Posts by BenWilson
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Hard News: For the kids, if nothing else, in reply to Danielle,
I can’t believe you missed Giovanni and me whimpering pathetically on a regular basis about how Lucy is Better Than Us in Every Way and She is Four Years Old. We do it all the time. ;)
I just thought that meant she was early 30s. People in this bracket tend to make a meal out of minor differences. My wife is always ribbing me about being an old bastard, on account of the 6 months between us.
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Hard News: You know what ..., in reply to Richard Aston,
Why not Bin Laden ?
Obama has a bit more class than Bush?
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Hard News: You know what ..., in reply to Richard Aston,
Our First Deather? :-)
I think the way we'll know he's dead for quits will be when he doesn't release another video of himself laughing off claims of his death.
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Hard News: For the kids, if nothing else, in reply to andin,
Yes...well that was then. Will there be a lessening of tension from this?
I expect for terrorists it will be business as usual. But the US might take the symbolic opportunity to plot a better course.
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Hard News: For the kids, if nothing else, in reply to Russell Brown,
The next few polls are going to be very interesting.
Yes, I get the impression he's only just warming up.
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Hard News: For the kids, if nothing else, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
surely once this is over we can get back to being normal, we can get back to acting like civilised human beings.
I'd like to. In fact, I'm starting today, going to list out long term goals. Something I haven't done since...about 2001. I almost feel like my plans just went on hold, and things took on a life of their own. Curious that I haven't noticed until now.
Actually this is bringing another writing to mind, although I can't actually think where it was from, about what the effect was in Hitler's bunker when the news came that he had killed himself. It was like "a spell had lifted". People smiled, smoked, joked, all things they hadn't done in a long time while his insane presence stalked the halls. Then they did the most obvious thing that should have been done long before, they worked out how to surrender.
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Hard News: For the kids, if nothing else, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
I was fourteen in 2001.
Gawd, from the maturity of your writing I'd always picked that you were in your 30s. It makes me feel young again to feel the same way as you when you say:
It doesn't feel celebratory, though; it just feels like the cap on that decade of my life.
I'm reminded again of the words of Doris Lessing in Prisons we choose to live inside when she relates how astonishingly thin the shroud is that separates us from our primitive past. The context was some stupid war in Africa that she lived through, how people went from intelligent and progressive to barbaric in a very short space of time, then when it was all over could scarcely believe that they had ever behaved that way. I read this not long after 9/11 and have been waiting for that "when it was over" time ever since. Are we there yet?
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Hard News: For the kids, if nothing else, in reply to Russell Brown,
This video from Ground Zero is also full of young people. I don't think anyone could have predicted this happening.
It's like Armistice Day. Perhaps they feel the War on Terror is over? That's something to hope for.
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Hard News: You know what ..., in reply to Bart Janssen,
What did you say? My own answer would have been "I guess so".
Pretty much. It felt rather odd, the question was so genuine. He really had no idea whether NZ was full of Bin Laden sympathizers.
And most importantly did you ask where to get good coffee in Utah?
None of them drink coffee, or alcohol. It's like a big hole in the office banter. They are, however, mostly adrenalin junkies, so that's something.
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Hard News: You know what ..., in reply to Bart Janssen,
I don't quite know what I feel, but I have a nagging feeling that this really is more significant than logic would dictate.
I know what I am supposed to feel - that it's the end of an era. But it doesn't feel like that to me - the era fizzled out long ago. However, humans like closure, so this could be a good thing, a good justification for some major movements in the right direction. Rather like 9/11 itself, it feels to me like there is the potential in the air for a good change. Reducing the American military presence in the Middle East would be a good start, and could hardly be more timely, as the US heads into election madness.
A Mormon colleague called me today from Utah, and asked with genuine curiosity whether the news was considered good in NZ. It's the first actual discussion about anything to do with their Middle East policy that I've ever had with any of those colleagues. Everything else was too controversial to be appropriate in a workplace. I hope this changes, that this event leads to a more outward looking US citizenry.
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