Just received the following e-mail message from Apple, three times:

I had gotten a legitimate message from them earlier in the day that did NOT have the ATT45294.ATT file attached, so I have no idea why the Chicago Daily Herald decided that these were the places to send this announcement to. The weird bit, though, is that these are announcement-only lists, so a) I shouldn’t be getting these messages, and b) I definitely shouldn’t be able to see what appears to be the “secret email addresses” that Apple apparently uses to send out announcements, all of which are plastered in the email. (And which I’ve modified in this posting, just in case Apple doesn’t get this fixed before a zillion spammers get their hands on them.)

In any case, a Windows virus scanner finding a virus in an email from Apple—possibly by mistake, as my copies don’t have that file—and then blasting recipient-only messages to entire mailing list that should be closed off, well, that was rich even before Apple signed off by telling me how much they value our relationship.

Ten bucks says that they’re not using LetterRip, the premier mailing list tool for the Mac, to manage these lists, ’cause with that software it’s just easy to set up your security.

Human Rights Watch has released their World Report 2002, a state of the world report on human rights.

None too surprisingly, the report finds that “the anti-terror campaign led by the United States is inspiring opportunistic attacks on civil liberties around the world.”

“Terrorists believe that anything goes in the name of their cause,” said Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch. “The fight against terror must not buy into that logic. Human rights principles must not be compromised in the name of any cause.”

The entire report is 670 pages, so for a smaller investment of your time, watch this 3 1/2 minute video from the BBC.

Irrelevant note: the sharp-eyed will note that BBC broadcasts are in high-definition, using a widescreen aspect ratio.

The Red Herring chimes in with a fascinating article about the Carlyle Group, an international investment fund with major interests in the defense industry and powerful contacts in global governments, through a heavy-hitter list that includes George H.W. Bush, John Major, and until recently the estranged family of Osama bin Laden.

[I]t is hard to ignore the fact that Osama bin Laden’s family members, who renounced their son ten years ago, stood to gain financially from the war being waged against him until late October, when public criticism of the relationship forced them to liquidate their holdings in the firm. Or consider that U.S. president George W. Bush is in a position to make budgetary decisions that could pad his father’s bank account.

The Register continues coverage on the Microsoft updates issue, with some analysis on what’s going on and some posted workarounds for people who want to patch their security holes sooner rather than later.

Microsoft’s problems with the Windows Update site are more complex and widespread than first appeared. Users have been having sporadic problems accessing Windows Update for some days now, but “internal DNS server problems” have meant that Microsoft staff haven’t been able to get to numerous sites from the company’s internal network.

Addendum, 10:18 AM: The Register also covers an interesting lawsuit by Microsoft against Lindows.com, developers of software to run Windows software under Linux. There’s also a story on a very simple workaround that entirely defeats Microsoft Internet Explorer privacy settings. And Wired reports on yet another IE security hole, which can’t be fixed thanks to the issues with the updater site.

This looks like a contender for the next big thing.

The device will surf the Web, send and receive e-mail and, with an extra attachment, shoot digital photos, which can then be sent by e-mail. It’s also a mobile phone. Danger will make versions of the devices that work on both types of wireless networks that predominate in the U.S.

More information in the full article on Forbes.com.

Two new stories on the radar this morning, one from the LA Times, one from The Register, both about Microsoft’s atrocious security standards.

In the LA Times article, Joseph Menn reports that some members of Congress and others are finally starting to pay attention to what Microsoft has been up to. Meanwhile, The Register reports that Microsoft’s own infrastructure for fixing security holes has been broken since Thursday.

What security issues, you ask? Long story short, many of the worst breaches in information security over the past few years haven’t been due to brilliant hackers breaking down brick walls, they’ve been due to random hackers wandering through holes left in the walls. And most of the holes that caused the viruses you’ve heard the most about—Code Red, NIMDA, Melissa (and a few dozen variants)—were put there by Microsoft.

That in and of itself isn’t so bad; buggy or insecure software gets released all of the time. The problem with Microsoft is that they don’t fix their software until it gets public airplay. Quoting from the LA Times:

“Microsoft treats security problems as public relations problems,” said Bruce Schneier of Counterpane Internet Security in Cupertino, Calif. “They’ll fix a security problem insofar as it gets made public.”

Microsoft’s general way of dealing with security threats is to make legal maneuvers to prevent the world from finding out about them. You want to get their information about how to fix the problems they’ve saddled you with? You have to sign a non-disclosure agreement with them promising not to tell anyone if you find a new one.

