Month: December 2009

Look at poor sick me! Don’t you want to send me food and flowers??

I’m exaggerating. It’s just a standard cold, no fever. I feel just under the weather enough that I won’t feel guilty taking it easy today, but I don’t feel really bad. I’m not suffering.

There was a lecture I had planned to go to tonight though, and I really do think I should stay home. Just so it stays a minor, standard cold. I can’t believe after a lifetime of having colds I’m not really sure how to treat them.
Like, should I not do my exercises today? Would it be okay to go to the lecture?

I love Christmas lights (big surprise) and these are my favorite kind, the Christmas lights of my youth, with these bigger bulbs.

I took this picture walking home from the new animated version of A Christmas Carol. I didn’t think it was a complete success, but I enjoyed it enough. It made me want to re-read the book though.

I took this picture an hour or so ago. It’s of a store that went up overnight on my block.

This looks like an Edward Hopper painting, doesn’t it?

Every day I fight the urge to get a dog. My big reasons and they are big enough to stop me:

– the money.

– the unhappiness it would bring my cats.

I bring it up because I’ve been fighting the urge ever since watching that Dog Named Christmas movie. Finney could deal with I think, but Buddy is very skittish.

I keep putting off my feelings about trying Khalid Sheik Mohammed in New York. I’ve already said that I want the trial here in New York City.

I’m going to take a lazy way out. Andrew Cohen’s arguments in The Atlantic sum up my feelings best. Some favorite snippets:

“Aren’t you willing to set aside your rage at his treatment for the diplomatic and political benefits America will receive from giving the guy an open trial? Don’t you think that treating Mohammed and his colleagues like common criminals is precisely the right message to send to the world about terrorism and al-Qaeda? Don’t you think it hurts their cause to be considered murderers and not jihadist soldiers?”

“Have you taken the time to look at the track record that federal prosecutors have in successfully trying terror suspects in New York? Can you name a single case where the feds lost a major terror trial since September 11, 2001? Can you name one from before the terrible events that day? Is Tim McVeigh walking around Buffalo today? Is Terry Nichols walking around Kansas? Is Ramzi Youssef back in Brooklyn or Zacarias Moussaoui out on an airfield trying to fly planes in Minnesota? Have you heard from Jose Padilla or Richard Reid lately?”

“Are you worried that Mohammed will try to turn his trial into political theatre? So what? The world already has heard what he and his al-Qaeda pals think of America. The world already has seen the photos from Abu Ghraib. The world knows about waterboarding. It’s old news. Mohammed is just a man, and soon he’ll be a defendant, and then he’ll be a ranting, shrieking crazy person in court, then he’ll be convicted and then he’ll be sentenced.”

Bottom line and these are my words: I want the opportunity to bring our case and all our evidence against him in open court. A public demonstration of the very thing we fight for – our system of justice and freedom. We say our way is the best and the most fair and here’s our chance to show it.

From our holiday performance tonight. I stood in the first line right behind the orchestra and I was able to sneak in a few shots at the end. Doesn’t this look like a glorious thing to do? Oh I wish you all could have heard it. This is one of the better things humanity can do.  Yay us!

Thank you Grace Church!  (And thank you James Renwick for designing this place.) (And while I’m at it, thank you, composers! And orchestra and John and fellow singers!)