A train ride

From: STEVEN BEA
Sent: Thu 5/12/11 5:47 PM

HI Everyone,
Marissa and I took the subway to the 2nd biggest park in New York, in Brooklyn, to play disc golf. Stan, Beth, and Jacob will appreciate that we could not find any of the facilities, so we just made it up as we went along, aiming for trees, ducks, and icky nearly naked old men in speedos. On the subway back to Queens I pointed to a slumped, sleeping man without socks, without a belt, obviously homeless. Marissa asked if that was the kind of patients I get in the hospital. I said yes and pointed to his edematous feet and bet that he would have sores on them that he wasn't even aware of. Then 4 young men got on and announced that they would entertain us. They proceeded to breakdance, and they were good, nearly as good as Cirque du Soleil. I didn't give them a dollar. Then they got off and Michelle got on. She called the whole car to attention and told us how she was a widow just fired, with 2 small children to raise and she doesn't smoke drink or do drugs. I didn't give her a dollar either. Then the homeless man woke up, staggered down the aisle, and began to chant something that sounded like "damn bad dancer" or "badass madman", and holding out his hand. I gave him a dollar. I figured he needed a drink. He continued ranging up and down the aisle, forgetting to beg, and finally went out the door between the cars, where the sign says "do not go out the door between the cars", and peed into the darkness. We were afraid we were going to see him fall to his death. He came back in tracking wetness, and several times opened the doors again to shout at someone or something out there. At the next stop half the car got off; Marissa pointed to me that they were all getting back on the car behind us. He stayed with us to the end of the line. All in all, New York is a much nicer and more pleasant place than I remember from the early 1970s.
Off to Manhattan tonight for an art show.
Steve

We threw it away

From: STEVEN BEA
Sent: Tue 5/03/11 2:21 AM

Fellow cynics,
A couple years ago I decided that Osama bin Laden had died, perhaps even killed in the original Afghanistan operation, that we knew it, and that the Bush Administration kept it secret because they wanted to fight their wars and didn't want people thinking it was all over because "we got bin Laden". I might have e-mailed about it. I found that there were many others who agreed, including important people.
Last night I watched what was happening on TV and told Carol "Oh well, guess I was wrong." Then I joked that maybe this is all a fraud. At work today people started talking about how they had buried bin Laden at sea. "That's crazy" I said. I thought they got their facts wrong as so often. The rumor mill working overtime. Tonight I see on TV that it is true. In other words, put in the form of a little play, it goes like this: "We have caught and killed the most wanted criminal in the world!" "You have? Where is his body?" "Oh, we threw it away".
They threw it away. In less than 24 hrs, the evidence is gone. I think my theory is back on the table.
Steve