You ARE talking about Li'l Boots, are you not? He was clinically insane, from all I've read.

After the Julio-Claudians, Vespasian must have looked like Augustus Reborn. And note: Vespasian presided over a very visible First Turning. What was the Turning during Caligula's reign, can any Roman historian tell?

Originally Posted by Idiot Girl

You ARE talking about Li'l Boots, are you not? He was clinically insane, from all I've read.

After the Julio-Claudians, Vespasian must have looked like Augustus Reborn. And note: Vespasian presided over a very visible First Turning. What was the Turning during Caligula's reign, can any Roman historian tell?

If I had to guess, I'd say late 2T or early 3T.

A small thing, certainly not a calamity or catastrophe...
Presented purely for your educational pleasure, my good people
....

Tuesday, September 6, 2005
Etiquette is making a comeback, with children leading the way

By KRISTIN DIZON
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Seventeen out of 18 hands shot up, affirming that all but one of the teens at a two-day etiquette class -- held as their precious summer waned -- were there under parental order.


PAUL JOSEPH BROWN / P-I
At Mrs. DeGroot's Wallingford Charm School, children walk with Nancy Drew books on their heads, aiming for statuesque posture. Frances Foody, 7, front, is about to lose her book as she heads toward her goal, a jar of candy. Dawn DeGroot is at the left.
The instructor, Deborah King, founder of Final Touch Finishing School, was not surprised. "Seldom does anyone want to take a class on manners," said King, who teaches mostly in Seattle and Dallas.

In an era when manners and graciousness are vanishing like the polar ice cap, championing etiquette may seem like pushing back a tidal wave with your bare hands. Life has become casual enough that young women feel fine wearing flip-flops to the White House and informal enough that many people don't R.S.V.P. or send a thank-you note. But others are hungry for a little civility, and etiquette instructors such as King are busier than ever.

Most of the kids said the class wasn't boring or cheesy, as they'd expected. "We learned how to respect people more and, like, be nice to elders," said Shazia Shafaat, 13, of Everett. "We don't want to seem like idiots in front of people."

Etiquette, King explains, is rules for the game of life. To introduce the concept, King plays tick-tack-toe with Casey Shane, 16, of Bellevue. On her second turn, she cheats, filling in two squares -- thus capturing a row and stunning Shane. When she asks whether people could get along without following the rules, the students reply that it would be difficult and cause bickering.

"How many of you love rules?" she asked her charges, whose parents had paid $195 for two eight-hour days of "Basic Training." Just one hand snaked up, tentatively.


PAUL JOSEPH BROWN / P-I
During a Final Touch Finishing School class, teens are served a three-course lunch, after the boys seat the girls. They're reminded, "No shovels: We want to hold our utensils like a pencil, not like a shovel. No body parts on the table. Good posture. A hand-space away."
"If we had no rules in school, wouldn't that be great?" she pressed. Several students agreed, but one said, "No -- no one would stay in class."

Seizing opportunity, King pounced. "It'd be chaos, wouldn't it? People might steal your lunch or your backpack or beat you up."

But King is far from a stern-faced mistress. A tidy, trim blonde with well-coiffed hair, ramrod straight posture and a crisp manicure, King wears a constant smile.

"A smile is powerful," King says. "It says, 'I'm happy, I'm confident.' It draws people to you."

She tells the teens to watch their non-verbal cues: posture, eye contact, body language, dress. "Attitude is everything," King says. "You are communicating every day -- 24 hours a day."

And, as King likes to say, "No one tells you when you flunk social skills."

A cell phone rings. King turns to its owner and pronounces it a good learning opportunity -- another favorite phrase. She reminds the kids to keep phones off during classes, meetings or when spending time with others.

Upholders of etiquette squarely pin the decline on the wild-child late '60s and the free-to-be-me '70s. "We're in the third generation of people who've lost touch with what's appropriate for behavior," said King, who believes manners were tossed out like burnt bras and draft cards.

She and others are calling for a return to graciousness.

One of Dawn DeGroot's favorite sayings is: "If you know better, you do better." The head of Mrs. DeGroot's Wallingford Charm School says etiquette isn't too much to ask. "You know, the rules aren't so strict," she said. "They're quite beautiful -- sending a thank-you note, coming with a hostess gift."

For several years, DeGroot has been teaching etiquette almost exclusively to children.

"I started thinking more about etiquette when I was about to have my own child," said DeGroot, whose daughter is now 11. "I panicked, because I thought I didn't like children very much. But then I realized that I don't like children with bad manners."

In class, King and DeGroot proffer the carrots of etiquette: jobs, promotions, spouses, and being seen as a role model.

King tells her students: "I promise you this -- when you practice good manners, people notice, and in a positive way."

Sometimes, there are more immediate incentives -- particularly, candy.

After showing the group how to introduce themselves, with eye contact and a correct handshake -- "web to web, nice and firm," with two to three pumps that are neither limp nor bone-crushing -- King demonstrates the proper way to eat candy. Grasping the wrapper at the bottom to avoid chocolate smudges, she takes smallish bites.

The class also covers how to generate conversation (with the art of the open-ended question); combating the epidemic of filler words -- like, you know, um, hey, yeah -- etc.; tips for dressing and grooming; phone and e-mail manners; and miscellanea such as not leaning against a wall while standing in line and always allowing adults to enter an elevator first (who knew?).

