There were people who knew what Al Qaeda could do, and what it was capable of doing. There were analysts who knew the case for war in Iraq was an ungodly blend of wishful thinking and stovepiped bullshit. There were generals who knew what Afghanistan has meant to twenty-five hundred years’ worth of invading armies. There were folksingers who sang eighty years ago about what happens when the levees break. There were politicians talking about “infrastructure” before the bridge collapsed. There were economists who saw the technology bubble — and, later, the housing bubble — for the threats that they were. And yet the towers fell and the city drowned and the economy ate itself, and the reaction in all three cases became the mantra for the first 3,650 days of the new century.
“Nobody could have predicted . . .” and fill in whatever the disaster du jour turned out to be.
from “The First 3,650 Days” by Charles P. Pierce in Esquire.
I learned of this piece — and of Pierce’s existence — thanks to this interview that Nieman Storyboard did about narrative journalism. Nieman Storyboard is on Twitter and they link to stuff that’s consistently worthwhile. To me. I care about narrative journalism. Maybe you do, too. Maybe you’re not sure what it is. Basically, it’s journalism that tells a story. I used to do a lot of it. Stuff like this, which readers really liked and — for reasons I don’t really get — can now only be seen if you’re willing to pay more than the cost of the entire Sunday paper it originally appeared in.
This is a subject that aggravates me. So let’s get back to Mr. Charles P. Pierce, creator of the quote at the top of this post. He has recently become a blogger. Just this week, actually. And while it’s not my habit to recommend blogs that are entirely new to me and while much of what he writes about doesn’t inherently interest me, I enjoyed what I read. Check it out here. Here’s a taste from his very first post, “The New Kid in Blogistan”:
What I do know is this — the issues in this blog are going to be my issues. The enthusiasms are going to be mine. The politics, when they appear, which may or may not be very often, are going to be left and they’re going to be loud. My blog is my house. You’re more than welcome to visit, and I hope you do, but I decide what gets hung on the wall. I decide what gets served for dinner. I decide what gets played on the sound system. If you don’t like my art, my food, or my music, you can put up with it, or you can start your own blog. It’s easy and fun.
He’s right, of course. You can start your own blog. It is fun. It can be easy — unless you’d like people to read it and then want to read it some more. And something this good? Not easy. Not easy at all.
