Tuesday, September 12, 2006

I Just Adore a Penthouse View

I work on the 8th floor (NE) of the Soviet architecture wannabe Hill Farms State Transportation Building (HFSB), overlooking the beautiful greens of Blackhawk Country club, the serene blue of Lake Mendota, and the gleaming white of the state Capitol building. More accurately, my coworkers overlook these glorious sights from their airy office spaces whilst I'm stuffed in a viewless, poorly lit, enclosed cubical with my back toward them. (I don't sound bitter, do I? I hope not.) But no more! My boss has bestowed upon me a much coveted window seat, for which I am most grateful. I should be reseated in October, in time to watch the Blackhawk grounds turn ablaze with autumn foliage.

Today's library trip netted me just $2.20 in fines and two books to add to my pile of Library Books Checked Out but Destined to Remain Unread, Unembedded: Four Independent Photojournalists on the War in Iraq and I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman by Nora Ephron. (Yes, my reading habits are a bit, uh, eclectic--some might even say odd.)

Now that Patriot Day has passed I feel free to abandon the Thumper's Mom Rule in favor of the Dorothy Parker Rule. Tim asked me why I was going to watch Bush's speech last night 'cause he thought it'd just get me worked up, but it didn't do much of anything. What I heard was akin to Charlie Brown's teacher's trombone riff: Whaaa Whaaa Whaaa. More of the same. Did anyone else hear anything new? I mean, really, he couldn't wait a full sentence before he said "September the 11th": They were his sixth, seventh, and eighth words.

Let's look at the words, shall we? Which key word do you think the War President spoke uttered most often? 9/11?

The winner is: TERROR

Here's the breakdown:
    terror/ism/ist......................................................17
    references & allusions to 9/11/2006....................16
      September the 11th (6)
      9/11 (9)
      a bright September morning (1)
    enemy/enemies....................................................13
    war, attack(s).........................................................9 each
    extremist(s)...........................................................6
    threat(s), Saddam Hussein......................................5
    evil, Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, violence...............3 each
    radical(ism)............................................................4
    kill, battle, horror (of 9/11)...................................2 each
    murder(ed), death, suffering, blow up...................1 each
    perverted, dictator, regime, tragedy.....................1 each
    ideology (totalitarian/hateful/extremist)..............1 each
    women prisoners, men beaten, repression.............1 each
    weapons of mass destruction, nukular weapons.....1 each
    launch attacks on us, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.....1 each

"FOUL!" you cry. And you're right. This is unscientific and biased, and I left out all the feel-good words. (To be fair to myself, I started counting the feel-goodies as well but grew bored--and I wanted to be slanted.) You want scientific and unbiased with feel-goodisms, put 'em in your own blog.

Cheers for now,
-b

Stay tuned: Tomorrow we make fun of Bush's metaphors.

No comments: