagon, Biograph Bookstore, Bleecker Bob's Record Store, Peter McManus, Bar 9, all on the west side. These are favorite haunts from past and present. Same with Arthur's Tavern and Zinc Bar.

With live music dealt with in a satisfying way, we turned to the theatre for our last night out. We went to TKTS around 6pm, when the lines of ticket seekers had pretty much evaporated...along with any decent cheap seats for the shows we were vying for: Martin Short's Fame Becomes Me, The Vertical Hour (but the interest for me was in Bill Nighy, not his co-star the Hollywood whore Julianne Moore) and Monty Python's Spamalot. As badly as we both wanted to see any of these, SRO was not an option. So we settled on The Little Dog Laughed, a showbiz comedy at the Cort. As we pounded the sidewalks of the theatre district, Kathy was on her cell, calling the box office directly to secure tickets for the next show, which would start within the hour. After a quick bite across the street at Chipotle's, we snagged our tickets at the will-call booth and joined the weekend throng jamming the lobby. The Little Dog turned out to have a heavy gay theme, although it was well-acted by Tom Everett Scott and Julie White. A lot of bon mots ("I couldn't identify my emotions in a police lineup!" quipped the wisecracking but shallow girlfriend) and intermittent humor but, all in all, the product of a cynical worldview with a shabby (surprise!) opinion of the institution of marriage, family and children. Backstabbing, doing anything for money and screwing your fellow man were the values celebrated. Dragged ourselves back to the hotel late again, but ever worth it in the final analysis.

New York, New York. We'll be back soon.

Some of My Heroes

Tina belts out the tune "We Don't Need Another Hero". On the contrary, we are in desperate need of heroes. We need them as ideals to look up to and, most importantly, emulate. In dark times like these, it's very easy to give way to despair and hopelessness. You look around and see everyone operating on one basis: Every man for himself. Screw your neighbor. Rip off the customer. Cover up your crimes. Grab as much money from the roulette table before last call. To hell with the human race.

The Titanic is sinking fast and there's no time for our better natures to show through. It's a raw brutal race to see who survives. Darwin was right. We're no different than wild beasts on the savannah. Kill or be killed. Whoever's left standing, wins.

What makes a hero? In my book, it's someone who risks comfort, safety, liberty, wealth, the approval and acceptance of society, or even life, for principle. After a lifetime of struggle and toil, most of us have attained some degree of prosperity, comfort and affluence. Our sacrifices and deferments of gratification have paid off, and we are beginning to reap the rewards. We have accumulated enough stuff that we start altering our actions to preserve all that stuff. We don't rock the boat as much, we aren't as vocal about criticizing the government. We don't want to lose all our toys and goodies.

Heroes put it all on the line to defend a principle. They risk everything for something you can't see. It's the one thing that separates us from the lower orders. Otherwise, we are no better than wild beasts that kill, eat, defecate, sleep, copulate and reproduce.

Nothing distinguishes the cycle of our days from the animal world's like our altruistic impulse to do something that could result in our premature and untimely deaths, if only to save someone weaker and more helpless than ourselves from brutal attack by thugs. I think of Sydney Carton in Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, taking the place of Charles Darnay on the scaffold. [Aside: I read the story of a Brazilian boy biking down a dirt road with his dog, when they were set upon by a huge deadly swarm of killer bees. The dog managed to knock the boy to the ground and cover him, shielding him from the bees, which stung the dog to death but the boy was saved. Now: how to explain such an altruistic impulse in the animal world? Could it be that centuries of domestication and living in proximity to humans have caused some of our better qualities to "rub off" on some of the animal kingdom?? Maybe. After I read that and thought some more about dogs' selfless devotion, loyalty and willingness to self-sacrifice, I have to qualify/amend my earlier statement about those traits that separate us from the "lower orders". End of aside]

Heroes in my life have been:
a) my late father, of course
b) Irwin Schiff
c) Ernst Zundel
d) Mordecai Vanunu
e) Joe Banister