During their second eight-hour day, the teens are served a three-course lunch, after the boys seat the girls. They learn to avoid talk of politics or religion with people they don't know; to break off a small portion of bread to butter it; to cut meat with the grain; how to give a toast.

King doles out reminders. "No shovels: We want to hold our utensils like a pencil, not like a shovel," she says. "No body parts on the table. Good posture. A hand-space away."

Many, like Stefanie Bigornia, 12, try the continental style of dining for the first time. "My dad needs to take this class," Stefanie exclaims.

It's a lot to take in, but, amazingly, the kids seem interested and engaged.

Ryan Kemper, 16, of West Seattle, said, "I'm sure this will help me," noting that nutritional advice to cut down on his eight cans of soda a day was eye-opening. "I think my friends are going to laugh at me, though, because they're not manners types."

King says many adults don't have a strong grasp of basic etiquette. "The children go home and start correcting their parents and then the parents don't know if it's a blessing or a curse."

Shortly after the class, Chanson Kinney, 15, reminded his mother that the salt and pepper are always passed together, while they dined at a Rotary Club of Seattle luncheon. "I saw him eating more slowly instead of gobbling it up," said his mother, Susie Kinney.

Colleen McQueen of Capitol Hill said her children, Sean, 14, and Madeira, 11, haven't been completely transformed, but there are changes.

"They actually waited for me to be seated before they began to eat. Usually my hungry son is asking for seconds before I sit down," she said. And her daughter has proposed several toasts at the table.

"Having somebody else package it all together made it seem easy," McQueen said.

Etiquette teachers say parents often like to outsource such lessons because it takes the heat off of parents, DeGroot says. "My name is mentioned around many a dinner table as a reminder."

Recently, at the first of three days of two-hour-long classes, DeGroot seats nine children, ages 7 and 8, in her dining room for their first tea service.

The table is elegantly set with cake trays, dainty china, linens, candles, flowers and cloth napkins. At each place, are two quarters, which DeGroot asks the children to tuck beneath their underarms as a fun way to keep elbows down.

They try valiantly, serving themselves awkwardly with hunched shoulders, but the first quarter drops to the floor in seconds. When she assures them they can keep the change, there's a cascade of plunking coins, along with giggles and sighs of relief. They nibble on fruit, madeleines, scones and finger sandwiches. Sure, crumbs are everywhere and a chocolaty mouth gets wiped on a shoulder, but the kids are quick learners.

"Did you make these, Mrs. DeGroot?" asked Katie McCloskey of the nibbles. "Oh, they're very good."

A fusillade of "May I" breaks out around the table: "May I have some more tea please? May I have the chocolate strawberries please?"

DeGroot, dressed demurely in a black dress and pearls, beams. "Oh, 'May I'! I love that. It sounds so beautiful."

After tea, the children walk with Nancy Drew books on their heads, aiming for statuesque posture. The reward is gummy worms.

Asked why it's important to use please and thank you, Jacob Perrow, 8, said, "Because it usually always works."

His mother, Jennifer Perrow, hoped Jacob would learn some good table manners and to interrupt less: "I think etiquette is important. It's sort of a lost art," she said.

And, if he wondered why he should be polite when many others are not, Perrow said, "We emphasize that this is the way we do it in our family."

DeGroot covers more basics. "What if an adult walked in the room?" she queries. Noell Witt, 7, answers, "Would you like my seat?"

Correct, DeGroot replies. "There should never be a child sitting in the room when an adult walks in." And when several parents arrive to collect their children, the young people do indeed stand, after one boy yells, "Look, an adult! An adult!"

Then DeGroot asks if they want to return the next day.A resounding "Yes!" fills the room.

INFORMATION, PLEASE

Final Touch Finishing School is online at www.finaltouchschool.com 206-510-5357. King is now based largely in Dallas, but her associate Lisa Fischer teaches full time in the Seattle area. Classes for children and teens start at $30.
Wallingford Charm School is at www.wallingfordcharm.com; 206-354-9933. Mrs. DeGroot's three-day class (five to 10 children) is $120; two-hour private sessions are $100.

P-I reporter Kristin Dizon can be reached at 206-448-8118 or kristindizon@seattlepi.com.

Send comments to newmedia@seattlepi.com
©1996-2005 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Terms of Service/Privacy Policy

The freshmen were required to be in white shirt and tie. The rest were required to have a jacket and tie. The hosts-juniors for the Senior Tea and the seniors for the Junior Tea- handled the serving and the escorting. The sophomores did the cooking and decorating.

All students were introduced and shook hands with one another. Then tea was served from the several silver (plate/not sterling-this being a rural county school) tea, coffee and punch services and an hour of polite conversation ensued.

This happened only eight times in a schooling in the late High/ early Awakening period. But, there were dinners or coffees for the National Honor Society, the Athletic Lettermen (combined and for the several sports), Chorus, etc. for those honored, their parents, and guests. The people involved were the sons and daughters of farmers and miners for the most part with a few families in trade.

Did other T4Ters have a similar experience in high school?

Originally Posted by Sabinus Invictus

Originally Posted by Idiot Girl

You ARE talking about Li'l Boots, are you not? He was clinically insane, from all I've read.

After the Julio-Claudians, Vespasian must have looked like Augustus Reborn. And note: Vespasian presided over a very visible First Turning. What was the Turning during Caligula's reign, can any Roman historian tell?