This runs counter to the standard means of fixing problems: if a security hole is found on dozens of other Internet systems, the hole is publicized and a fix is released through the collective brainpower of the ‘Net, sometimes within hours. Microsoft, on the other hand, can take weeks or months to address an issue, and you can be sure that in that time the world’s computer crooks know about the problem. The one left in the dark is you.

Last year, the Code Red virus brought huge swaths of the Internet to its knees, leading to the following solution: tens of thousands of users (including me) had their ability to run a web server shut down by their Internet service providers.

I’ll repeat that. Even though most of us deliberately chose not to run Microsoft software on our web servers, and were therefore invulnerable to the virus, our web servers were shut down en masse. It’s the equivalent of having your phone service shut off because someone 100 miles away is making obscene phone calls.

But the big reason this is an issue is that the whole reason the Internet exists in the first place—the way it continues operating at all—is still due to a great deal of collective contributions. The web page you’re reading is based on a technology that was invented in 1992 and donated for free to the world. The means that web data uses to move from my server to your computer is also based on free technology. And so on.

The rules of this game are simple. You’re welcome to invent new stuff, and you’re welcome to keep it to yourself and try to make money off of it. But you don’t poison the well for everyone else.

Microsoft has written some decent software; I’m running two of their applications right now. But they’ve also been dumping big bags of arsenic into the public pool for a long time.

This is the stuff that runs police 911 networks, military response communications systems, financial systems, and dozens of crucial government networks, let alone the businesses and services that you depend on daily. Microsoft has made billions off of their monopoly, and they’ve wielded that monopoly to shield themselves from blame.

It’s time to call them to task, to force them to live up to the standards set for them by the people who built the network they profit from. If they can’t be shamed into accepting this responsibility, then let’s do it through the courts.

I haven’t had a chance to play with this yet, but Todd Software has made my day by releasing a Merlin emulator for the Palm. Merlin, as any early 30something already knows, was a fantastic Parker Brothers handheld game back in the heyday of the 9-volt video game era. I can’t tell you the number of hours of my life this ate up in its first incarnation.

Mike Kinsley published an interesting sidebar this week with a brief analysis of the issue—a hot button among conservatives—of liberal bias in the media. His conclusion, more or less, was “it’s there, it’s minor, get over it.”

It amazes me that the navel-gazers in the press tend to ignore what was old news ten years ago. Way back when I was a student at the Annenberg School for Communication, we were reading studies that reached the following conclusions.

1. The people who write for the press tend to be predominantly liberal. (Kinsey makes this point as well.) There are obviously extreme variations depending on the location of the company and the media topic being covered, but the liberals outnumber the conservatives at most of the mainstream urban big-media outlets that set the pace of the news.
2. Different studies have different conclusions about the result of this bias in the profession. Some liberal journalists say that they so effectively self-censor their own beliefs that their writing ends up tending conservative in its assumptions as a result. For example, a liberal journalist writing about a Clinton sex story might have thought it was unimportant, and to counter that belief he might include three right-wing sources in the story’s analysis instead of one.
3. The ownership of this media is now almost entirely in the hands of large corporations, the leadership of which has a conservative slant much greater than the liberal slant of the journalists. Again, different studies have different conclusions on what effect this has. The main issue for both the media and media-watchers is whether the corporate side modifies the journalism in deferrence to its bottom line—i.e., will ABC News spike a story that is unflattering about a Disney property? The answer to this, by and large, is no, and heads get put on pikes when this rule is egregiously broken. But there are more subtle effects which are not as carefully watched.
4. However, the point that is constantly missed is that the agenda for news is unabashedly conservative. The New York Times publishes “all the news that’s fit to print,” which begs the question, what is news?

Take a look at your newspaper’s sections. Chances are, they’ll be national, local, business, style (formerly called “women’s issues” in a more unenlightened time), and sports. Your national and local news will cover a nice swath of business news as well. It’s newsworthy that Alan Greenspan has lowered interest rates again, or sneezed facing north-northwest rather than east-southeast. But the analysis of this information is entirely done from the perspective of what’s important for corporations.

Now take a look at what’s being covered in your local free weekly, such as the City Paper. Chances are, you’ll see stories there that wouldn’t be considered newsworthy by your primary daily paper.

A story covering a corporate layoff will discuss whether it will improve the company’s stock, not the impact of the layoff in the community; it takes a major debacle like Enron’s destruction of employee pension funds, or the primary employer of a small town shutting down, to make the human impact of business newsworthy.

