Man in Black

I saw a rock start at the airport last week: a scary looking man with an aura about him.

He had black hair: long, jet-black hair, cascading in tight curls down the front and back of his black shirt. He had shiny, tight-fitting black pants that looked like leather from a distance, but were probably polyester; they flared in a bell over his black leather boots. A black wallet in his back pocket was attached to his belt by a long, looping chain.

In his hands, the man held a single red rose. He held it along with two paperbacks. The nails on his fingers were painted in black and silver, so the rose wasn't the first thing you noticed when you looked at him. But eventually it made itself known, peeking out from under the books, contrasting with all the black that he wore.

While we waited for the plane, he took out a cell phone and called up his mom. He spoke to her in a caring voice, thanking her and his grandmother for what they had done.

Mom, can you give me Grandma's number, he asked. I don't have it with me.

Wait, he said. Let me find a pen. And he juggled the books and the rose and a pack.

Use my pencil, I said, holding one out to him. He didn't hear me and told his mom again to wait. Here, I repeated. Use this pencil.

He looked up, briefly surprised and then said thank you and jotted the phone number down, returning the pencil when he was done.

Thank you very much, he said and proceeded to dial his grandmother's number. She wasn't home. So he left a long thank you message ending with I love you Grandma. and resumed his waiting in line.

He was standing behind an old couple: a man in loose clothes and tennis shoes and a woman who looked as if she were going on vacation. He said something in passing to them, and they said something smiling back. The three of them then proceeded to chat with fair animation until our airplane arrived.

On board, he sat down in a seat near the back. After only a few moments, he leaned forward and tapped a man in front of him on the arm. The man looked back from across the aisle. He was a football-looking man, a marine-looking man, and looked back in doubtful curiosity at the man in the black. The man in the black spoke quietly, evidently asking a question, to which the marine-man nodded. The man in black spoke again, and the marine-man responded. Their conversation never stopped, and when they got up to get off the plane, the marine-man reached over to the man in black and shook his hand firmly and said, Good luck!

I saw a rock star in the airport last week: a scary looking man with an aura about him. But if you looked long enough, if you watched him and listened, you'd realize that his aura was not what you'd expect.

2:52:11 PM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []  

Privatization?

Of the many things that Enron taught us, perhaps the most important (for after all, all the other lessons will be forgotten soon) is the notion that publicly run utilities are a good thing.

In the midst of the energy crisis in California, those who cried foul and claimed that it was all a hoax were universally derided as paranoid. Even my cynicism couldn't muster the courage to make such outrageous claims. Yet now we see the truth as the rascals start confessing:

Enron Corp.'s [...] former top energy trader pleaded guilty to criminal fraud charges on Thursday, admitting he was part of a conspiracy to artificially boost power prices during California's devastating energy crisis. [Reuters]

The notion that utilities are perhaps not managed in the public's best interest by a corporation whose sole interests are profit or shareholder value was a bit too radical prior to this whole Enron affair, but now things look less bleak, and the notion that perhaps the public good is best served by public utilities has less of a heretical ring about it. Evidently they feel that way in Louisiana, where an effort to privatize the water supply has fallen flat:

In a landmark vote with repercussions that will ripple through the nation, the largest proposed municipal water privatization in the United States was rejected today by the New Orleans Water and Sewerage Board. Citizens fighting to keep water in the public trust have triumphed over a private company[base ']s profit-seeking venture. [Public Citizen]

9:30:46 AM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []