Wednesday, September 4, 2002

Who Knew That There Were So Many Ways to Commemorate September 11th? Over at Driver 8, Charly Z bows before Susannah, the "mighty sex imagery bard," as do I. In her reverse cowgirl's blog, she writes of the September 23rd opening of the Musem of Sex in New York: maybe the big boners sported by the attendees waiting in line on opening day will spiritually counter the city's phallic-lack at Ground Zero. It's unfortunate that this opening won't be on September 11th instead. I can imagine no more over the top way to celebrate what was attacked last year. Or, as The Onion points out, we could all watch television next Wednesday: Remember that you are not alone. An estimated 150 million people will be watching the three major networks. No one channel is the "right" one to watch. Find the programming that is best for you and believe in your choice. Look to your elders. Find comfort in the wisdom and guiding hand of experienced leaders like Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, and Peter Jennings. Take a break. If non-stop television coverage becomes overwhelming, you may need to get away by occasionally checking out a game show or sitcom rerun. Turn to your community for support. Tune into local news coverage, as well as national news programming. Seek out your peers. Get support from niche-oriented networks with which you personally identify, such as BET, Lifetime, or MTV. If needed, seek therapy. There is no stigma attached to turning to a counselor like Dr. Phil for help. 6:27:41 PM     What do you think? ()

What Are You Doing September 11th? There is a good deal of hand-wringing about what to do on September 11th, but I like this idea the best: ...the Brooklyn Academy of Music settled on something soothing and nostalgic: showings of Woody Allen's movie Manhattan at the Rose Cinema without charge. In part, I'm cynical and worried about people's ability to respond appropriately. In part, intense emotions are not something I deal in. But mostly, even though I live in New York City, the destruction of the World Trade Center didn't have much of an effect on me (which is no doubt the result of some elaborate psychic defense mechanisms). I was home that whole week recuperating from an appendectomy. I didn't see any of what was going on around the city. I was far enough up on the Upper West Side that I never felt any danger (I was actually asleep for much of it), but I was close enough to what was going on to know that no one I knew was in danger either. The worst thing that happened to me was that the A. S. Roma - Liverpool Champions League match wasn't televised, to which I reacted like a petulant child. Eric actually saw one of the towers fall. My wife had to walk home from work and was evacuated by a bomb scare later in the week. Chris had to walk from midtown Manhattan to the Bronx, and later in the week, fled a bomb scare in Grand Central Terminal. Me, I sat around in a Vicodin haze, pouting about my football game not being on. So having escaped the worst of the actual event, I'd selfishly like to escape the worst of the commemoration as well. 8:22:44 AM     What do you think? ()

Did Anyone Actually Think That Cell Phones Make People Smarter and More Polite? An MSNBC column examines the apparent negative effect of cell phones on manners and intelligence. Among other findings: A survey conducted last year by the Japanese telephone company NTT DoCoMo found that kids who carry cell phones do worse on tests than kids who don't carry phones. I don't know how rigorous that research was, but if a provider of cell phone service tells me that cell phones are correlated with decreased intellectual performance, I'm inclined to believe them. But the column focuses primarily on the erosion of manners that cell phones seem to cause. Eric has a cell phone, and I have never known him to be thoughtless or obnoxious in his use of it, nor have I seen it impair his intellectual capacity. Chris neither. But then I have never known either of them to be thoughtless or obnoxious in any other context. The same cannot be said for many of the people I encounter in my daily travels. (Surprise, I like my friends more than people I don't know.) In the end, cell phones just provide another means for rude people to inflict their rudeness on others. It's inherent not in the phones, but in the people. 8:17:29 AM     What do you think? ()

© Copyright 2003 Morgan N. Sandquist. Last update: 11/2/03; 10:27:17 AM.

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