If you think that our definition of newsworthy is universal, I invite you to start reading European and South American newspapers.

So, liberal bias in the news? More of it please. It might even things up.

I’ve set my desktop background to cosmic spectrum green.

Scientists: Green is dominant color of stars
By Paul Recer, 1/10/02 (AP)

Astronomers at Johns Hopkins University said that averaging all the colors from the light of 200,000 galaxies shows that the current color of the universe is a sprightly green.

We haven’t been to a paint shop yet to see if there is a fancy name for it,” said [Dr. Ivan] Baldry, [Johns Hopkins]. He calls the color “cosmic spectrum green.”

Which is more worrisome: that our defenses aren’t as good as we think they are, or that the government is willing to lie to us about it?

From the initial Washington Post story about the Tampa plane crash, 1/6/02:

Capt. Kirstin Reimann of the North American Aerospace Defense Command said two F-15s were scrambled from Homestead Air Reserve Base as a precaution, but he declined to say whether they reached the scene before the crash.

From a follow-up story, 1/8/02:

The military command that sends fighter jets to respond to acts of terrorism did not learn of Saturday’s flight of a private plane into a Tampa office building until after the plane had crashed, officials said yesterday.

Turns out that the FAA decided that it wasn’t necessary to contact NORAD, since local authorities were on the case; therefore, it’s not the fault of the military that they didn’t get there. But I’m very concerned that every report prior to this one strongly implied that the jets were on the way.

If we have to take homeland news with this much salt, how bad is the Afghanistan news for our blood pressure?

Has anyone else noticed that W has been a bit… morbid in his recent comments?

First came the unveiling of his Texas gubernatorial portrait, where he commented to the great amusement of his audience, “I’d like to welcome everyone to my hanging.”

Then, he vowed that taxes would be raised “over my dead body.” (Actually, he vowed the exact opposite, but who needs diction from a manly President?)

These would be curiosities, excepting one other article in the Washington Post 1/8/02 edition, where he’s quoted as saying, “All in all, [2001 has] been a fabulous year for Laura and me.”

Great year, huh? I’m surprised that Bush is so willing to admit that his political fortunes were improved last year, as they obviously were. But I’m bothered worse by something else.

The post-September 11th world is one in which there are a lot of things we can’t say without getting official attention from the authorities, and joking about the death of the President is definitely one of them. Likewise, anyone saying how wonderful 2001 was would be, at the very least, deserving of avoidance at parties. Yet the President can still say anything he damn well pleases.

Perhaps he considers that a perk of high approval ratings. But I would love to see what the “red states” who voted for him would say if there were wider distribution of his comments. Of course, criticizing the President is still unpatriotic, and is not one of the things polite people say.

And in case you’re wondering where we’ve been, remember this moral: it’s not a good idea to use an email address in your own domain as the MAIL-FROM authenticator address.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, consider yourself lucky.

Long story short, I had been hosting this site on a server at an old client site, and had accidently set things up so it would be very difficult to put things back together when that server went away.

Interesting side note to this story: my domain is hosted at Network Solutions. After a few months of getting conflicting information about what I’d need to fax to them to prove that I actually own this place, I was able to do this over the phone—with no identification whatsoever—when I called up to pay my $35 for the year. Reset my password, gave out my account ID, and basically gave me complete control.

Needless to say, if I weren’t me, I could be doing big mischief on a site in my name right now. Moral of this story: if you own a domain, keep it renewed well in advance.

Let’s cut to the chase. Residents of Washington, DC, the nation’s capital, are enslaved by the national electorate and denied their basic human rights as American citizens.

For those of you who don’t know it, Washingtonians have no representation in Congress. For the privilege of living here, we give up our right to two voices in the Senate and one in the House. That puts us in the category of people who live in Guam and American Samoa. However, unlike all other American possessions, we also pay full federal taxes. That puts us in a category by ourselves.

Ironically, we can all hop on the Metro and go see the original documents that purport to give all Americans these basic rights. We can also see the original clause in the Constitution that takes them away from us. It’s somewhere near the Three-Fifths Compromise that said that black people weren’t worth as much as white people. One of these two transgressions has been reversed.

Now, if you don’t live here and you have a basic knowledge of urban politics, when you think of DC government, you’re going to think of Marion Barry, our infamous crack-using former mayor. For those of you who don’t know the man, he was our mayor for a while, then he was busted by the feds and sent to prison, and then he got out and we re-elected him. I’ve heard otherwise intelligent people say that this proves that DC doesn’t deserve to have representation in Congress.

