Exception to the rule

Okay, I’ve said long and hard that I wasn’t just going to link a story and run away. I’ve said I wasn’t going to write about politics. I’ve even done a couple pieces on the recent anti-war protests in Washington D.C. I pledged I was going to write more about myself.

And then I caught this.


Valerie Lucznikowska, a 64-year-old Manhattanite and public relations executive, carried a sign with a picture of her 37-year-old nephew, Adam Arias, who was killed as he fled from the World Trade Center. The legend: "Not in His Name."

Lucznikowska is a Democratic activist who thinks her party "eviscerated itself" by endorsing the war resolution in Congress. She resents the idea that bombing Baghdad would somehow ease the suffering of the victims' families. "The 9/11 families can't be healed by seeing other people's families being destroyed," she says grimly.

Through the Internet she met a gentle-spoken veterinarian from Durham, N.H., whose husband died in a United flight heading for Los Angeles on 9/11. Bob LeBlanc was a geography professor at the University of New Hampshire, and he loved to travel. Their tickets for India were on his desk the day he died.

His wife lost interest in life. Lucznikowska talked Andrea LeBlanc into the peace march.

"For the first time, I felt better," LeBlanc said of the cold day. "I think my husband was right there with me. I felt as though I were in a river of peaceful people."


Something to cheer you up, I guess

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the unholy union of Mr. Spock and Tolkien. It's so foul and out there, I wouldn't be surprised if I die a week after watching this.

You need Quicktime to view it. It's so worth it.

Now I know why the “evildoers” hate America. It’s even beyond Vogon poetry. If you were trapped in The Village from “The Prisoner,” this would be on their VH-1.

Incidentally, I have learned Radiohead did a cover of this. I so need a copy.

Today’s Word: Graphic

From One Word

Could be gross. Could be an arty novel. Could be a type of design that I can't do. Wish I could draw. Life would be so much different, to move beyond the banal, two dimensionality of words. Ah, envy again.