Posted by zeugma on March 8, 2006, at 15:19:49
In reply to Re: Frightening » zeugma, posted by AuntieMel on March 8, 2006, at 14:34:30
> I'm a stickler for grammar myself. I sometimes (on purpose) violate it - but for the most part errors make me cringe.
>
> I saw a book I had to buy. "Between you and I" The title is one of my pet peeves.
>
Violations of grammar, when purposeful, are very effective. It's a tool, really. Grammar is a game that can be played in many ways, and I get very picky when it comes to writers who can't play even one game correctly. But there's many ways to play it, and it says so much in itself (nonpolitical, well, I guess it is political in a way- the variations in dialects have been preoccupying me lately, and I enjoy the ways people express themselves. No, it's nonpolitical. I just like to hear what people say. )> But, the Port Authority isn't blameless on 9/11. They cut corners quite a bit in the building of the towers and those cost savings resulted in very few escape routes.>>
yes, when the towers were built in the 60's and early 70's. The Port Authority employees who were working in the area when the attacks occurred had nothing to do with that.
Cutting corners has tragic consequences. Short term savings= a disaster down the line. And it fosters a culture of carelessness, because if you didn't do the best you could in building the thing you rationalize it by saying that the extra escape routes were gratuitious anyway. And it's easy to say that when your budget has gone over by the time you started building. But carelessness has consequences.
>
> Have you read "102 Minutes"? I'm working on it now. I wouldn't have bought it, but a local columnist and a down-home kind of guy strongly recommended it. It's about people's fight to survive and it's really well done.
>
No, and as a narcoleptic individual involved in a fight to stay awake, survivalism was always a longer-range goal than, say, making sure I had enough coffee in the fridge. I'll check out the link, and I'd like to hear your comments.
> And, to be technical, the administration isn't selling the ports. We still own them. The administration of the ports was done by a British company who is selling the business to Dubai.
>
Yes. The issue is more complicated than usually presented.> Unfortunately, the company administering the ports isn't responsible for security. That job is still ours. From what I've seen the security in Dubai is better than ours and it could be an improvement.
>
Possible. American security is very flimsy, and one of my great suspicions is that this NSA thing is just a fabrication- not in the eyes of the Senators, of course, who are debating its legality- but a fiction made up to divert attention from the governmental problems with the CIA. A lot of CIA people have left because the Administration treated them badly. And what you get if you subtract experienced intelligence- not that the CIA doesn't have a lot to answer for, but you have to have something- is what a lot of people call "the biggest fishing expedition on earth." Like the random searches I'm warned about every day.
> What part of the North East are you from?
>
New York City. Lived here all my life.And you?
-z
poster:zeugma
thread:617327
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20060304/msgs/617566.html