Excuse me? What other American citizens lose their right to vote based on bad choices? If that were the case, there’d be no Senators from either Carolina.

Now, you might think that not having representation in Congress is no big deal — after all, how often does the federal government affect your life personally? That’s because you don’t live in Washington. Congress has subcommittees of people from all over the country who have the power to revoke any laws our own City Council passes. We once legalized marijuana for medical reasons — blown to hell. We’d like to have the power which every state enjoys to tax the two million people who work here but don’t live here — forget it.

If you’ve flown to Washington recently, you might have noted that “Washington National Airport” is now “Reagan National Airport”. This was passed by a Congress who decided to honor Ronald Reagan — the man who despised the federal government and championed local rights — by forcing us to change the name. The local governing board, appointed by elected officials, was unanimously against it. Documents showed that the airport was named after George Washington the president and not the city, so we swapped one presidential honoree for another. The result of this opposition? Welcome to Reagan National Airport.

Now Bob Barr, Representative from the DC suburb of the state of Georgia, wants to kill $60 million in desperately needed public transportation funds if the local transit authority doesn’t rename the airport stop after Reagan as well. He’s been blocked for now, but DC residents expect that it’s only a matter of time.

So — why don’t we have representation? The Supreme Court has upheld our situation as constitutional, because — well, it’s spelled out right there in the Constitution. Can’t argue with that. But the real issue is political. DC is incorrigably, hopelessly, capital-D Democratic. Give us statehood, and you’ll have three more Democrats riding the members-only elevators of Congress.

Personally, I’m not sure why the obvious solution isn’t in play. As you learned in ninth grade civics, DC was made up out of a totally unlivable block of malarial swampland that Maryland and Virginia had no use for. Virginia wised up to the fact that this had become some primo property and forced us to give it back a long time ago, so now every square inch of the District of Columbia is formerly Maryland.

So — why not vote for Maryland Senators? I’m sure we’d be properly balanced out by the gun-toting neofascists of western Maryland. There’d be another Democratic House member, but the GOP can make up for that by the fact that they utterly control Congressional redistricting this year.

Here’s the kicker. We need Congressional action on this one, and recent reports say that Congress throws out all mail that comes in from folks outside their districts. Washingtonians live outside everyone’s district. But maybe you don’t.

Those of us who thought that the bruising election battle of 2000 might lead the Washington press corps to be a bit more critical of our new president are going through a rude awakening.

Remember during the transition when a broad scope of authority was given to Dick Cheney? Ah, those halcyon days of December. The story of the moment was that Bush was too much of an intellectual lightweight to have the full burdens of the presidency thrust upon him, so Uncle Dick and his wiser, older compadres were coming in to run the show.

Then the honeymoon began. According to the new storyline, President George W. Bush is now the healer that President-elect Bush wanted to be. After all, he invited Edward Kennedy, of all people, to the White House to watch a movie. He showed up at Democratic gatherings. He invited the Congressional Black Caucus in for a sit-down. Truly, this is a man who must be willing to work with Democrats, if he can stand to be in the same room with them.

So now that Bush has a properly “presidential” storyline, Cheney no longer has to be the grown-up. In a front-page article by Dana Milbank in today’s Washington Post, Uncle Dick now has “unprecedented power in the White House.” He has “integrated the vice presidential staff seamlessly with the presidential staff.” His chief of staff will be invited to every meeting that Bush’s chief will be attending.

Just a few scant weeks ago, this would have raised serious questions—at least in passing—about GWB’s ability to handle the scope of the presidency himself. Now, it’s a measure of his openness and willingness to have two heads in the White House. Why, one might ask? Because Cheney is somehow the first vice president since 1929 to have no presidential aspirations himself.

Consider me a heretic, but I would have thought that the first qualification of the vice president would be a willingness to assume the top office. Cheney gets a magical twofer: he has risen above the petty politics that consume the rest of us in Washington, and so long as he has the power and authority of the presidency, he’s magnanimously willing to forego the title. (The article is quick to say that Bush will always get final say, although if all of the heavy lifting is being done by Cheney, one wonders what criteria Bush might use to override him.)

Meanwhile, Bush rides the wave of bipartisanship, even as Ashcroft, Norton, and Thompson get busy in their Cabinet posts. The last president who crossed the partisan line was, of course, our last president, who set up the Nader wing by using Dick Morris’ “triangulation” policy and made his second term seem more like a moderate Republican’s than a Democrat’s. Welfare was ended “as we knew it”, largely by ending it entirely. Clinton was rewarded for his political centrism by the kindness and deference extended to him by the Republican party during the impeachment.