If I had to guess, I'd say late 2T or early 3T.

David McGuinness figured out the turnings and saeculae for Europe and the Middle East going back to the beginnings of recorded history and posted them on the old forums. Alas, the old forums are unavailable unless one knows how to make archive.org jump through the proper hoops. I do know that Mike Alexander has a copy of McGuinness's turning scheme somewhere. Mike, do you have an answer to Idiot Girl's question?

BTW, I should know who Idiot Girl is, but I don't.

Originally Posted by The Pervert

Originally Posted by Sabinus Invictus

Originally Posted by Idiot Girl

You ARE talking about Li'l Boots, are you not? He was clinically insane, from all I've read.

After the Julio-Claudians, Vespasian must have looked like Augustus Reborn. And note: Vespasian presided over a very visible First Turning. What was the Turning during Caligula's reign, can any Roman historian tell?

If I had to guess, I'd say late 2T or early 3T.

David McGuinness figured out the turnings and saeculae for Europe and the Middle East going back to the beginnings of recorded history and posted them on the old forums. Alas, the old forums are unavailable unless one knows how to make archive.org jump through the proper hoops. I do know that Mike Alexander has a copy of McGuinness's turning scheme somewhere. Mike, do you have an answer to Idiot Girl's question?

BTW, I should know who Idiot Girl is, but I don't.

Idiot Girl, despite her user name (which to me screams GenX), is a Silent, and a grandmother, who began posting within the past year. I don't know what her civilian name is. She is not Barbara, the '31 cohort.

Both Kurt Horner and Dave McGuiness have come up with Roman Saeculae:

here is Kurt's
14-35 (U)
35-55 (C)
55-75 (H)
75-95 (A)
95-115 (U)
115-134 (C)
134-153 (H)
153-172 (A)
172-191 (U)
191-210 (C)
210-229 (H)
229-248 (A)
248-267 (U)
267-287 (C)

Here is Dave's
25-50 (A)
50-70 (U)
70-102 (C)
102-125 (H)
125-150 (A)
150-180 (U)
180-205 (C)
205-235 (H)
235-260 (A)
265-290 (U)

Here is mine
14-35 (U)
35-55 (C)
55-75 (H)
75-95 (A)
95-116 (U)
116-138 (C)
138-159 (H)
159-180 (A)
180-201 (U)
201-221 (C)
221-238 (H)
238-264 (A)
264-290 (U)

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

For months now, we have been treated to Devil's Advocate and Hopeful Cynic's increasingly smug self-satisfaction about the state of the world. To those of us who point out that the Bush Administration and the religious right are out of touch with reality, they reply that we are out of touch with mainstream America. They point giddily to the results of the last few elections as proof of their righteousness--forgetting that the 2000 election was, in fact, stolen in two stages, and that the 2004 re-election of Bush was one of the closest in history. They are significant, of course, because they speak for the Administration, whose line they have both imbibed and refined. Logic means nothing to them. One of them actually challenged some one a few days ago to prove that Bush's policies are increasing inequality. What on earth do you think huge, successive taxes for the rich and an increasing flow of jobs overseas (stimulated further by CAFTA, now) are going to do?????

The problem, of course, is that the United States has to pay an enormous price for shutting its eyes to reality, whatever the resentments in the Red Zone that the Administration and its allies have managed to mobilize. An Administration that thinks government should be dismantled can't plan a war effectively, much less look at the basic needs of the American people. When it creates a Homeland Security Depattment, it does it to cut government, not strengthen it. (The Administration, which opposed the Department in the first place, only reversed course in the fall of 2002 when some one--probably Grover Norquist or Karl Rove--had a great idea. Let's create the Department, but take away the civil service protections of its employees. The Democrats will have to vote against that, and we'll brand them as unpatriotic. It worked. Since then, FEMA has been repeatedly cut and its traditional function abandoned. The results are on display this week.)

The idea that nothing counts except repeating ad inifitum that liberals are idiots seems now to have run its course. The cancellation of Ann Coulter in Tucson is a welcome sign. The danger now--and it's very real--is that the Republicans will draw on their racist constituencies to blame the fate of the poor people of New Orleans on the victims. The temptation may be irresistible. But with an utter failure to respond to the worst natural disaster in 100 years (and maybe ever), gas well over $3.00 a gallon, a very likely new recession, and a hopeless war, Millennials, especially, may be willing to leave the pathetic ideological posturing of the last eight years behind. As a Boomer I reget the mess my generation has made for them; but it's only by overcoming it that their greatness will come out.

Damn well said.

Sounds like there might be a shift in thinking coming about....
Presented purely for your educational pleasure....

washingtonpost.com
Katrina Darkens the Outlook for Incumbents
Public Dismay Could Shape 2006 Elections
By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 11, 2005; A02


Hurricane Katrina has the potential to foment change in Washington like the terrorist strikes did four years ago, altering the government's priorities for the foreseeable future and darkening the mood of an electorate that was already anxious before the storm hit shore, according to lawmakers, pollsters and strategists from both parties.

The dispute over Washington's role in saving lives in New Orleans and in the future threatens to make incumbents from both parties among Katrina's casualties, several officials said. With the popularity of Congress and President Bush sagging before the crisis, many officials said Bush and lawmakers made their situation worse by pointing fingers and digressing into political warfare with rescue operations still underway.

