friedman on game theory (nyt)
"When I lived in Beirut in the early 1980's — the era when suicide bombing was born — I had a Lebanese friend, Diala, who used to quip that whenever she traveled on an airplane she carried a bomb in her luggage, because the odds against two people carrying a bomb on the same plane were so much higher...

"There is no such thing as perfect security in today's world. All rational precautions need to be taken. But once you take them, then you basically have to decide: Am I going to sit home and hide in the basement forever, or am I, like my friend Diala, going to play whatever mind game it takes, or none at all, and just go on with my life?"
(Tuesday, September 25, 2001)

tracking the hijackers (nyt)
The Taliban say the operation was too complicated and expensive for bin Laden to run. The Times writes, "Tracking the hijackers' finances, investigators have concluded that the operation probably did not cost much more than $200,000."

Two hundred grand. Osama bin Laden supposedly has a couple hundred million.

Do some quick math.
(Sunday, September 23, 2001)

bin laden's empire (nyt)
So sophisticated, so steeped in hatred, so pervasive. I fear we may be in for many more years of attacks large and small on American and European soil.

The only bright spot is that perhaps the West will finally move into a mode where we help the poorer countries instead of beating them down to serve our interests. I hope so.
(Saturday, September 22, 2001)

the evacuation (nyt)
"Mr. Hingson, who is blind [and was on the 78th floor of the north tower], followed his guide dog, Roselle. After about 40 flights down, the route became congested and nerves began to fray. Mr. Hingson found it hard to breathe because of the jet fumes. His dog was exhausted. Sounds of crying echoed in the stairwell. But there was no panic. People shared bottles of water, and when the first firefighters passed, the crowd cheered."

Good evacuation procedures + calm = lots of people saved.
(Friday, September 21, 2001)

"i went to a hockey game, and a speech broke out" (espn)
"The speech was about to begin as the intermission clock counted down the final minutes. The scoreboard said that play was about to resume, and the speech could be viewed in the outer concourses.

"When it was turned off, fans began to boo, then chanted, 'Leave it on.'

"As the teams returned to the benches for the third period, the speech was restored to loud cheers."

Philly fans booed Destiny's Child, and cheered for a presidential speech. Who says they don't have the right priorities?
(Friday, September 21, 2001)

johnny mac (espn mag)
"He had very few peers," the late Arthur Ashe once said of McEnroe. "So he gets bored and condescending with others and has to manufacture controversy to stay interested."
(Thursday, September 20, 2001)

the calls for federal control of airport security start (nyt)
"Ethnicity is the single most important determinant of who is going to cause a problem on an airplane," he said. "If you are going to give the same attention, because it is mandated, to a little old lady with blue hair, or to a young African-American male, for that matter, as you give to a Middle Easterner, you are undermining the system already."
(Wednesday, September 19, 2001)

education of a holy warrior (nyt magazine, june 2000)
"'Jihad' is a concept widely misunderstood in the West. It does not mean only 'holy war.' It essentially means 'struggle,' and according to the traditional understanding of Islam, there are two types of jihad: greater and lesser. 'Greater Jihad,' is the struggle within the soul of a person to be better, more righteous -- the fight against the devil within. 'Lesser Jihad' is the fight against the devil without: the military struggle against those who subjugate Muslims.

"Whenever I meet a Muslim fundamentalist, I ask them the same stupid-sounding question: Which is more important to Islam, greater jihad or lesser jihad? The answer, usually accompanied by an indulgent look, is usually something like, 'They don't call it "greater jihad" for nothing.' The struggle against the external oppressor waxes and wanes, but the fight to suppress the evil inclinations within is perpetual."

