I got to the bar on West Seventh a bit early. I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to swim the mile through the sticky air, so I made sure I had too much time. If nothing else, it was good to have some time to sit in the AC and imagine the sweaty stink drying off of me. This was a meeting with someone who I hadn’t seen in a while, someone who might do something really great for me. Some work was a possibility, but what I was hoping for more than anything was a little confirmation.
Failure is Impossible
The list of calls I had to make was numbing, long enough that it settled itself into a simple routine. “Hi, my name is Erik, and I’m calling for Jim Scheibel, your DFL candidate for Mayor of Saint Paul.” The 1989 election was going to be close, so Get Out The Vote (GOTV) calling to loyal Democrats was even more important than usual. But just as I let the routine propel my calls with their own mometum the soft yet gravely voice of an old woman stopped me cold.
“Oh, dear, you don’t have to remind me to vote. I’ve been voting ever since they let us.”
Father’s Day
Father’s Day. It’s not quite my holiday, and not just because I gave up ties for fashionable banded-collar shirts some years ago. My problem isn’t with being a Father, since I can think of nothing else I’d rather be called. What I’ve never liked about the idea is that if you take being a Father really seriously, it’s 24/7/365 and more. One day? Not even close.
Televised no, Twittered yes
The ongoing situation in Iran has shown the value of the internet, especially twitter, to get the news out. Once all of the foreign journalists were kicked out of the nation, it was up to citizen journalists to bring word of the protests to the rest of the world – and to some extent to the participants who needed to know where to gather. Twitter was especially useful because the abbreviated format works so well with mobile phones brought right to the action, and it was hard to block. They’ve provided feed and encouraged more coverage from the networks – people are indeed interested in this remote and arcane story. What’s not to love about live revolution?
Insured
When American Airlines flight 1549 skidded safely into the Hudson River, most of New York was in a state of panic. It was, after all, the first low-flying commercial plane in that corridor since 9/11. As word of the amazing landing got out, people were relieved that this time it was heroism, not terrorism, that brought the plane in low. But there was far more in common with a disaster in the financial district, just down the Hudson, than most people might realize at first.
Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 