Friday, July 29, 2011

metaphors of ending


... and sunsets are as good as any in that respect.   In fact I'd been so concentrated on other things all day that I only just realised, in the last light of day, that I hadn't yet snagged a picture today.   But also - there have been few good sunsets this summer, because of the fires.   This proves that, even if 25-30% of their cover is now charred, the outline of the Jemez is still there.

So Harry Reid's choice of near-ending metaphor is that "the last train is just about to leave the station."   How many people in the US take a "last train"?   Is this designed to strike home to the riders on NJT?  (probably there's something more meaningful nearer to the beltway).   I don't think anything in the last ten years has brought home how weirdly and absurdly different the US system of government is - compared with Britain - than this debt-ceiling debate, in which the so-called left shuffle ever closer to the right of center, and the right shuffle further and further to the right of them.   Oh, and for some reason guys - or at least one guy - is allowed to cry.   Obama's desire to compromise has been a disastrous one, to my mind - and that's despite the fact that my own administrative/chairing tendencies have always lain in that direction.   I think there is a lesson to be learned here.   Meanwhile, the figurative deployment of a setting sun may seem pretty ominous on my part - and of course my gut tells me that things will all be sorted out at the very last minute.   And by that token, I wonder whether I would have fiddled whilst Rome burned, refused to believe in the French Revolution until I saw tumbrils accompanied by compulsive knitters rolling past my window, or whatever.


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