Thursday in the Airport Open Thread

"Going to Georgia" - Mountain Goats

What with seeing a sign to Macon on my way to the airport today and all of the madness about guns, this song naturally came to mind.  Well worth listening to the monologue that John Darnielle gives -- he is a hilarious story teller -- as to what inspired the song.

Anyway, stuck in Charlotte, but now my flight is less late than previously predicted.  These are the small victories of today's air travel.

- I recommend this piece by Duncan Black in USA Today -- I know -- on the failure of the 401(k) experiment.  It makes me think Atrios should stretch out and write from time to time.  The guy's good.

- All we need is more good guys with guns folks.  What could go wrong?  The panicky shooting of innocent newspaper deliverers by the cops pretty much shoots that argument in the head, as it were. 

Alright, make your own fun.  I'll be in NYC in a couple of hours.

Comments

[kathy a.]

well, at least your flight is less delayed...

this shooting spree by the former cop is very freaky, and it just keeps getting worse. especially bad is that he is targeting not only cops, but family members of cops. and he is covering some ground, too -- OC, san diego, riverside, and his truck found burned near big bear (in the mountains north of riverside).

he's also a vet -- just discharged from the navy reserve, and apparently he was trained for and did combat.

the first shooting deaths were the daughter of a former police officer (who later was the shooter's lawyer?!), and her fiance (a campus safety officer at USC). the manifesto is horrifying. i'm prepared to believe there is some truth in his allegations about LAPD, but he has gone over the freaking edge by a few miles.

[paula]

Sir C---I assume you know you are flying into a city preparing for a blizzard. It will be much worse in Boston, and we're expecting 2 feet out here in the mountains, just not as much wind as nearer the coast. Good luck!

[Sir Charles]

Paula,

I do. I am catching an afternoon train back to DC tomorrow. Usually that is a reasonably safe bet in the snow. It seems like the storm is not going to be much south of NYC so I am hopeful.

[big bad wolf]

i think it is important that we all remember that if the police shot them, there was good reason to shoot them. we cannot have a breakdown in public order.

good luck SC

[kathy a.]

BBW gets the snark award for the evening.

safe travels, SC.

[Eric Wilde]

Hopefully you arrived safe and sound, SC.

Happy Friday!

[Sir Charles]

I did. Now hopefully can get out on a 3:30 train.

Actually right now snow has turned to rain so it is not too dramatic right now.

[Joe S]

"bbw, the policeman isn't there to create disorder. The policeman are there to preserve disorder." See attached:http://youtu.be/Z_PQaT-I0zc

[paula]

Things are starting to pick up here, but it's nowhere near as bad in western Mass as it is on Nantucket Island, where Jan a/k/a JaninSasnFran)is. She's taking a direct hit and has lost power, but has a generator. NECN says wind gusts there have been clocked at near 80 mph. Jan is posting on her blog whenever she can, and should have some exciting tales to tell when this is all over.
FYI, all roads have been closed since 4 p.m., statewide. Airports are closed, trains have stopped running and so have ferries, so she's stuck out there for the duration, no matter what.

[nancy]

Paula, the contrast from here is remarkable. Inland PNW in mid February is registering like late March, early April for us. Robins were spotted this week.

High winds are scary, no matter the season. Stay safe all of you Northeasterners. Wow. Soon up is tornado season.

Let's bury those power lines shall we.

[paula]

this is essentially a winter hurricane. it has stalled 150 mi S of Nantucket, and will continue at about the same strength, will it picks up more moisture. By 7 a.m., it will be at 968 mb (it's lowest, we hope), and should start moving north.
Jan hasn't posted in almost 2 hours, so it's unclear what's going on with her. Maybe their generator ran out of fuel.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

My best to all of you North of me. So far we are on the fringes, but we are still piling up the snow -- but nothing like MA. (And for some reason, my part of Brooklyn has been very lucky the last couple of storms. Sandy did no damage at all around here, or the previous one -- though there was that one time when so many trees came down -- that picture of the tree crushing the car was two blocks from me -- and one of the lckiest things that has happened to me was that the tree in front of our property fell over, and couldn't have been aimed better to avoid any damage, right between cars and supported by a fence.)

Anyway, my best wishes to all of you, and especially Jan who seems to need them the most -- though I notice we haven't heard from oddjob recently.

[low-tech cyclist]

Down here in southern Maryland, no snow (none was expected) but the wind has been howling all night. The NWS says we've got 20-30 mph winds, and gusts up to 45. But bare trees don't get blown over easily, so we ought to be OK around here.

Hope the morning finds all you northeastern folks safe and sound!

[paula]

Thanks for the support, guys. We were warm, dry and shoveled out of about 2 feet of snow before 11 on the morning after Snowmageddon! Not everyone was as lucky, as you know. The wind played havoc with our lights, but the power held, thank goodness, since the condo is all electric (ugh). Our other option is to move up to a cabin 30 miles north in Vermont, where we have a wood stove. Power there is dicey even on a sunny day, and phone doesn't work in wind or rain, so that's always a last resort, unless we want to really rough it. As it turned out, we're under a travel ban in MA, so couldn't move if we wanted to. So, we've got a great snow day ahead of us, which we intend to spend drinking hot chocolate (or toddies) and watching old movies, with one eye on the sparkling white vista just outside the bay window. Thank you, snow gods! I sincerely hope Jan made out as well, but she hasn't posted since about 10 last night. She says they have a generator but phone and cable lines are probably down, so she can't get online. At least, I hope that's all it is. Will let you know if I hear anything.

