Taxidermy

I'd like to go back to when we played as kids.
Things change.
That's just the way it is.

Something beautiful in the unfulfilled: the potential of every moment to be great or terrible or never to happen at all.

Life is made up of these fleeting connections, ephemeral relationships that would be worthless were they permanent. And yet that's what gives life meaning. Of course longevity is valuable in itself, but things are in constant flux. People from the past lose significance in the present, only to regain it in the future. The necessities of the person you are today, different than who you were yesterday, create new connections and destroy old, and then you fucking die.

This is starting to sound really positive.

Can you imagine being Obama? Every friendship you develop as president is colored by the fact that everyone you meet has wrapped your face up in the threads of an historical narrative. Every friendship you developed before you were president is locked into the state it was before it became colored by the arc of history. What happens if you're one of the people rotating into the whitehouse to keep Obama company--one of his friends--and you realize that you and Obama really aren't that close? I guess you shut up.

David Brooks has me worried about the stumulus package. Krugman says it's not enough money. Brooks says it's too much money to spend effectively. It seems both might be right. The republicans are wrong: buisiness tax cuts won't stimulate employment in this environment. What about bailing out state governments? What about bailing out Halliburton? Can we still do that?