Happy Travails

View From The LA Coliseum During Football Season

After enjoying 111,000 of our closest friends at the Big House in Ann Arbor, we had the pleasure of the company of 90,000 screaming fans in the place you could drop the Big House into: The LA Coliseum, home of the USC Trojans. The Coliseum was build for USC football in the 1920s, and improved for the 1932 Olympics, and recently the 1984 Olympics (noteworthy for turning a profit). It has been used for pro football, pro baseball, and a variety of events in between. Sitting on the 50-yard line, with waitress service - ok, it is still only for hot dogs, popcorn and peanuts - is quite the experience.  It is a hall of champions, and a new one was borne on a Saturday in October. 

Postscript to "War of the Worlds"

We noted how "War of the Worlds" has been a prescient social indicator, each time presaging the major event to come. The book - WWI. The radio show - Pearl Harbor. The first movie - Sputnik and the Space Race. So what does the Spielberg movie presage? The most telling moments in the movie are how quickly order breaks down, and it becomes everyone for themselves. There is no heroism, no sacrifice, other than for one's family. At the time of the post (July), it looked like it was preparing us for another terrorist attack. After the hurricane hit New Orleans, it is now clear what the movie portends: how quickly civil order can break down, even in the US. So what does it presage? Katrina. And the next breakdown.