[Sir Charles]

Hey,

Hope all of our Massachusetts friends are doing okay.

With the wind and the thunder, it sounds a lot like 1978, which was a truly extraordinary storm.

My parents say that they think that they got between 24 and 28 inches and that the guy who plows their driveway got stuck there today for a couple of hours.

Sounds like an excellent day to spend indoors.

Our best to you Paula, and Jan and oddjob and the rest.

Fire up the DVR (if you have power) and have a hot toddy.

[kathy a.]

yes, best to everyone suffering the storm. oddjob, thinking of you. paula, glad you are OK, and thanks for the heads up about jan. (we do not get snow, much less snowmageddon, in the SF bay area!)

[kathy a.]

sir charles, glad the folks are OK. but that's a lot of snow!

[janinsanfran]

We're up again here on Martha's Vineyard. Good generator kept us warm, but that didn't do anything for cable service. We're so far out in the country that I have no idea what is happening anywhere outside my sight lines. Will have to go out later and shovel 20 inch drifts.

We had sleet before snow, so the windows all appear frozen over. Interesting look.

[kathy a.]

jan -- so glad you are OK, that the generator is working, and you are back online!

[big bad wolf]

this is excellent

[big bad wolf]

Joe, that's great

[nancy]

Joe, seems like only yesterday...love the fez. :)

bbw, I agree -- that's some excellent reporting and analysis. Reminds me also of how much the John Kerry 'what if' election could have changed our course.

Here's more from Bacevich: Counterculture Conservatism , a column he wrote for this week's 'American Conservative'. I think he's [mostly] correct in the abstract, but where are such critters he writes of to be found? Wildebeests I afraid.

[nancy]

I know. 'American Conservative.' Cogblog. Must be a first-ever-such link here. I'll accept the WTFs. :)

[big bad wolf]

no WTF from me, nancy. i have argued here, unsuccessfully, that the demonization of the word conservative by our side following its appropriation by revanchists has been an unhelpful event. it's not unhelpful to have a strain that says be careful the baby doesn't go out with the bathwater. and bacevich is, i think, correct, that the left is very susceptible to the next new thing that explains it all, a tendency that has become widespread across the system with the advent of the 24-hour news cycle and the demand for entertaining content. he's wrong, i think, that much (other than, sadly, war and other acts of force) gets enacted or changed in a way that is other than cautious, which is not the same as conservative. cautious tends, i think, to be about personal short-term calculation, not about thought-out decisions as to what is worth keeping.

i think that the folks he talks about may be out there, i find from talking with people that there are a lot of people, even in greater texas, who have more nuanced views on war and gay marriage and government than their party votes suggest. the fired-up false dichotomy that the revanchist right and the fireworks-obsessed media has created obscures this and hampers what might be a greater level of agreed-upon progress than we usually achieve. this is not a let's-all-play nice argument. this is a let's throw out the revanchists and see if the rest of us can talk argument.

plus, in the end, if one disagrees with everything i say here, conservative is a good word, and one to be preserved for the future so they can discuss what it might have meant had we at least applied it to the planet that once was more suitable to human habitation.

[low-tech cyclist]

I'm skeptical, bbw. I run into otherwise sane people who, when you start talking politics with them, tell you why global warming is a hoax, or that the Community Reinvestment Act of 1978 caused the subprime crisis. And I'm in Maryland, a half-hour drive from the Capital Beltway. This being a socially liberal area, they tend to be OK with gay rights and stuff, but they're also OK with the the GOP's opposition to it, and can always come up with a justification for why the latest Republican crackpottery (e.g. barriers to voting) is reasonable.

I will believe in 'reasonable conservatives/Republicans' when they organize and are numerous enough to have an impact.

[paula]

L-tc: The people you talk to probably were fed the usual bullshit by Limbaugh and friends. It's almost impossible to escape the reach of crack-pot radio in this county, no matter how liberal the state. We have no Fox radio stations in our area (but a Fox TV affiliate with local news provided by the local ABC affiliate, oddly enough) and a friend of mine who moved nearby from southern California recently said he was willing to put up with the snow and cold in western NE to not have to be around people who lived off Fox talk/news radio.

[kathy a.]

it's true, the meaning of the word "conservative" has been appropriated and misused.

i had to look up the word "revanchists" -- bbw is a linguistic show-off -- but love it! those who seek retaliation, revenge, public policies intended to regain lost standing. perfect.

paula, i was going to ask what part of so cal -- some parts are more retrogressive than others -- but the squawk radio is widely available throughout the region.

[Joe S]

@nancy, I read the Bacevich piece, and I thought it was odd that he cited William Appleman Williams as an avatar of American conservatism. I had to read WAW's books in college as part of my history of American foreign policy course. He was held up as an example of Marxist/socialist theories of foreign policy. I get that out of Jim Pinkerton as well who seems to pepper his ideas with Marxist critiques of American capitalism (down to referring to the Underclass as the Lumpen Proletariat). When did Marxists and old-style socialists become conservatives ?

[oddjob]

I suffered no power outages, so I'm fine.

I'm not sure how much snow Lynn got as a matter of record. I think it was probably somewhere around 2' where I live. The sidewalk in front of my townhouse is still blocked with 3'-5' drifts.

Today it's going to rain on that....

:(