The Public and the Personal

[gurdonark]

Today on the way back from a hearing, I listened to calm commentators discuss the reality of low-grade nuclear weapons as a "conventional weapon option". The "other white heat", I suppose. I suppose I should discuss my complex and troubled feelings about this, and then stray off into Trumann's Dilemma, a far more difficult "choice" than the Styron novel. On the drive, though, I thought instead of C.P. Snow's novel Corridors of Power. Very nice stuff, if you've not read it--a book about politics in real life as opposed to politics in the abstract. The book tells the tale of the downfall of a Tory politician over a matter of principle--an effort by the cabinet member to disarm the UK. It's got a lot of the jarring "vote in the commons" stuff you'd expect, but it's the "other key plot" which
makes the book stand out. While Roger, the lead character, is dissolving his political career on the altar of conscience, he is simultaneously dissolving his marriage on the altar of new love. A public life, a private life, but really all one life. How do they intertwine? How does one affect the other? Snow shows us the issue, but wisely leaves us without an answer...

My first card, to the woman in MI, is returned for postage.
One thing about that mail art, it requires a stamp.
The weather broke 80 today. Soon will be the season I love the best--that interval which is not quite spring but well past winter.