Succumbing

"When the country falls into chaos, patriotism is born."
--Tao te Ching

What doesn't surprise me but does, I suppose, unnerve me, is the general consensus that this was an act of war and the overriding astonishment that this sort of thing could happen in America. "We're not safe anymore!" people exclaim.

Of course we're not. We never were. "Find the security holes" is a game I've played ever since childhood. And I've never agreed that most terrorists want to get out alive, which is an assumption upon which most deterrence methods are based.

There will always be a lunatic fringe. You will never be able to predict them. Yes, it's reassuring to believe that everything is planned by large shadow organizations, but that isn't really where the danger lies.

So we're not safe. Nobody is. Life isn't safe.

Live.

Birth of a Jackson

On Sunday, Kim finally emptied her uterine cavity and into the world came an expressive little man with a pronounced oral fixation. His fingers and toes are all in the right order, he only cries if there's something wrong, and he always seems on the verge of speaking.

I think we're going to get along pretty well.

I take full credit for his birth, of course. We waited for about 15 hours, and then I decided we should leave and get something to eat, operating on the same principle which comes into effect in restauraunts -- if you want your food to arrive, go to the bathroom. Inevitably, that is when it comes.

When Val and I got back from Taco Bueno, Jackson had just been born.

It's amazing how resistant everyone was to the idea of our leaving even for a second. Val's theory is that they were jealous of us, but I think it played on their insecurities -- if we could joke around and leave, then maybe they were unneccessary too.

Which they were, of course.

While Eating Pomegranites. . .

I hate it when I'm maudlin. If it is vexing in others, it is doubly so in myself.