The aftermath of the past two weeks is almost certain to have a long echo. The billions of dollars already committed -- with many predicting the sum will eventually reach into the hundreds of billions -- is enough to make the New Orleans catastrophe a dominant factor in Washington's ritual battles over spending priorities for the balance of Bush's term. And the question of accountability -- fixing responsibility for what went wrong in the troubled early days of the rescue effort -- promises to color congressional debate for the next year or more.

Beyond these concrete impacts, some strategists expect Katrina to reshape the ideological premises of Washington debate in more subtle, but potentially more consequential, ways. Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), in memos circulated among Republicans last week and in conversations with White House officials, argued that the party that offers bold ideas to modernize how government responds to crisis will be rewarded in future elections.

"Both parties have a great opportunity -- and a great risk," Gingrich said in an interview. "One of the two parties is going to be the party that brings the country into the 21st century . . . and you can't say today which party will win that battle."

John D. Podesta, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and head of a leading Democratic think tank, says Democrats must start by casting Bush's brand of conservatism -- emphasizing an "ownership society" elevating individualism and private enterprise -- as fundamentally flawed and hostile to society's collective responsibility to help citizens, especially the neediest.

In its place, Podesta says, Democrats must offer an activist, reform-minded government agenda that includes new energy, infrastructure and homeland defense policies.

Katrina "changed the future," said Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.). "Enough is enough: No more Bush-business-as-usual."

The emerging Democratic plan calls for a shift of resources away from Bush priorities, including lower taxes, to disaster preparedness, an approach that might gain traction with images of Katrina fresh in the minds of voters.

Although Democrats see opportunity, some of them acknowledge that Katrina's initial impact did not show anyone in Washington in the best light.

"When you get down to it, [voters] hate everyone right now," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "Do you blame them? They feel let down."

This is potentially bad news for incumbents of all stripes, but Emanuel asserts the sour mood is more detrimental to the ruling Republican Party, in part because it scuffs what had been a core asset: a widespread belief that Bush was steady in crisis. Even some GOP strategists privately said they worry about Bush's political erosion. Bush's job- approval rating fell to the lowest of his presidency in two different polls released yesterday: 38 percent in the latest Newsweek Poll and to 42 percent in the Time Poll. "Incumbents in both parties are dancing perilously close to the edge right now: Gas prices are out of control, we are bogged down in Iraq and now politicians seem to be doing more talking than acting," said David Gergen, a presidential scholar who has served in GOP and Democratic administrations. "We may be heading toward an election in which the attitude is to throw the bums out, and if that happens, Republicans will pay the bigger prices because they are in control."

In such an atmosphere, neither side sees a benefit in compromise or rhetorical restraint -- as last week's rush of Katrina-inspired partisan invective made plain.

"As the middle dissipates in American politics, there is a tendency to see the other side as even more dangerous because there is such a radical shift if they are in power," Gergen said.

It is too early to determine whether the public's gloomy mood spells trouble for elected officials next year, but Frank Newport of the nonpartisan Gallup Organization said his surveys have shown a strong majority of Americans unhappy with Bush and Congress even before Katrina. Only about 35 percent of Americans have said they approve of Congress's performance throughout the summer, citing the war and gas prices as their chief gripes.

"In 2006, if there isn't some turn of events, Iraq combined with Katrina and the large budget deficits to follow will create an opportunity for non-incumbents to move in," said James A. Thurber, a political scientist professor at American University.

Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg briefed a group of Capitol Hill Democrats last week on the political fallout of Katrina, telling them Bush is losing support and that Democrats stand to benefit from the public's discontent next November if they manage the Katrina aftermath shrewdly, participants said.

Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y), the top strategist for House Republicans, said the GOP has two factors working in its favor: The public may dislike Congress, but voters generally like their own representative and, unlike a decade ago, there are only 30 or so House seats that are truly competitive.

The one thing Republicans and Democrats agree on is voters will reward or punish them based on how they respond to the devastating natural disaster in the weeks and months ahead.

GOP congressional leaders, concerned about a backlash to the massive spending ahead and the president's performance over the past 10 days, are lobbying Bush to lay out a long-term vision that would be announced in an address to the nation, several leadership aides said. One issue being debated inside the White House is whether to offer victims "portable benefits" such as education assistance they can carry with them if they decide to relocate outside of the Gulf Coast region.

One new issue that will be addressed is assistance to minorities living in big cities, often the forgotten demographic in political wars focused on the middle-class Americans who vote in higher numbers and live in competitive regions. Republicans are laying preliminary plans for tax-friendly business zones in low-income areas, an idea that was popular among conservatives in the late 1990s, and expanding education programs targeted at the neediest.

Democrats see Katrina uprooting the entire budget debate, making it virtually impossible for Republicans to reduce the size of programs such as Medicaid or any other funding aimed at the poor for months to come. A senior House GOP leadership aide said Democrats are probably right.

Yet much remains unresolved about the Democratic alternative. Will they drop their campaign for smaller deficits to fund an activist government? Will they raises taxes? Will they call for a pullout from Iraq to shift funds to homeland protection?

As Sept. 11, 2001, led to the creation of committees, probes and even a new federal agency, the natural disaster is likely to lead to a broad rethinking of governmental priorities in a time of turmoil and change. Issues such as mass evacuations, domestic deployment of troops and the restoration of wetlands will assume the prominence of anthrax vaccinations and subway alert systems held in the fall of 2001. Many predict a natural-disaster czar will emerge with power similar to homeland security chief.

