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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (5140)	8/15/2003 12:54:37 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793890

lileks The Fox news guy was outside Penn Station, where thousands of people were - brace yourself - patiently waiting for electricity to return. He seemed a little annoyed that there wasn?t a brawl or a riot. I'm sure no one was happy to be standing there in the dead black dark, but what could you do? Stick someone up, take his credit cards and fashion them into a small portable fan? Stab someone in the foot, and hop he hops around and creates a small breeze? Set yourself on fire to take your mind off the hunger? He corralled a couple of New Yorkers off the sidewalk, wisely ignoring the three shiny-faced moth-balls behind him who were drawn to the camera light. Two women, one of a certain age, the other in her thirties. The first woman was a leathery old bird with a big smile and a shade of lipstick no one's seen since Gimbels had a close-out in the late 40s. She took it all in stride. "It's an adventure," she smiled, shrugging. And then she added: "And who needs it." The younger woman was equally unconcerned: what can you do, but wait? "But aren't you angry that there wasn't a Plan B for getting the electricity up sooner?" the reporter prodded. "Who do you blame?" They didn't really blame anyone. The reporter cut them loose. A while later I saw a reporter stop a man on a bike. He had a plastic sack with some food. He was going home; he had some friends crashing on the floor. "So you're pulling together, extending a hand to your fellow man," said the reporter, who was no doubt thinking: Pulitizer, or whatever the equivalent is for TV. "Sure," said the guy. "I mean, someone turns on an air conditioner in Canada, it all goes down, whattaya gonna do." The reporter cut him loose. I almost wondered if the reporters wanted this to be 9/11 lite, all the mass inconvenience with only half the panic. As far as I can tell, the big story was the outage, but the other story was "so, they dealt with it." You can't wonder if a TV producer was looking at the feeds, seeing the people just walkling along, the cars waiting thier turns, and the producer's thinking: God help me for this, but woudl someone please throw a brick? We're dyin' here. I hope someone has a camera pointed at Manhattan, ready to capture the moment the power comes on line. I suppose it'll be a block-by-block rollout, but wouldn?t it be spectacular if the entire island lit up at once? What?s slightly creepy is the the thought of the offices that were cut-off in the middle of a normal day, and didn?t have generators. Imagine all those screens popping on, hard drives spinning up, printers whirring to life. The modern office, full of wide-awake machines with no masters. To me there's something unnerving about the patience of machinery. When we went away for a three-day trip I didn?t turn off my wife?s computer; the monitor was off so I just let it go. When we came back I turned on the monitor to see Gnat's Busytown game. A bear was sitting in a doctor's office, staring straight ahead with a friendly smile, still waiting for a bandage after 80+ hours. Most bears in that situation would have bled to death. Just went to nyc.gov - the website leads with a picture of that hapless nanny Mayor. He?s about as inspirational and reassuring as a stale blintz. I watched some of the press conference. He's warning people not to eat food from the fridge if it's gone bad. I'm picturing this in 1940s film noir terms - the mayor would have been some tough pol, maybe Broderick Crawford; he'd grip the podium, stare at the press corps with a gaze undeterred by the detonations of the Speed Graphics, and he'd say "Stay home. Smoke 'em if you got 'em. Looters will be shot on sight. And don't worry - if all else fails, the sun will come up on schedule." I liked Mayor Mike for exactly one minute, and that was when he was sworn in - if I remember correctly, they passed the baton in Times Square as the new year kicked in, just three and a half months after 9/11. New York seemed ndomitable once more. You want a piece of this? Try harder. lileks.com