balls-to-the wall social and media commentary by a writer with no P’s and Q’s to mind
From the monthly archives:
joseph catalanotto, who suffered through the recent con ed power outage in queens, told the daily news that a blackout “happens when you least expect it”.
dear joseph, please tell me what you do when you ARE expecting a blackout. do you light a candle in the baby’s room? sit in the parlor embracing a flashlight? run to the hardware store for batteries?
i would like to know that feeling, the one where you expect a blackout, know that it’s coming, take the time to prepare…
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in today’s daily news are two (remarkably unlinked) stories about the tragic deaths of children, ariella weiss and “smiley” diaz.
ariella was three years old. she died in a fire started by a burning candle in her bedroom.
smiley was 11 months old. she died in the bathtub while her mother cooked dinner, having left her in the care of a 2-year old (also in the tub).
no one asked ariella’s grief-stricken mother what she was thinking when she lit that candle; no one asked giovanna diaz what she was thinking when she left a toddler in charge of an infant in a tub.
but i would like to know what — or whether — they were thinking. i don’t have kids, but even as a preteen i knew enough not to light candles in my kid brother’s room. and as for leaving a 2-year-old and a less than one-year-old unsupervised in a bathtub, well, i wouldn’t even step off to pick up the telephone, much less go and cook a meal.
there’s no license to parent, and god forbid there should be one in our already over-regulated world. but then i read the paper, and i wonder.
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i rarely go to the movies, but i read every review that lane writes, because he writes so very well. he describes the soundtrack of a recent thriller flick as “its median sound level would be to blow up a trombone factory” and goes on to say that “you could sit moodily in the back of your parents’ pontiac sunburst and imagine cruise missiles bursting out of the headlamps”.
who cares what movie he’s writing about, when the man can write this well?
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