So forgive me if I want to see some Clinton-style centrism from Bush before I get all mushy over his bipartisanship. There have been some concrete actions here—notably the incredible Republican conversion to supporting Americorps as part of Bush’s religious funding proposals—but that has to be measured against his immediate gutting of global women’s health programs. (US funds weren’t being used for abortion anyway; Bush’s cut of aid shuts down funding to anyone who might provide family planning or referrals for abortion.) A similar standard in his religious funding system would prevent any faith at all from appearing in a government funded program—which assuredly is not what he has in mind.

This also just in from the new bipartisan Bush administration: HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson believes that the best way to prevent HIV infection is to find a cure for AIDS (Washington Post, 2/3/2001, A15). On the Christmas list for HHS: 1) a dictionary including the definition of “prevention;” 2) a press release about a magical new substance called “latex” which does prevent HIV transmission; and 3) a list of all of the sexually active teenagers who’ll be infected with HIV while the Bush administration putzes about looking for a cure, still years off.

Back after a long hiatus, just in time to point out the first travesty of the new Bush administration.

On the left, the most recent redesign of the Clinton White House web site. In the middle, for purposes of fairness, the original Clinton web site, from the prehistoric era of 1994. On the right, the current design of the Bush White House web site. Click on the thumbnails for a full-size version.

The Clinton thumbnails take you to the government archive of the sites. The Bush thumbnails take you to a snapshot of the whitehouse.gov site made on 1/21/01. Why? Because the archives will never change; hopefully, whitehouse.gov will.

The first Clinton site is pretty amateurish by today’s standards, but it was nearly state of the art then. The recent Clinton site is top-notch. Well-designed, lots of information, good navigation tools. So why did the Bush administration ditch it for something that looks like it popped out of a shareware web editor?

I can understand the new folks wanting the rip up the old carpets, but this is showing the bare floorboards until they get around to it. I can understand not wanting to use an existing framework for content, when on day two of the Bush presidency there just isn’t much to say. But surely they can do better than this? Or is communicating with the public just not as important as getting contributions for the inaugural celebration?

Before you think that Bush didn’t want to use the Clinton HTML, check out the new privacy policy, then look at the old one. And if you think I’m just talking about esthetics, think again.

Yes, I know, in a few weeks it’ll probably be better. But does anyone think the site would look this bad today if the Supreme Court had ruled for Al Gore?

The wake-up call comes at 4 AM. I find myself in my Cocoon cubicle at Charles de Gaulle Airport: a square the length of the double bed, a PVC prefab with a desk, shower, and toilet. I checked in here 15 hours ago after missing a plane for the first time in my life, and needing sleep after an overnight bus ride from London the night before, over the Channel by ferry from 12 to 2 AM.

My check-out time is 5 AM. The sign on the front door informed me that these rooms do not meet the minimum standards of the French government for a hotel, although they are the cheapest rooms in Paris with a private shower. Therefore, no stay can last more than 16 hours. I silently congratulate the bureaucrat who thought of that; it ensures a middle-of-the-night move if you decide to hop from room to room more than once.

The room is totally sealed; aside from the satellite photo of France on the wall, I could be anywhere on Earth. Or not—this design is perfect for the space station. I fell asleep the night before imagining I was returning home at warp speed, beating the plane I missed.

I sleep through my alarms, the phone and the television. At 4:58 AM, I shower, and check out at 5:17.

5 AM at Charles de Gaulle

The seats are littered with sleeping travelers too poor or unaware that a private bed is available nearby for 250 FRF. Their luggage is lashed to the trolleys that are free here and $2 everywhere in the States. Their bags and clothes give them the air of refugees rather than travelers, as if their flights will not leave for several weeks.

There is only one restaurant open, where I buy a cappuccino for 14 francs. It is covered with cocoa powder; after I dissolve it past the foamed milk with a plastic spoon, the beverage is entirely tasteless, palatable only because it is hot. I look for a sign informing me that this drink does not meet minimum French requirements for a coffee, and therefore must be consumed in 16 minutes.

Two television screens list a score of flights throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia. There is no other information, other than the news that the 8:10 to Cairo has been cancelled. I wonder if all flights to Cairo are cursed.

