(Original Post 6:30 AM) So coincidentally enough—this being the first Select Board meeting since Anne Awad resigned—I will be going before the four she left behind tonight to ask at the getting more and more popular 6:30 Question Period as I have done every late August since the world changed, that the 29 commemorative flags be allowed to fly in the downtown on 9/11.
Or maybe I’ll ask (as an insider suggested) for them to put it on the 9/8 SB agenda for a fuller public discussion.
Can you imagine even having to discuss flying American flags to honor the 3,000 Americans we lost on 9/11? Only in Amherst.
So we beat on...
ReplyDeletehmmm...
So we beat off
They told him don't you ever come around here
ReplyDeleteDon't wanna see your face, you better disappear
The fire's in their eyes and their words are really clear
So beat it, just beat it
You better run, you better do what you can
Don't wanna see no blood, don't be a macho man
You wanna be tough, better do what you can
So beat it, but you wanna be bad
Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it
No one wants to be defeated
Showin' how funky and strong is your fight
It doesn't matter who's wrong or right
Just beat it, beat it
Just beat it, beat it
Just beat it, beat it
Just beat it, beat it
They're out to get you, better leave while you can
Don't wanna be a boy, you wanna be a man
You wanna stay alive, better do what you can
So beat it, just beat it
You have to show them that you're really not scared
You're playin' with your life, this ain't no truth or dare
They'll kick you, then they beat you,
Then they'll tell you it's fair
So beat it, but you wanna be bad
Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it
No one wants to be defeated
Showin' how funky and strong is your fight
It doesn't matter who's wrong or right
I was thinking "boats against the current"
ReplyDeleteborne back ceaslessly into the past....
ReplyDeleteTake note of pop culture's curious retro air. Technology which should be propelling us into the future is, in fact, bearing us back into the past. Old technology limited our capacity to wallow in nostalgia, new technology makes everything available all the time. Faced with this landscape of infinite choice, we curl up with the old and familiar, fearful of the new and strange. Meanwhile, the CES in Las Vegas and Macworld in San Francisco are desperately selling us the future. The imagery surrounding these vast promotions is forward and outward. But we prefer to use the technology to make it easier to be at home with our selves and our memories. We even use it to pretend to be going to the gym. We don't seem to be good enough for the future. Transhumanism makes explicit the technnocracy's implicit impatience with our mere humanity. We can engineer our own salvation, say the transhumanists.
But, of course, like Gatsby, we can't.
it could be: "...bound ceaslessly to the past."
Damn, wish I had said that.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, the CES in Las Vegas and Macworld in San Francisco are desperately selling us the future.
ReplyDeleteSo is Barry Obama!
Did you hear the one about McCain trying to remember how many houses he has? He wrote it on a piece of paper so he could remember but then he left it on his other airplane.
ReplyDeleteWhen he realized he left it nehind he lost his tempter and shouted a bad word, shiite... or was that sunni.
ReplyDeleteThen he called his second wife Cindy a four-letter word that begins with the letter v*gina and rhymes with the word bunt.
ReplyDeleteThose who don't want to fly the flags should have watched the show "Inside the Twin Towers" last night on Discovery. It included interviews with people who made it out, even from some of the upper stories of the towers.
ReplyDeletehttp://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/twintowers/twintowers.html
It airs again on September 6th at 1 p.m.
I'm sure His Lordship would simply consider it "pro-war propaganda"
ReplyDeleteWatching "Inside the Twin Towers" I couldn't help but ask -- what moron doesn't know that you can kick through plasterboard?
ReplyDeleteWhat moron, when human life (including ones own) is on the line, wouldn't try vandalism as a means to escape a not-so-good situation?
What UMass really teaches you is how to fight, but it might be more how to survive. While UM grads wouldn't have made it into those towers, I suspect that they wouldn't have gone into the "rescue me" mode.
Oh, and as to the guy having trouble walking downstairs, he likely was having a heart attack. 48 hour survival not good even if he had the time to walk down the remaining 35 floors.
And all I could think was "are you folks really that stupid - do you really want to die that badly?"
Ed
who didn't participate in the 9-11-01 "liberation" of the flags because UM could/would have punished him for it...
What UMass really teaches you is how to fight, but it might be more how to survive.
ReplyDeleteSince its a university of higher education, it probably ought to focus on teaching you how to think and how to learn.
While UM grads wouldn't have made it into those towers, I suspect that they wouldn't have gone into the "rescue me" mode.
What does that mean: "made it into the towers"?
It occurs to me that you measure many experiences, your own and other peoples, by what Umass taught you.
You might consider expanding your horizons. There are better points of reference and lots to learn beyond those four walls.
Ed-I just wonder why are you still at Umass when you dislike it so much?
ReplyDelete