Eight days remaining now. Jaroslav Seifert, a Czech writer and winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, wrote a poem entitled “Eight Days.” Seifert once said “If a writer is silent, he is lying.”

And a boo to you, too

Who needs Halloween this year? There are enough authentic devils and goblins floating around to scare the daylights out of you. But if I were to dress up as something spooky, I’d make a newspaper dress out of today’s Washington Post article on the nuclear threats that have not been adequately addressed by the Bush administration (here). Pretty scary stuff. On my forehead, I’d paste these excerpts:

"The big gorilla in the basement is the material from Russia and Pakistan," said Robert L. Gallucci, dean of the Georgetown School of Foreign Service and a classified consultant to the CIA and Energy Department laboratories. "This is the principal, major national security threat to the United States in the next decade or more. I don't know what's in second place."

…"If tomorrow morning we lost a city, who of us could have said we didn't know how this could happen?" [Gallucci] said. "I haven't felt like this in all the years I've been in government or the nine since I've been [out]. I am -- I don't want to say scared, because that's not what I want to project, but I am deeply concerned for my family and for all Americans."

Madeline Albright said last night on the Daily Show: "..what is scariest is that they [the current administration] believe it’s going well."

Good bye Good Humor (on the campaign trail?) man, hello Mud (slinging on the campaign trail?) guy

One more viewing of a commercial that aims to scare the voter right into the GOP lap and I am giving up TV for at least 8 days.

I am not in NYC at the moment, but I recall seeing a new fixture on the streets of the East Village this past week-end – something called a Mud Truck, selling gourmet coffee to us mortals who are seeking an alternative to Starbucks but winding up at Starbucks places for lack of decent other choices. [I have no real objection to Starbucks and in fact, while in NY, I rely on the chain for my wireless service, but I appreciate opportunities to spend my life’s savings – they must sprinkle gold dust on lattes in NY – on something more local every once in a while.] Well, now we have a Mud Truck, standing right there, to the side of 8th street. With a peaceful political statement. I’ll drink to that.

(*see “forty-second street pre-election diary” post, September 22, for explanation of post title)