RoBoTNiK

I'm sorry I'm too busy to give this historic anniversary the long and loving treatment it deserves, but:

It isn't often that the world changes, in a way that's so big and dramatic and unmistakable that everybody in the world sits up and takes notice, that everybody everywhere is conscious they are experiencing History with a big History Channel capital-H. The world itself seems smaller at these moments, as we sense our connection to each other and to history and to all time. And when one of those real, history-pivoting moments happens, 9 times out of 10 the event is something bad--an assassination or a disaster or a sneak attack. How many times in an average life does the whole world change for the better, overnight? Those moments are worth remembering.

I met Lisa (papersource) ten years ago today. Happy anniversary, baby.

What did you think I was talking about?

(Further reading.)

Early this morning, a pack of clean-cut kids swarmed through our neighborhood and put up big American flags in front of every house on the street. I guess it's a Labor Day thing? I've got no problem with the flag but you don't need a PhD in U.S. history to know that the relationship between the U.S. flag and the international labor movement has had its ups and downs.

What's the collective noun for these roving bands of clean-cut youngsters, anyway? An emigration of Mormons? Whatever you call them, they're a regular feature of our new neighborhood. It actually reminds me of my childhood a little: kids playing up and down the street from dawn to dusk, knocking on the door after dinner to ask if the Ukelele can come out to play. We have lots of kids in our neighborhood at home, but you book your playdates three weeks in advance, and nobody goes nowhere without a car seat, helmet, and three chaperones. Don't these Utah kids know the wild spaces of childhood have been paved over, we're all paranoid helicopter parents now? Maybe they don't read the New York Review of Books. Or maybe it's just that they have such a surplus here, it's not so crucial to look after them.

( More Hilarious Observational Comedy, Utah Style )