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Oct. 31st, 2004 08:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jfbIn the days after 9/11, I listened to a lot of radio, I watched a lot of TV. For a while the late-night talk shows and the morning drive DJs were out of commission, stunned silent by events way beyond the scope of the celebrity gossip and innocuous irony they knew how to use. And then the entertainment industry began to grind back into gear, each familiar personality with a short speech about how for a while they weren't sure it was appropriate to be indulging in their silly, ineffectual banter with so much death around, but in the end they decided they had to go on like before, because if they changed their routine, the terrorists would have won. But I felt like there was this undercurrent in every speech: what all of them wanted to do, at first, was somehow save the world, rescue the living, bring back the dead, start or end the war. We all wanted to do something. But in the end, just like the rest of us, they went back to their jobs because they didn't know how to save the world. They went on, I went on, because we simply didn't know how to do anything else.
I feel a little the same way right now: I want so badly for Kerry to win, for America to choose him, for us to take that tiny step away from the whirling mess we've created under the leadership of George W. Bush. But I don't know how to make that happen--I've tried to help, but mostly the things that need to be done are things I can't do, and even when I can do them, they're such small details and the big picture is so big. All I can do now is hold my breath and wait and hope it works out okay. I want to save the world, but I don't know how to do that.
So I fall back on my routines, like: Read the New York Times on Sunday and summarize the stuff that interested me. Silly, ineffectual, but it's what I do, so here we go again.
Election news! Reports from every battleground state. Bush fans, slightly nervous. Kerry, good closer. (I love the photo on this one, although neither the black-and-white print edition nor the thumbnailed online version is quite satisfying.)
Dear Osama: Nobody cares. (Despite two or three articles devoted to campaign spin.)
Todd Purdum says citizens are most passionately involved than they've been in years. For example, all those volunteers traveling to swing states to be poll watchers. And the relationships that fall apart because of political divides. And then there's the man who allegedly threatened to kill Dick Cheney, and was preparing to do it. This is, of course, hideous.
Matt Bai overblows a crisis of faith in the institutions of democracy. Edmund Andrews offers a letter to the next president (one for each option), about those budget promises they made. A.O. Scott takes refuge in not-quite-off-camera video of the candidates. And Tom Friedman endorses Bush's father. I didn't finish that one.
Non-presidential politics: Congressional races. Photographs of town council meetings. And Peter Jennings, in a tour bus, out to defeat Brian Williams once Brokaw leaves office.
I feel a little the same way right now: I want so badly for Kerry to win, for America to choose him, for us to take that tiny step away from the whirling mess we've created under the leadership of George W. Bush. But I don't know how to make that happen--I've tried to help, but mostly the things that need to be done are things I can't do, and even when I can do them, they're such small details and the big picture is so big. All I can do now is hold my breath and wait and hope it works out okay. I want to save the world, but I don't know how to do that.
So I fall back on my routines, like: Read the New York Times on Sunday and summarize the stuff that interested me. Silly, ineffectual, but it's what I do, so here we go again.
Election news! Reports from every battleground state. Bush fans, slightly nervous. Kerry, good closer. (I love the photo on this one, although neither the black-and-white print edition nor the thumbnailed online version is quite satisfying.)
Dear Osama: Nobody cares. (Despite two or three articles devoted to campaign spin.)
Todd Purdum says citizens are most passionately involved than they've been in years. For example, all those volunteers traveling to swing states to be poll watchers. And the relationships that fall apart because of political divides. And then there's the man who allegedly threatened to kill Dick Cheney, and was preparing to do it. This is, of course, hideous.
Matt Bai overblows a crisis of faith in the institutions of democracy. Edmund Andrews offers a letter to the next president (one for each option), about those budget promises they made. A.O. Scott takes refuge in not-quite-off-camera video of the candidates. And Tom Friedman endorses Bush's father. I didn't finish that one.
Non-presidential politics: Congressional races. Photographs of town council meetings. And Peter Jennings, in a tour bus, out to defeat Brian Williams once Brokaw leaves office.
