A couple of paragraphs I read recently made me think about the world around me. And then there was some sad news more personal and closer to home.
"The drone and surveillance program, like much of counterterrorism today, are driven principally by two phenomena: on the one hand, previously unthinkable terrorist threats, and on the other, equally unanticipated technological developments. These twin factors have motivated and enabled security agencies to undertake measures that were once impossible--and to do so in secret, without the awareness, much less approval of the people on whose behalf they act." (David Cole, Must Counterterrorism Cancel Democracy, The New York Review of Books, January 5, 2015. Pg 26.)
Thirteen years after 9/11, much thinking is looking back. At 9/11, I, and most Americans, did not care what the security agencies did with or without our approval. We only wanted to strike back. We did not ask to be consulted then; why now complain?
"When my mom picked me up at the airport from my LaGuardia flight, she was wearing a designer coat she got on eBay. It was too tight, and it made her look like she was hunchback. She hadn't been washing her hair, and she had a pronounced bald spot . It was Thanksgiving, in 2009." (Amie Barrodale, My Mother's Apartment, Harper's, December, 2014.Pg. 38.)
My mom never picked me up at any airport nor bought clothes on eBay. As she got older she was fastidious about her hair and had it done almost weekly. Amie has written ten short stories, all revolving around her mother.
Closer to home, my brother-in-law, Edward Cooper, died January 8 in Florida early in the morning. A few hours later his sister, Bertha Cooper Westbury McMillan, died in Georgetown, S.C., where she was born and lived all of her life.
At my marriage to Mary Cooper in 1954, Edward walked his sister down the aisle and gave her in marriage; Bertha and Mary were always close as sisters ought to be. I visited Bertha and her husband Harold, in December 2014.
