“It’s their own fault, really. Why didn’t those people just evacuate when they had the chance?” I overheard one woman saying to another in the line at the grocery store. I shielded my face with a box of frozen waffles and pretended to read the National Enquirer while I eavesdropped some more.
Alternative Approaches
In a way, the tragic events of 9/11 played right into the Administration’s hand.
Although Bush’s presidency was only in its seventh month, he was something of a lame duck when the twin towers fell. He had no clear mandate from the American people. In November, he’d lost the popular vote, and had only garnered enough electoral votes to claim victory by convincing the Supreme Court to accept the results of a questionable Florida election and vote count. The majority of American voters had not voted for him, and a sizable number thought he’d stolen the presidency.
Los Angeles, summer of ’72: a crowd of anti-establishment types gathered outside of the Wilshire Boulevard offices of CREEP, the Committee to Re-Elect the President, to hear Jane Fonda speak on the upcoming election. Mainly, this was pretty much a garden variety event for that era; “Nixon sucks,” “end the war now,” and “legalize pot” were the agenda of the day. The crowd was polite, but not overly enthusiastic.
Thirty years after the fact, Vietnam is still an open wound. If you listen to the pundits on conservative talk radio, you might come to the conclusion that it’s only those who served in ‘Nam, or those who supported the war, who continue to be bothered over our collective adventure in Southeast Asia. Nothing could be further from the truth, and John Kerry should wake-up to this fact if he wishes to save his failing campaign.
Multitasking Virus in Our Classrooms
A few weeks ago, I returned to the classroom of Dennis Dalton, the most important college professor of my life. From the back of an amphitheater
seating several hundred students, I realized how much things had evolved at Columbia and Barnard. The lecture hall was now equipped with a wireless sound system, webcams, video projectors, wireless internet. Students were using computers to record the lecture and to take notes. Heads were buried in screens, the tap tap of hundreds of keyboards like rain on the roof.