The scariest thing in this account, to me, is the propensity of the Islamic students in Pakistan to discount any piece of information, any interpretation of the Koran, that falls outside their worldview. There are Americans who do this, too, which is why I find it so scary.
(Monday, September 17, 2001)

rebuilding the wtc in light (nyt magazine)
I hope they do this. It's a beautiful idea.
(Monday, September 17, 2001)

the wtc basement (nyt)
There's a bit of WTC history in this article, and it's fascinating to learn about how they had to excavate the site. The first step alone took a year. And all the dirt was used to create Battery Park City. Simply amazing feats of engineering.
(Monday, September 17, 2001)

bob herbert (nyt op-ed)
Plutarch said, "Good fortune will elevate even petty minds, and give them the appearance of a certain greatness and stateliness, as from their high place they look down upon the world; but the truly noble and resolved spirit raises itself, and becomes more conspicuous in times of disaster and ill fortune."
(Monday, September 17, 2001)

krugman on paying for airport security (nyt op-ed)
"[A]irports throughout the United States rely on security personnel who are paid about $6 an hour, less than they could earn serving fast food. These guardians of our lives receive only a few hours of training, and more than 90 percent of the people screening bags have been on the job for less than six months."
(Saturday, September 15, 2001)

liberty
i really want this photo. it's beautiful and symbolic and moving.
(Saturday, September 15, 2001)

indiana reconsiders new york (nyt)
"At the offices of The Journal Review, Crawfordsville's newspaper, Ron Dietz, the publisher, said the images only confirmed his admiration for the city. 'New York stands for all that's right with this country,' he said. 'It's big. It's bold. Every nationality. Every creed. Every color. Godless? Look at the cathedrals they've got there. What's happened to New York has happened to all of us.'"

Take that, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. Your hate does not speak for everyone.
(Saturday, September 15, 2001)

frank rich on tuesday (nyt op-ed)
"From the rampaging fears over school shootings following Columbine (at a time when U.S. juvenile homicide rates were falling to a 33- year low) to the protracted bellicosity surrounding Elián González to the California blackout that didn't happen at the start of this summer, we've been looking for a Pearl Harbor. But always a Pearl Harbor of few casualties — always a Pearl Harbor that could readily be brought to "closure."

In our pop culture, this same impulse for vicarious, finite warfare could be seen in the rise of TV reality programs like "Survivor," "Fear Factor" and "Lost" in which we thrill to the spectacle of contestants competing in war games — always with the understanding that no one is really going to get hurt in a prime- time slice of "reality" that must move the sponsors' products. On the day before Tuesday, after all, "survival," "fear" and "lost" had different meanings than they did the day after."
(Friday, September 14, 2001)

why bin laden has little to fear (atlantic monthly)
"A former senior Near East Division operative says, 'The CIA probably doesn't have a single truly qualified Arabic-speaking officer of Middle Eastern background who can play a believable Muslim fundamentalist who would volunteer to spend years of his life with shitty food and no women in the mountains of Afghanistan. For Christ's sake, most case officers live in the suburbs of Virginia. We don't do that kind of thing.' A younger case officer boils the problem down even further: 'Operations that include diarrhea as a way of life don't happen.' ... Officers still in the clandestine service say that the Agency's risk-averse, bureaucratic nature—which mirrors, of course, the growing physical risk-aversion of American society—has only gotten worse."
(Thursday, September 13, 2001)

we don't get it (guardian op-ed)
"As Mahatma Gandhi famously remarked when asked his opinion of western civilisation, it would be a good idea. Since George Bush's father inaugurated his new world order a decade ago, the US, supported by its British ally, bestrides the world like a colossus. Unconstrained by any superpower rival or system of global governance, the US giant has rewritten the global financial and trading system in its own interest; ripped up a string of treaties it finds inconvenient; sent troops to every corner of the globe; bombed Afghanistan, Sudan, Yugoslavia and Iraq without troubling the United Nations; maintained a string of murderous embargos against recalcitrant regimes; and recklessly thrown its weight behind Israel's 34-year illegal military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as the Palestinian intifada rages."
(Thursday, September 13, 2001)

