Slate's Bizbox
the breakfast table: An e-mail conversation about the news of the day.

Nick Paumgarten and Lillian Ross

the breakfast table
entries
12
from: Nick Paumgarten

Back to Normal?

Posted Monday, Sept. 17, 2001, at 5:57 PM ET

Lillian,

Well, if that is what they mean by getting back to normal, then maybe we're better off not getting back to normal. Aspects of our way of life were perhaps worth attacking, apparently. If there's any upside to the World Trade Center disaster, it's that we will all be spared, for a few weeks anyway, all of this nonsense; the PR mill is quiet, or muted, at least.

So, today is getting-back-to-normal day here in New York. The stock market is open (and getting killed), the Yankees are playing (in Tampa), thousands are hard at work in borrowed offices. But things are not normal. According to the Times today, the federal government is asking the big securities firms (and, apparently, threatening reprisal should they not obey) to help buoy the stock market--to act not in their own interest, but in the country's. Odd, eh? I always kind of thought the pursuit of self-interest was what made this country great. Where are the free-market high priests on this one? It's as though to protect our way of life we need to abandon it. What if the feds had ordered the commissioner of Major League Baseball to make sure the Yankees won tonight in order to restore confidence? Well, anyway, it isn't working. The markets aren't listening. But what am I talking about? Who cares, at this hour, about a momentary perversion of this or that principle? We're just trying to get back to normal here.

Yours,
Nick

the breakfast table
entries
12
from: Nick Paumgarten

Back to Normal?

Posted Monday, Sept. 17, 2001, at 5:57 PM ET
Print This ArticlePRINTDiscuss this in The FrayDISCUSSEmail to a FriendE-MAIL
Share on FacebookPost to MySpace!Share with MixxDigg ThisShare with RedditShare with del.icio.usShare with FurlShare with Ma.gnolia.comShare with SphereShare with Stumble Upon
Nick Paumgarten is an editor for "The Talk of the Town" at The New Yorker. Lillian Ross is a longtime New Yorker staff writer. Her most recent books are Here but Not Here, The Fun of It, and the forthcoming Reporting Back--Notes on Journalism.
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES
Washington Post
The Washington Post
OPINIONS
Over the Line
Harold Ford Jr. | I know what it's like to be smeared by your opponent.
: The Positive in Negative Ads
PLUS » Milbank: The President's Lullaby