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This is going to be bad. Terrible things will come of this.

I was thinking the other day about the fact that I live in a place that you can't exit without crossing a bridge or a tunnel. It's a place that's 10 blocks away from the United Nations building.

That's a chickenshit thing to think at a time when, as of this very minute, bombs are dropping onto Baghdad, but it crossed my mind. There will be bad things, not just there, but right here.

I was a bit of a wreck at the end of archaeology class on Tuesday. The prof was reciting a bit of Yeats' "The Second Coming" to one of our elderly auditers as I came into the classroom. She couldn't remember the quote, but I could:

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last
slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

But the part of that poem that sticks with me most is,

Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold.

At the end of class the prof, who made sure to say that what she was about to discuss was the least of concerns compared to the human lives that would be lost, talked a little about the archaeological sites that will be threatened by this war. Important sites. The rise of civilization came out of Iraq, after all. Writing started there. Complex culture began there. And we were all stone-faced. I felt sick. Things fall apart. The centre cannot hold.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 10:18 PM | shower me with attention