They come in threes
James Brown, Gerald Ford, Saddam Hussein.
What a weird week.
I don't know how long I will have to work in the news business before the surreal nature of major breaking news makes any more sense to me. We meet and meet and plan and plan and sketch and ponder and set up all these possible scenerios for how the news will play out so that we can hammer it through before the deadline lockdown. We are soothsayers, playing the odds. The whole process always reminds me of this:
Tonight I sat at my desk with a page layout in place as news came over the wire and through the tubes (both inter- and boob-) of Saddam Hussein's demise. It was oddly unceremonious. I know it's hard to mourn a dictator who'd been committing atrocities since around the time your parents were trying to teach you how to walk, but it still seemed odd just waiting for the word to come down so we could rip up the page and give the dead guy center stage. The dead guy who had, just minutes earlier, caught his last breath right before dangling to death. What a fucked-up way to go.
Who knows what this will mean for Iraq. Honestly I don't see it making a bit of difference. Saddam has been out of the equation for years now. If justice was served, great. If not, well, my art director got a hell of a layout out of the whole deal.
What a weird week.
I don't know how long I will have to work in the news business before the surreal nature of major breaking news makes any more sense to me. We meet and meet and plan and plan and sketch and ponder and set up all these possible scenerios for how the news will play out so that we can hammer it through before the deadline lockdown. We are soothsayers, playing the odds. The whole process always reminds me of this:
Tonight I sat at my desk with a page layout in place as news came over the wire and through the tubes (both inter- and boob-) of Saddam Hussein's demise. It was oddly unceremonious. I know it's hard to mourn a dictator who'd been committing atrocities since around the time your parents were trying to teach you how to walk, but it still seemed odd just waiting for the word to come down so we could rip up the page and give the dead guy center stage. The dead guy who had, just minutes earlier, caught his last breath right before dangling to death. What a fucked-up way to go.
Who knows what this will mean for Iraq. Honestly I don't see it making a bit of difference. Saddam has been out of the equation for years now. If justice was served, great. If not, well, my art director got a hell of a layout out of the whole deal.
posted by theogeo | 12/30/2006 02:34:00 AM
1 Comments:
Good riddance to Saddam, our former ally then our enemy then our ally and finally our enemy. He was the same evil dude the entire time, but based on our feelings about Iran, he took on different perspective and usefulness.
The contrast between Brown and Ford couldn't be greater. Definitely the king of soul and possibly the greatest performing dancer this country will ever see (check out the 'TAMI Show' if you can find it on CD somewhere) as well as the father of the funk movement.
Gerald, on the other hand, may have been the 'whitest' President since Calvin Coolidge.
Brown suffered with his demons thoughout his talented life. Ford was a decent transparent man who stood by his wife when she admitted to painkiller and alcohol addiction. He did pardon Nixon which he thought would be closure to the Watergate ordeal. Instead, it brought closure to his political life.
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