Ultimately, some strategists believe the details of individual debates will matter less than a cumulative judgment about effectiveness. "The public is going to look in coming months and year and say how have leaders responded to this . . . and what have they done" to protect the nation, said Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

[

color=red][]For months now, we have been treated to Devil's Advocate and Hopeful Cynic's increasingly smug self-satisfaction about the state of the world. To those of us who point out that the Bush Administration and the religious right are out of touch with reality, they reply that we are out of touch with mainstream America.[/color]

Popularity is of course no proof of logical validity or wisdom of a proposition. Popularity can vanish quickly. Extreme example: about everyone then around thought that at the start of the term of Herbert Hoover that he would be one of the greatest Presidents in American history becauise of his prior achievements.

They point giddily to the results of the last few elections as proof of their righteousness--forgetting that the 2000 election was, in fact, stolen in two stages, and that the 2004 re-election of Bush was one of the closest in history. They are significant, of course, because they speak for the Administration, whose line they have both imbibed and refined.

Those victories have been razor-thin, although those razor-thin margins of victory are taken as evidence that the 'winners' have a right to treat the 'losers' as irrelevant'. Any failures ensure the growth of dissent.

The idea that nothing counts except repeating ad inifitum that liberals are idiots seems now to have run its course. The cancellation of Ann Coulter in Tucson is a welcome sign. The danger now--and it's very real--is that the Republicans will draw on their racist constituencies to blame the fate of the poor people of New Orleans on the victims. The temptation may be irresistible. But with an utter failure to respond to the worst natural disaster in 100 years (and maybe ever), gas well over $3.00 a gallon, a very likely new recession, and a hopeless war, Millennials, especially, may be willing to leave the pathetic ideological posturing of the last eight years behind. As a Boomer I reget the mess my generation has made for them; but it's only by overcoming it that their greatness will come out.

This is a great time in which to be a liberal. Today a liberal has no culpability in Dubya's follies and Rove's sectretive despotism, and can link himself to traditions that long antedate some political fad.

Since 9/11, Americans have become much more fearful, ever more vigilant, on the lookout for disaster. How much can Americans take until they have a collective nervous breakdown?

Threat of another national crisis haunts country's psyche

New disasters can trigger 'complex of fear' instantly

By Michael E. Ruane
The Washington Post

September 12, 2005

WASHINGTON · Diane Rokos of Rosslyn, Va., still watches inbound jetliners to make sure their landing gear is down. The hijacked airplanes, she seems to recall, were bound for destruction with their wheels up.

Scott Smit of Falls Church, Va., still has a two-week stash of food and water in his garage, an escape plan and a family rendezvous point in the Blue Ridge mountains.

Dawn Caskie of McLean, Va., still checks out every person boarding the airplane when she flies and keeps a road atlas in her car in case she has to flee an attack.

Four years and multiple catastrophes after the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, mental health experts and area residents say that although 9-11 may seem eclipsed by other events and forgotten by the public, its "complex of fear" remains just beneath the surface: ready to trigger instantly.

Shoes still must come off in airport security lines, although booties are often available for those who don't want their feet to get dirty.

Subway riders who once abided by an unspoken code to keep their eyes straight ahead now scan each other warily, urged by disembodied announcements to watch, mostly in vain, for sinister activity and packages.

"I hate it," said Sandy Green of Washington. "Everybody [usually] sticks to themselves very, very carefully. And we have to be nosy now."

Signs along the interstates command: "Report Suspicious Activity." False alarms proliferate. Fighters are scrambled to pursue stray Cessnas. The Capitol is evacuated. The threat level is adjusted up, then down.

And real disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina, seem to trigger the anxiety anew.

Forty-eight months after terrorists hijacked four airliners and crashed them into the Pentagon, the World Trade Center and a field in rural Pennsylvania, the Washington area remains haunted by calamity, experts say, reminded of its possibility and still struggling to find context for something that is unresolved.

Four years seems like a fitting span for a human event to run its course, to have a start, a middle and an end. It's the time it takes to get a degree, serve a term in public office. World War I and the Civil War lasted four years. Michelangelo painted the majestic ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in four years.

Indeed, so much else has happened in the past four years. Anthrax. The snipers. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The tsunami. The London and Madrid train bombings. The hurricane.

Memorials to Sept. 11 have been built, pledged and sometimes even vandalized. The Pentagon, where 184 died, was repaired three years ago. Ground was broken last week on the first reconstruction project at the World Trade Center, where about 2,750 perished. And a design was unveiled Wednesday to memorialize the plane that was crashed in Pennsylvania, killing 40 passengers and crew members.

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, many commentators suggested that the nation had been "changed forever." Whether the national psyche was permanently altered is a matter for future historians, but experts say there's no question that the imprint of that day remains vivid in the minds of Americans four years later.

"Americans can't ever know that it's going to be over," said Alan Lipman, a clinical psychologist at George Washington University. "And so it creates a kind of continuing low level of threat for which there is no clear answer. And I think we see that bubbling under American society over the last four years."

Arie Kruglanski, a professor of psychology at the University of Maryland, said Sept. 11 anxiety may be temporarily "buried under the barrage of events that assert their priority," such as the war in Iraq, the price of gas and now the terrible hurricane.

