Sunday with the NY Times

My plane left from LaGuardia at 9 a.m. so I was out of the house at about 6 to take the subway and M60 bus. It was snowing beautifully in the City which meant that our plane took off somewhat late but we got to Denver only a little late. I bought a New York Times on the way to the subway and probably had the most glorious reading of the paper in a long time. Captive to the cabin, I just read and read the paper, without any of the distractions of normal life.

The quotation of the day, taken here totally out of context, was "You need subjects, and they're hard to get." For us catalogers, the word "subjects" is laden with meaning. One is very glad that getting new subject headings (in LCSH land) is not so hard as it used to be.

The magazine has a portfolio of photos by Nadav Kander of people who have been selected for various posts by Obama. Great photos too of Washington sites. As we taxied out to the runway, the top of a construction scaffolding over on Riker's Island looked rather like the Lincoln Memorial. I'm sure it was the suggestibility of all of the Obama and Washington stuff I was reading but it was a nice illusion (delusion).

In the review of Jeff Madick's The case for big government by Matt Bai, he mentioned that Obama is the first Northern Democrat elected president since JFK. Bai also quotes Reagan and Clinton about the end of big government but then describes the current financial and automobile industry troubles and one realizes how the lack of solid government regulation is so much a part of the collapse of those two bubbles. How anybody could have thought that big bonuses and big cars were sustainable models is beyond me (or Bai).

And now I'm in Boulder, the day promises sunshine and warmth (supposed to get up to 60 today). Elaine and I will probably go for a drive in the mountains ... in their older Mercedes diesel sedan.