The train to Buffalo isn't just the train to Buffalo, it's the train to everywhere in between New York City and Buffalo. Announcing a train departure properly can't help but have more personality than an airport speaker's monotone statement that 1st class passengers are now welcome to step onto flight somethingoranother going to whothehellreallycares. But there was one guy at Grand Central when I was growing up who could really do it right. I can still remember:
"Now boarding at Gate Number twenty-three, Platform A, Train Number 63, The Lake Shore Limited 2:30 departure for Buffalo. Making station stops at Crrrrrrr-Oton HarmonPoughkeepsieRhinecliff HudsonAllll-Bany Rensselaer. Schnectady. AmsterdamUticaRomeSyracuseRochesterBufffffff-Alo Depew! Continuting on to Erie. Cleveland. Chicago. Connect at Chicago for Allllllllll points west and south. Now departing Gate Number Twenty-Three Alllllll-A-bo-oard!"
It had rhythm and poetry. It was a performance in the spoken word. And I miss that magic.
It's appropriate on the eve of my own wedding, but my favorite poem about trains is "The Whitsun Weddings." It's here. You won't regret the read.
If the Israeli pols are doing this to win an election, or to demonstrate a "don't fuck with the Jews" bravado, it's clearly unjust. If they're doing it because they honestly think it is the best way to advance peace, their consciences, while troubled, may be clear.
Could the emergence of dramatically equal forms of marriage strengthen the model of male-female equality within straight marriage and undermine slightly the fundamentalist insistence on the subordination of wives? Yes. But only in so far as 1 percent of marriages change the 99 percent. The Christianist right always under-estimate the cultural power of the 99 percent with respect to the 1.
There is no "just war" excuse for Hamas' murderous terrorism or for its refusal to acknowledge or peacefully co-exist with Israel. But there's no reading of traditional just war theory that can defend what Israel is now doing.
The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How to Get It Back