america's place in the world (economist)
"Multilateralists will argue precisely the opposite case: that America must be more engaged than ever in international institutions and acting in concert with its allies. America can only find genuine security, in their view, in a world where international law carries greater weight, democracy and stable government is more widespread, weapons proliferation is controlled through international agreement and governments co-operate much more closely in monitoring and capturing the kind of terrorist groups which perpetrated this week's outrages. According to this argument, it has been America's lack of consistency in its relations with allies and foes alike, and its sporadic attention to places such as the Middle East, that have allowed virulent anti-Americanism to fester."
(Thursday, September 13, 2001)

new york magazine's article on nyc airport safety
"The safety gap extends to security against guns and explosives. Everyone from the FAA to the FBI acknowledges that New York is still a top terrorism target, but bomb-detection methods are lagging. Checked luggage on domestic flights is hardly ever scanned by metal detectors... And at every New York airport, the guards who handle the metal detectors and protect the gates -- hired by companies contracted by each airline -- receive minimal training and rarely make more than $7 an hour. 'The fact is, the airline industry puts its money where its priorities are,' says Bill McGee, a former flight dispatcher who covers the industry as editor of Consumer Reports Travel Letter. 'We're basically getting what we pay for.'"

So, the horrendous, preventable tragedy of today is more or less a result of Americans' insistence on convenience over safety. Hello, El Al screening policies for domestic flights in America. Hello, longer waits at the airport. Hello, putting the safety of everyone before one's own personal convenience.

Jesus Christ, things like this should never ever ever happen. I was paralyzed by sadness and grief this morning. But right now I'm just pissed.
(Tuesday, September 11, 2001)

toscani blasts digital art (wired)
"The majority of people are very good at doing what they don't like to do," [Toscani] said. "But they don't know any more how to do what they like to do."

Or what they like to do, for that matter.
(Friday, September 7, 2001)

goodbye, bloated startups (cnet)
"A few, less well-managed companies, would manage this labor shortage by stockpiling bodies with a cavalier 'we'll figure out where to put them when they're hired' attitude. A prevailing dot-com joke at the time was the 'mirror nose' recruitment technique, which said that if a candidate could fog a mirror placed under their nose, they were hired. Hence, the bloated Internet start-up."

One of my clients was doing this sort of recruiting last year, which led to the spectacle of a 19-year old college dropout getting paid $70k/year even though nobody had any idea what to do him (he didn't have any idea of how to behave in a corporation, anyway).

Thank heavens those days are over.
(Friday, September 7, 2001)

china and russia: whose road to reform is least bumpy? (nyt magazine)
These two countries are so fascinating for their travails in the name of ideology. The main comparison here is whether to put political reform first (Russia) or economic reform first (China). No definite conclusions are made, though this analysis leans in Russia's favor. The surprise in this article is the fondness in both countries' leadership for Pinochet's Chile.
(Friday, September 7, 2001)

fallingwater may live up to its name (nyt)
"'After 70 years, a little structural problem on the best house ever designed doesn't strike me as something that raises any kind of revisionist issues in terms of Wright's career,' said Michael Sorkin, the director of the graduate urban design program at City College."

Mark Mack once replied to a questioner that "all good architecture leaks." Not all good architecture falls down, but when it's in danger of doing so things must be done.

The surprise to me was that work to stabilize the foundation hasn't even started yet; it's been delayed for two years. Like the leaning tower of Pisa's structural fix, Fallingwater will be only partially restored to as-new condition; unlike the project in Pisa, this one is supposed to take less than a year (the leaning tower took eleven to fix; it reopened this summer).

I've now seen two of the three most famous houses of the 20th century: Villa Savoye and the Farnsworth House. Both had been through much-needed restorations. So I suppose I'll be in Bear Run sometime next fall.
(Sunday, September 2, 2001)

the bag for when you think you might be getting laid off
Mike does it again. If you're working at a company on shaky ground (or even if you aren't), then this is the bag for you. Note both the disclaimer and the tagline (you have to visit the main store to see the latter).
(Sunday, September 2, 2001)