My father for his whole life was a man of principle. He started with nothing, survived the Great Depression, fought with honor in World War II (won 9 combat stars in sea battles in the Pacific), came back home and joined his father's company rather than attend graduate school at Harvard, always dealt fairly with people in business and society. I never knew him to commit an underhanded or treacherous act towards another, although he was on occasion the recipient and victim of treachery by others. He was a pillar of the church, raised us to be moral beings (what we did with that foundation afterwards is our own fault or reward), and, I would say, many times sacrificed his own wishes, ambitions and dreams for the betterment and support of his family, who oftentimes returned his sacrifice with scorn and indifference. He exhibited selflessness on a scale I have not seen before or since in my immediate circles, and am still looking for in society at large. His kind will not be seen again in this country.

Irwin and Ernst are currently imprisoned, with no prospects for release, for "crimes" of conscience, for speaking truth to power. Mordecai has been released from a hellish 18+ year sentence of which 11, I believe, were served in solitary confinement, but he is at present under some kind of house arrest where his after-prison life is little better than before. Joe beat the Evil Empire in a criminal case after leaving the certainty of a government sinecure to tell the truth about his bosses. All my heroes could have taken an easier, more profitable route, but they didn't, and we are all the more wealthy because of their sacrifices.

I'm sure there are others, and they will be added as they surface in my crowded psyche.

You Talk Too Much!

Notice how many talk shows there are on TV? On the radio? We Americans have replaced real deeds with talk of real deeds. For instance: the more our teachers talk about "excellence in education", the less excellence one finds in schools. The more our politicians talk about accountability, the less accountable and more corrupt they become.
Talk has become a substitute for action. And it's not even interesting or inspiring speech that emanates from the "talking heads".
When action does come, it comes across as hysterical overreaction and overkill: laying waste to a Third-World country that couldn't even occupy one of our inner-city neighborhoods if it tried (do we really feel like conquerors...and our pathetic excuses for leaders imagine themselves to be in the mold of Alexander the Great or Frederick of Prussia?); sending a 400-plus-strong SWAT team of FBI and BATF agents to "take down" Randy Weaver and his family, killing his unarmed wife, dog and wounding his teenaged son; massacreing religious isolationists and innocents at Waco, Texas.
It's also reflected in our shift from a manufacturing/farming/mining/shipping/timber economy to a "service" economy. We don't make things anymore, instead we serve...people who do? No, it's all been outsourced, offshored.
A "service" economy presupposes that there are doers, makers, inventors who produce tangible goods that people are willing to spend money on. I recall an article about the threatened closing of a car plant near my house. The report highlighted...who? The people on the assembly line soon to be idled? The foremen? No, it was the waitresses in the nearby restaurants where the auto workers went for lunch every day; the strip malls and surrounding stores where the plant workers did their shopping. Because the car plant produced something tangible, something useful, something that would enable other people to be themselves more productive, all manner of "services" had sprung up around it. But once the assembly line is shut down, the plant shuttered and rusting, all those "service" industries will wither and die. There have to be producers for the service "industry" to serve.
Will we continue to be a world power -- swaggering around the globe pounding tinpot dictatorships into dust -- when we no longer make things, like our soldiers' uniforms, the weapons systems they wield, the troop transports, ships and jeeps? What do we do when China -- as in "Made In" -- declares war on us and we have already surrendered all our manufacturing to them?

