Anniversaries

Dr. X posts this from a sub-urb:

"Today marks the third year of Eisengeiste, this political and cultural collaboration among French architects, mariners of the Pacific Northwest, and bagpipers of various kinds. Since our first post, it has, inadvertently, been a tonic to my undernourished mind. In middle age one notes the walls closing in a bit - years rush by - leisure time disappears - babies become toddlers become students (our oldest starts nursery school tomorrow)... justlikethat.

"And this little outpost, little-noted though it be (well, the robot people have noticed us - hit this link and search for 'robots'), has become not only a place to post, but a place to learn. Reading these posts over the years it has gradually dawned on me that most of my friends are very, very bright, and that I should pay more attention to what they say. Noticing this has made my life better. It is almost too much to ask for - an endless conversation with a group of bright people who hold similar human values.

"It's been a good thing.

"Darkening the picture somewhat, it is also another anniversary, that of Hurricane Katrina, which formed August 23rd, 2005, and dissipated August 31, killing at least 1,800 people and ending the life of an American city. But it was most notable, and remains most notable, not for its devastating effect. For me it remains the ultimate moment of disillusionment with our national government - the moment when I realize a contract that had been held my entire life had been broken. At the time I chalked up the incompetent response to arrogance, and imagined that, shamed by their horrific performance, our leaders would rapidly put things right. You know how that turned out.

"The only silver lining is that the toxic combination of incompetence and indifference is now visible to even to the most-indoctrinated among us. Maybe it is has gone so far that 'Had Enough?' will be enough to tip the scales to a reality-based power structure.

"You know what's odd about it? I'm not angry about it anymore. It's a waste of energy. There are people who need help, kids that need to be raised, work that needs to be done. Yogi Berra, in the fine memoir he wrote with Tim Horton said something like: 'I don't hate anyone. You know why? Because it doesn't work.'

"I found a copy of George Ball's autobiography, The Past Has Another Pattern, at a yard sale the other day. It is a grand tour of another time - you meet Adlai Stevenson, Kennedy, Johnson, you go to Paris on V-E Day. He tells the story of a Jewish colleague who found his mother in Paris, brought her out of the cellar she'd been hiding in for four years, and took her to the top of Montmartre, 'so she could, like Saint Genevieve, look down on Paris.'

"The title is from Eliot:

It seems, as one becomes older,
That the past has another pattern, and ceases to be a mere sequence—
Or even development: the latter a partial fallacy
Encouraged by superficial notions of evolution,
Which becomes, in the popular mind, a means of disowning the past.
The moments of happiness—not the sense of well-being,
Fruition, fulfilment, security or affection,
Or even a very good dinner, but the sudden illumination—
We had the experience but missed the meaning,
And approach to the meaning restores the experience
In a different form, beyond any meaning
We can assign to happiness.

"