Daily Blague

Good Morning! It's a cold, wet Monday, and the Times is correspondingly cheering.

¶ As Profits Soar, Companies Pay US Less for Gas Rights

¶ Seeking Edge in Spy Debate

¶ In a Stronghold, Fatah Fights To Beat Back a Rising Hamas

¶ Potent Mexican Meth Floods In As States Curb Domestic Variety

¶ Held in 9/11 Net, Muslims Return To Accuse US

¶ Answering the Fire Bell in the Company of Women [an upbeat story, but not exactly front-page news]

And "Inside":

¶ New Orleans Hospital System Overwhelmed

¶ Another Warning From Iran

¶ Deal for ABC Radio Is Near

¶ A Big Story With Big Risks [Jill Carroll's captivity]

¶ Prime-Time Moves at NBC

And what do I do when I finish reading the paper? I pick up The Stories of John Cheever and read "The Country Husband," a masterpiece that returned me to the suburban emptiness of my childhood. Francis Weed, Cheever's protagonist, is roused from his utterly unreflective commuting life by touches of violence - the emergency landing of an airliner in a Pennsylvania cornfield (nobody's hurt), and an encounter of sorts with a woman whom he recognizes as a collaborator who was shaved and stripped while he and a few other GIs stood by - and primed, as it were, to fall in love with the first beautiful girl he sees. Besotted, Francis embarks on a half-willed course of destroying his life, but is saved before any permanent damage has been done by a psychiatrist who recommends woodwork. Woodwork works. Francis calms down and rediscovers domestic happiness.

Looking around, I see a nation that is manifestly not in great shape. Our res publica, as the first Times story indicates, is steadily passing into the hands of private interests; I sense that many Americans, dimly aware of this, would rather liquidate public holdings than share them with their fellow-citizens, rather as if we were all contentious siblings squabbling over an estate. Cheever's story, however, reminds me of a more somnolent era. The country was apparently healthier, but its managerial class was living in whited sepulchres. In many ways, life back then was worse.

Until very recently, I've always felt that things were getting better, more or less, overall. Serious problems lay ahead, but we would figure out how to deal with them. Five years of Dubya and his minions, however, have shown me how naive I was, how untested my optimism. I'm still hopeful; the United States may be the mega whatever but once you factor out its energy consumption and its production of pap, it's not such a big deal. But we have a lot of fixing to do here. More than just woodwork, I'm afraid.