The Problem With Evolution

It's not enough. Having said that, I'm not coming on as a fundamentalist who believes everything in the Bible is the literal word of God and has to be obeyed to the letter or you'll suffer. And I believe science has resulted in advances that have extended and expanded human life and possibilities. Think of it: less than 200 years ago a cut that today is treated with over-the-counter aids and medicines could have gotten infected, spread, become gangrenous and resulted in DEATH. Think of what people used to go through before cavities could be anesthetized, drilled and filled by your neighborhood dentist. Can you imagine the excruciating continual pain our descendants must have had to live with when they developed an abscessed tooth?
But ever since Darwin made his observations of animal and plant life and came to his conclusions, descendants have perverted his findings into all manner of despotism and evil with which to dominate and subjugate their fellow man. There was the hybrid known as "social Darwinism" that supposedly explained why some people got rich and others stayed poor. It was an early so-called "scientific" defense of predatory business practices. Marx and Hitler in their times admired Darwin. Marx even sent Darwin a proto-fan letter because Marx found in the evolutionist's work justification for his (Marx's) philosophy which would result in the bloodiest, most terroristic regimes on earth. Again: a select few (the ruling elite) would dominate the many who had no will of their own, uniqueness or purpose except as human cattle to be chuted, bred, worked, harvested then slaughtered for the profit and enjoyment of their masters. These select few represent the pinnacle in the "evolution" of the human race and are therefore worthier to live and prosper than "the rest".
Darwinism taken to its logical, "scientific" conclusion would mean the eradication of every moral precept and law except the one of brute strength over weaker life forms. "I desire your wife...and for that matter, your house too! I'm coming over with my club or my posse and we're going to fight to the death to see who 'wins'." Forget about what's right or just. Forget about courts of law and deliberative juries. I've got a bigger stick than you, I've got bigger pecs than you, so I win.
It's no accident that Darwin drew his conclusions based on observations of the animal world, because his findings -- extrapolated to human society -- are the triumph of jungle law over the common law. Which is why I believe religion -- and, further, a religion based on love, charity and peace -- has a place in human society, even if it can't explain everything. Even if that religion has at times held back the human "race"...to what goal?
I also doubt Darwin, if he were the pure scientist I think he was and believed his findings might someday be overturned, corrected or improved upon by future generations of scientists who approached his lessons in the same spirit that he set off with on the good ship Beagle, would endorse a lot of the atrocities that have been committed since in the name of evolution. In fact, the actions of "evolutionists" who want to force-feed Darwin's teachings of over 100 years ago to schoolkids in the 21st century, fly in the face of the scientific method and spirit of endless inquiry and validation upon which real science is based. At what point do you differentiate the zealotry of the fundamentalists from the zealotry of the evolutionists?

Economics = 2 + 2

Yes, I know economics is called the "dismal science". I know university instructors and political appointees a la the President's Council of Economic Advisors have turned it arcane, cryptic, boring and untranslatable. But it's really easy, so simple once you get a few principles down. I once heard it referred to as the "rationing of finite resources". That was in relation to health care, which is definitely being rationed today. The speaker said -- and I paraphrase -- that America used to have the "Lexus of health care", by which he meant access by all to the best health care in the world regardless of income and regardless of who-you-know. Now health care appears to be a question of Who-You-Know who can bump you to the front of the queue.
But my thoughts turn to the Katrina aftermath and further back to Ivan, Bette and earlier ones. I remember a great hue-and-cry about how merchants were "gouging" and taking advantage of human misery in raising their prices on necessities like chain saws, bottled water, ice, etc. Well, let's take a typical scenario. A hurricane has just struck; there is widespread devastation; shortage or nonexistence of essential supplies. A 7-11 has a finite supply of bags of ice and bottled water. If, at the time of the disaster, the ice bags are 99 cents and the bottled water is $1.97 each, if the merchant doesn't raise his prices, what is going to happen? The first hurricane victim who reaches the 7-11 is going to buy up the entire supply and there will be an instant shortage. Every victim after the first lucky one to arrive at the 7-11 is going to be SOL. Rationing of finite resources has to happen in order for every victim to have at least one bag of ice and one bottle of water.
There are some who say the market should decide how resources are rationed; there are many others who say the government should decide. The government advocates say the market should not decide because it isn't sensitive and caring towards The People the way government is, never acknowledging the truth that politics is nothing more or less than Who You Know, who can get you to the front of the line! The market is impersonal, unfeeling and plays no favorites. If you can purchase it -- whether you're white, black, Aleusian, Eskimo or Native American -- it's yours.
Listen to tales of FEMA incompetence, GOP chumminess with its big donors and callous indifference of Homeland Security chief (and Lenin-death's-head lookalike) Chertoff to American (as opposed to Israeli) suffering and the market should win out every time.