People cannot worry about all these things all the time, he said: "We would go insane." But the anxiety is there and ready for reactivation by events such as the recent London train bombings. After that, he said, "we thought: `How about us? Is Washington next? What about the Metro? Are we doing all we can?' "

But some think taking precautions is futile.

"I'm of the mind that if something happens to this city, and it's chemical, it's just, forget about it," Washington, D.C. architect Eric Jackman, 49, a Bethesdam, Md., resident, said outside his downtown office last week. "We're done for. ... whatever's going to hit us is going to be a death blow."[/code]

Here's an article from The New Republic (you need to have a username and password to read it, you can get one from bugmenot.com) that basically presents evidence the country still has an "unraveling" mentality:

FOUR YEARS AFTER SEPTEMBER 11, WE'RE STILL BOWLING ALONE.

"Without the Cold War," Rabbit Angstrom asks in John Updike's Rabbit at Rest, "what's the point of being an American?" Rabbit's question, which he posed in 1990, anticipated something in the national mood during the decade that followed. In 1995, social critic Christopher Lasch wrote that the United States had descended into a "democratic malaise," the most telling symptom of which, Harvard public policy scholar Robert Putnam wrote, was a decline in civic engagement. In his famous essay and then book, Putnam amassed a mountain of evidence--measuring everything from rates of church attendance to participation in bowling leagues--and pronounced that Americans were "bowling alone." A survey conducted by pollster Daniel Yankelovich in 1995 reported that Americans felt "a sickness in the very soul of society to which they cannot give a name." For conservatives especially, the '90s were wasted years, the decade's signature traits being narcissism, cultural rot, and sheer purposelessness. The coarseness of the public square "has shattered America's traditional confidence about itself, its mission, its place in the world," morality czar William Bennett wrote in Commentary.*

...

Weekly Standard writer David Brooks diagnosed the condition, too. And, in 1997, he came up with a cure. In a cover story titled "a return to national greatness," Brooks echoed concerns raised by Alexis de Tocqueville nearly two centuries before. "Democracy has a tendency to slide into nihilistic mediocrity if its citizens are not inspired by some larger national goal," Brooks cautioned. More than anything else, his essay took aim at the trend toward civic disengagement that had been encouraged, in his telling, by the twin failures of cultural liberalism and Newt Gingrich-era conservatism. If it is to reverse this trend, Brooks elaborated, "the first task of government is to convey a spirit of confidence and vigor that can then spill across the life of the nation." The means to this end were largely beside the point. "It almost doesn't matter what great task government sets for itself," he concluded, "as long as it does some tangible thing with energy and effectiveness."

...

The significance of national greatness was never the movement it spawned, but rather the moment it encapsulated--a minute, really, in which it was hoped that something good might come from bad. What its adherents anticipated after September 11 was really less a return to national greatness than a return to basic national goodness, a civic quality the excesses of the '90s seemed to have corroded. Civic attachments, a sense of shared purpose, a propensity to sacrifice for the common good--if historical precedent offers any guide, all of these should have been renewed in the aftermath of September 11. As Harvard's Theda Skocpol noted in her 2001 study, "Patriotic Partnerships: Why Great Wars Nourished American Civil Voluntarism," "America's civic vigor was greatly enhanced, both following the national fratricide of the 1860s and amidst the plunge into global conflict between 1917 and 1919." The pattern held during World War II and the cold war, conflicts that boosted everything from membership in voluntary associations to the fortunes of the civil rights movement. And, yet, not only has everything not changed since September 11; nothing has. According to a mountain of attitudinal and behavioral data collected in the past four years, the post- September 11 mood that former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge dubbed "the new normalcy" resembles nothing so much as the old normalcy.

...

Beginning with the ultimate gesture of sacrifice--enlisting in the Armed Forces--all the anecdotes about young Americans rushing down to their local recruiting offices in the aftermath of the September 11 add up to nothing more than a myth. In fact, military recruitment numbers during the months following September 11 actually dipped from where they were at the same time the previous year. According to Pentagon figures, between October 1, 2001, and October 1, 2002, the number of entry-level Army recruits actually shrank by 32 percent. Defense Department surveys of young Americans found that, by early 2002, even the propensity to enlist had declined to summer 2001 levels. Meanwhile, a poll by Harvard's Institute of Politics reported that, even in the immediate aftermath of September 11, large pluralities of undergraduates would evade military service if asked to serve. "There was an eagerness to punish the enemy, but it wasn't enough of a factor to motivate people who had other plans in the lives," says National Defense University's Alan Gropman. As for less exalted endeavors, the University of California's annual survey of American freshmen found that the percentage of students who either volunteered or performed community service remained static from 2000 to 2002.*

Nor did the country as a whole stir itself to much greater heights than its children did. According to Tom Smith, director of the National Opinion Research Center's General Social Survey, "Virtually every measure that shot up after 9/11 declined within three to six months as it became a historical remembrance." Rates of regular volunteering never budged at all. Neither, as a survey Putnam conducted after September 11 finds, did attendance at public meetings or membership in organizations. Charitable giving, according to the annual survey Giving USA, rose slightly in 2001 before declining again in 2002. As for the popular notion that September 11 had stimulated "one of the greatest spiritual revivals in the history of America," as Pat Robertson put it, by November 2001, according to Gallup, rates of weekly church attendance had returned to exactly their pre-September 11 levels.*

