This weekend's top story from the Post magazine reviews how 9/11 changed U.S. society in every way imaginable. The only thing I have to add to that is that 20 years later, the pandemic changed everything too.
Perhaps the most touching memory of 9/11 in the piece is from the Post's humor editor. "All humor ended," he wrote. "From the moment of the first attack, it took 5 days 2 hours 8 minutes and I second before the first known instance of someone sending humor over email..."
Of course, behind great humor lies great pain, so our humor will never die.
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Over to the foggy city by hired car last night and down into the Mission and lower 24th Street to a little romantic tapas place with a patio, so no need for the QR code image I carry around to prove I am vaccinated.
The food was great, the company was great, everything as great. Later on, back in another hired car, I was ushered back out of the city alone, its bright lights twinkling east, west, north and south.
Thankfully, my driver stayed silent the whole way.
Alone, late at night, I thought about how when we sit in a restaurant and have a nice time, we can see each other but we can't see ourselves. There may be a security camera watching -- a conceit the film "My Blueberry Nights" with the lovely Norah Jones makes perfect use of.
But we rarely see ourselves reliving those moments.
One of the oddest things in life is that we cannot see ourselves. With a mirror, the light reflecting from our face hits the smooth surface and bounces back at the same angle, creating the illusion of an image. So that's as good as it gets.
We can see others, however; and they can see us. Love is when we reflect back what we see in one another's eyes, even when it may not be objectively beautiful.
And true love is when what you see in each other is beautiful, no matter what mirrors or security cameras say. Photons truly absorbed, that's what I call it.
So the correct word is melancholy -- that was my mood. And it stayed with me throughout a dreamless night, and when I got up shortly before dawn to see if anybody was wanting to be in touch, to discover:
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THE HEADLINES:
* 9/11 20 years later: How TV, art, education, bigotry, country music, fiction, policing and love have changed (WP)
* Biden’s Sweeping Vaccine Mandates Infuriate Republican Governors (NYT)
* GOP governors threaten to sue over vaccine mandates; Biden says, ‘Have at it’ (WP)
* Federal Research Bolsters the Case for Vaccine Mandates (NYT)
* How many people will quit their jobs over Biden’s vaccine mandate? (WP)
* U.S. could authorize Pfizer COVID-19 shot for kids age 5-11 in October (Reuters)
* Biden Is Right: Vaccine Refusal ‘Has Cost All of Us’ -- Requiring Covid vaccines is necessary to safeguard the country. (Editorial Board/NYT)
* Biden thought he could persuade vaccine skeptics. He couldn’t. So he embraced mandates. (WP)
* Crowded stadiums, pandemic create combustible mix this fall (AP)
* Biden’s Vaccine Push Aligns Him With a Fed-Up, Vaccinated Majority (NYT)
* Biden’s vaccine rules to set off barrage of legal challenges (AP)
* ‘Dreamers’ Await Senate Parliamentarian’s Ruling on Reconciliation Package --The fate of young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children has become wedded to Democrats’ $3.5 trillion social-welfare package, with a key decision on its Senate path expected within days. (WSJ)
* Pro-Taliban women rally in Kabul as female civil servants barred from work (WP)
| * Opinion: America’s been in a two-decade ‘suck’ since 9/11. And we have no one to blame but ourselves (SF Chronicle) |
* On 20th anniversary, Biden finds closing the book on 9/11 fraught with perils and uncertainty (WP)
* VIDEO: Zebras Spotted Roaming Behind Maryland Home -- Five zebras were filmed walking behind a house in Prince George’s County. The animals have been on the loose since escaping from a nearby farm. (NYT)
* Man Who Thought He'd Lost All Hope Loses Last Additional Bit Of Hope He Didn't Even Know He Still Had (The Onion)
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"When I See U" (excerpt)
Fantasia
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