Stories for February 2003

February 25, 2003

Par for the Parental Course

That sound. I am driving my daughter to school. We have been on the road for almost an hour, twice as long as it should take us to get downtown. And we are almost there. She sits in her backseat…


February 22, 2003

Empire Building Makes Strange Bedfellows

Just three days removed from these events, Americans do not yet have the distance of history. But our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil. War has been waged against…


February 18, 2003

Still Snowbound

We are still snowbound. The main roads have been cleared. And our driveway has been excavated from the knee-deep snow. But the county has not made even an initial run down our street with its snow removal truck. The government…


February 16, 2003

Building a Snowbound Containment Field

It’s snowing. It’s really snowing. According the weather bureau, this is the second worst snowstorm in recorded history. And, wouldn’t you know it: not only on a weekend but a holiday weekend. But we are prepared. In between storms…


February 15, 2003

Which is Scarier: Incident No. 2

Which is scarier: the fact that a man was gunned down in broad daylight at a gas station in Washington, DC and no one did anything to help him or that, in another part of the city we were…


February 12, 2003

Reality TV verses Reality: It’s a Toss Up

Which is scarier: Osama bin Laden’s recent tape or Michael Jackson’s? Each, in its own way, is a reflection on our society and speaks volumes about our values. Osama thinks he can change the world by killing infidels (innocent…


February 5, 2003

Not Waiting for the Earth to Stand Still

I was a good boy. The kind of boy every parent would love. I did everything I was told as a child and even believed everything my parents told me. As I look back now, fear was just as…