Attitudes about government followed the same trend lines. Gallup found that the percentage of poll respondents who trust the government to "do what is right" dropped to pre-September 11 levels in 2002. Similarly, it reported that the percentage of Americans saying the government was doing too much, which declined after September 11, had returned to its libertarian norm by 2002. A Los Angeles Times poll found that the percentage of Americans willing to surrender some civil liberties to curb terrorism, which stood at 49 percent in 1995 and skyrocketed to 63 percent in 2001, had settled back to 49 percent in 2002--just as other polls showed that Americans' willingness to endure airport security screenings and random ID checks had declined as well. In a September 2002 article in the academic journal PS, Skocpol, relying on data compiled by Putnam, compared changes in civic attitudes just after September 11 with changes in civic behavior. She found that "Americans suddenly displayed new attitudes of social solidarity and trust in government, while barely changing their patterns of civic participation."*

As for predictions by national greatness theorists that America's new sense of purpose would express itself through cultural sobriety, a glimpse at the most telling barometer of all reveals that they have gotten things exactly backward. A generation's worth of survey data has demonstrated a causal link between levels of TV viewing and civic disengagement. But what we watch matters nearly as much as how much we watch. During the '90s, the DDB Needham Life Style survey, which tracks viewer preferences alongside civic habits, showed that viewers who imbibed the trashiest fare were the least likely to be engaged in their communities, while those who watched the news were the most involved. Alas, while the amount of television that Americans watched increased after September 11, a Pew survey released in 2002 found that the "public's news habits have been largely unaffected by the Sept. 11 attacks and subsequent war on terrorism." So what have Americans been watching since September 11? Garbage. And, to judge by the Nielsen ratings of the past four years, more of it than ever before. "As long as you eliminate that two months after September 11," says Robert Thompson, professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University, "we were back to 'Fear Factor'; after six months, we had a celebrity boxing match between Tonya Harding and Paula Jones." True, Americans have been indulging in wartime escapism ever since the proliferation of carnivals during the Civil War. But "Fear Factor" isn't escapism. It's the hallmark of a society that feels it has nothing from which to escape.*

If hopes for national greatness were never realized after September 11, they were decisively put to rest in Iraq. The extent to which greatness abroad can be transmitted to the home front depends, needless to say, on actually achieving something like greatness abroad. Who, after all, has ever heard of military defeat giving way to national renewal? The French experience in Algeria, the Soviet experience in Afghanistan, the U.S. experience in Vietnam--what these wars brought home was something else altogether. And, while the Iraq war, if only because of the small numbers of Americans fighting it, seems unlikely to introduce anything like the poison that Vietnam injected into the body politic, it certainly has done nothing to arrest the pre-September 11 trends that alarmed national greatness types in the first place. From levels of trust in the government and trust in fellow citizens to measures of public spiritedness, civic pride, and social cohesion--far from enhancing any of these metrics, post-2003 polls show that Iraq has eroded them even more.

*

Frog action plan to cost millions


I hope they are better at this then levee construction.

Originally Posted by Mrs. Leo Hunter

Can I unmoved see thee dying

on a log,

Expiring frog!

Pickwick Papers Ch. 15, Charles Dickens


:cry: :cry: :cry:

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

Frog action plan to cost millions


I hope they are better at this then levee construction.

Originally Posted by Mrs. Leo Hunter

Can I unmoved see thee dying

on a log,

Expiring frog!

Pickwick Papers Ch. 15, Charles Dickens


:cry: :cry: :cry:

I appreciate your concern, Bro. Virgil. But could these (":cry:") be crocodile tears? How many times have you used froggies as bait for muskies and pike? Ouch!


--Uneasy Hopper

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Both Kurt Horner and Dave McGuiness have come up with Roman Saeculae:

So to sum up, for those curious: Dave McGuiness sees Caligula as a Nixon-like mid-Awakening figure while Mike and I have him as a Hoover-like early-Crisis villain.

Originally Posted by Croakmore

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

Frog action plan to cost millions


I hope they are better at this then levee construction.

Originally Posted by Mrs. Leo Hunter

Can I unmoved see thee dying

on a log,

Expiring frog!

Pickwick Papers Ch. 15, Charles Dickens


:cry: :cry: :cry:

I appreciate your concern, Bro. Virgil. But could these (":cry:") be crocodile tears? They might be waters due to the warming sun, or pollen, I must grant. How many times have you used froggies as bait for muskies and pike? I think you have mistaken me for a southern Minnesotan. Ouch! Ah, the self-inflicted wound.


--Uneasy Hopper

Here's today's evidence we're in a Third Turning:

Bush's approval rating: 40% (58% disapprove)
Bush's handling of Katrina aftermath: 41% approve (57% disapprove)
Bush's handling of the Iraq war: 32% approve (67% disapprove)
Invasion of Iraq was a mistake: 59% agree
Recall some or all troops from Iraq: 63% agree
Cut war spending for disaster relief: 54% agree
Bush's handling of the economy: 35% approve (63% disapprove)
Bush's qualities: 51 percent did not consider him strong and decisive, 50 percent would not call him honest and 56 percent said he didn't care about people like them.
Confirmation of John Roberts: 60% favor, 26% oppose (the one exception to the pattern).

Originally Posted by Samarah, teenage girl

Here's today's evidence we're in a Third Turning: Bush's approval rating: 40% (58% disapprove)

Can a return of fascist Big Government be faraway now? Who'll be the next FDRish "four term" dictator? Hillarycare? Internet Algore? Deaniac? General Clark? Waffler Kerry? Did I forget smebody? Dicky Durby? Teddy Bear? Cindy "But what I saw was a city [NOLA] that is occupied" Sheehan?

• 

Nah, Billy Bob's is the ONLY real greying "comeback kid." :wink:

I don't care about what's being ptolmecised, I am just seriously impressed that we got to 379 pages!

Originally Posted by Bruce

I don't care about what's being ptolmecised, I am just seriously impressed that we got to 379 pages!

This hasn't been the most on topic of threads. It has also been the general place to hang out and chat since September 2001 or so. I was wondering if the Katrina as Catalyst threat was going to replace it as the general Club Turning hang out place. We'll see...

Um.... Ptolmecised???

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Um.... Ptolmecised???

I'll take a crack at it.

Ptolmecize (Brit. Ptolmecise) v. : To defend a once noble but now disproven and/or maladaptive and/or dysfunctional viewpoint/paradigm by creating great complexity to recalibrate the view to new facts and creating greater and greater violations of Ockham's Razor.

E.g., Increasing complex epicyclic additions to the Ptolemaic solar system model; ever complex Scholastic philosophy attempting to reconcile mythic religion with rationality; Hopeful Cynic's longer posts.

HTH :wink:

Originally Posted by Samarah, teenage girl

Here's today's evidence we're in a Third Turning:

Bush's approval rating: 40% (58% disapprove)
Bush's handling of Katrina aftermath: 41% approve (57% disapprove)
Bush's handling of the Iraq war: 32% approve (67% disapprove)
Invasion of Iraq was a mistake: 59% agree
Recall some or all troops from Iraq: 63% agree
Cut war spending for disaster relief: 54% agree
Bush's handling of the economy: 35% approve (63% disapprove)
Bush's qualities: 51 percent did not consider him strong and decisive, 50 percent would not call him honest and 56 percent said he didn't care about people like them.
Confirmation of John Roberts: 60% favor, 26% oppose (the one exception to the pattern).

Would like to see Mr. Lincolns approval rating in summer 1864.

Originally Posted by freivolk

Originally Posted by Samarah, teenage girl

Here's today's evidence we're in a Third Turning:

Bush's approval rating: 40% (58% disapprove)
Bush's handling of Katrina aftermath: 41% approve (57% disapprove)
Bush's handling of the Iraq war: 32% approve (67% disapprove)
Invasion of Iraq was a mistake: 59% agree
Recall some or all troops from Iraq: 63% agree
Cut war spending for disaster relief: 54% agree
Bush's handling of the economy: 35% approve (63% disapprove)
Bush's qualities: 51 percent did not consider him strong and decisive, 50 percent would not call him honest and 56 percent said he didn't care about people like them.
Confirmation of John Roberts: 60% favor, 26% oppose (the one exception to the pattern).

Would like to see Mr. Lincolns approval rating in summer 1864.

Let's all sincerely hope that's not the popularity model Generalissimo El Busho follows. Surely we can all agree that the last thing this country needs is a high-profile martyr to Wilsonian crusading :shock: . Lincoln's death continues to taint states' rights supporters more than 100 years later.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Originally Posted by freivolk

Would like to see Mr. Lincoln's approval rating in summer 1864.

Let's all sincerely hope that's not the popularity model Generalissimo El Busho follows. Surely we can all agree that the last thing this country needs is a high-profile martyr to Wilsonian crusading :shock: . Lincoln's death continues to taint states' rights supporters more than 100 years later.

While I wouldn't paint Wilson as an Isolationist, Wilson's push for the League of Nations building an international consensus to avoid war doesn't mesh perfectly with President Unilateral Preemptive Bush. Lincoln also won his crisis war, and provoked a significant transformation that was not going to go away. Bush's policies are struggling. I don't anticipate the Crisis is going to be solved by serial preemptive unilateral nation building financed by deficit spending.

Rather than Wilson and Lincoln, I would guess Bush's foreign policy might more likely be compared with LBJ's in committing the US to more than we'd want to chew, while economically, Hoover still comes to mind. As such, 'martyr' might not be the first word associated with Bush 43's memory.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Originally Posted by freivolk

Would like to see Mr. Lincoln's approval rating in summer 1864.

Let's all sincerely hope that's not the popularity model Generalissimo El Busho follows. Surely we can all agree that the last thing this country needs is a high-profile martyr to Wilsonian crusading :shock: . Lincoln's death continues to taint states' rights supporters more than 100 years later.

While I wouldn't paint Wilson as an Isolationist, Wilson's push for the League of Nations building an international consensus to avoid war doesn't mesh perfectly with President Unilateral Preemptive Bush. Lincoln also won his crisis war, and provoked a significant transformation that was not going to go away. Bush's policies are struggling. I don't anticipate the Crisis is going to be solved by serial preemptive unilateral nation building financed by deficit spending.

Rather than Wilson and Lincoln, I would guess Bush's foreign policy might more likely be compared with LBJ's in committing the US to more than we'd want to chew, while economically, Hoover still comes to mind. As such, 'martyr' might not be the first word associated with Bush 43's memory.

Unless the curse of the Presidents elected in years ending with "0" returns and someone offs the current POTUS. :shock:

Of course, if the POTUS expires of natural causes in his second term, maybe his legacy will be more akin to that handsome Ohio POTUS, Warren Harding. :P