The airport is unnaturally quiet. Everyone, myself included, smokes Marlboros; Mediums for me, Lights at the next table, Reds everywhere else. The wick on my Zippo will not catch, so I need to bum lights from people around me; they are always offered, but with that odd French air that robs the gesture of all courtesy. I get a light from a woman wearing a jeweled Mickey Mouse stickpin.

The epitome of a French vagrant asks for a cigarette. I give him my last one and open a fresh pack. Fifteen minutes later, he asks someone else for another. I note that those people were not sitting here when he asked me for one. He has the same look as the homeless in the States who are ready to regale of you of their years in the Nam and their hard luck tales since. I wonder if the same wars are used here for such stories.

The only nonsmokers here are a Dutch family; the father wears a brown leather jacket and is the widest man I have seen since leaving the States. Paris is designed for the slim, and I wonder if he has had difficulty.

6 AM at Charles de Gaulle

In the past ten minutes, the noise level has gone from zero to bothersome. I am too sleep deprived to shut it out. There is an Asian tongue at the next table; the rest is French. It is a relief to not hear English for the first time after a week in France. I have seen two other Americans—our demeanor always betrays our nationality—but we are each traveling alone.

A black man clears my table with no regard as to whether I am finished. My tinfoil ashtray is replaced with glass. He communicates with me through hand signals that I cannot order from him, that I should go to the bar. I surmise he communicates with every customer through hand signals.

The appearance of my laptop computer, worth about $5,000 here, has drawn me some attention. I am suddenly less annoyed by the noise and crowds.

Ten flights are boarding. The flight to Cairo is still the only one cancelled.

Two tables away, a Frenchman in a gray woolen jacket and ugly tie opens the first pack of non-Marlboros I have seen. They are Philip Morrises.

Three stewardesses in matching burgundy at the next table are talking animatedly; with the arrival of the business crowds, this is the jolliest I have ever seen a public space at 6:30 AM. One of the woman wears a small piece of paper under her right lip, as if she cut herself shaving.

A man to my right sits with five duffel bags, two rucksacks, and a canteloupe-colored baseball cap; the chair next to him holds a maroon purse and a black feather boa. I am relieved to see companions join him.

The café is still the only one open. I purchase an orange juice and go for a walk. The juice is expensive and surprisingly good. I have done some shopping and am carrying far more baggage than I usually do; encumbrance plus fatigue causes me to take ten minutes to negotiate the tables out of the cafe. This is my fourth trip to Paris, and I feel like the high school kid I was the first time I was here.

Nine flights are still boarding, but it is now too late for the 6:45 AM to Manchester. The flashing red words in French give the impression from a distance that nine catastrophes have occurred out on the runway.

7 AM at Charles de Gaulle

The only woman behind the TWA counter is wiping it down. At home I would assume this was the ticketing agent, cleaning her desk before beginning the day. Here, I am not sure. I do not approach her, and cannot tell whether I am saving myself or her the embarrassment.

As of the end of December, I will have flown 40,000 miles this year on TWA. Yesterday, I noted that as of January, I will never be stranded again; the frequent flyer upgrades also give me the class of ticket that can be transferred to other airlines. This morning, I would like to use the toilet, but I have nowhere to put my bags; I am not yet eligible for the TWA business lounge, if there is one here. The airline industry provides its services to those least likely to need them.

I find another café where the coffee is better; in ordering my petit dejeuner I attempt to specify a croissant as my bread, and receive it as an extra. A Pepsi here costs nearly four dollars, and I wonder what I will be charged. The orange juice is from concentrate, but the jam is some of the best I’ve tasted.

Charles de Gaulle is built as a torus, around a central fountain. The fountain was placid an hour ago, but someone has recently turned on the jets. When sunlight hits the fountain, reflecting off the water and the silver aerial tubes that carry moving walkways, it can be quite beautiful. Now, though, it is still dark, and the fountain barely distracts from the Logan’s Run design of the airport interior.

I have been struck with Traveler’s Paranoia: my duffel contains a week’s worth of dirty clothes, and my gifts are not expensive, yet I am guarding my bags as if they contain uncut diamonds.

I take a picture of a snowman decoration to illustrate this article, and a man at the next table looks up at the flash, then glares at me. I want to say, “I am a writer; this is for my work.” I want to be anything but another ignorant American, snapping pictures of everything.

The direct flight from Washington has just arrived. I am homesick enough to be angry with everyone on the flight who has left the city where I am trying to go, where I will not be for another sixteen hours.

The 9:20 flight to Philadelphia, where I was born, has also been cancelled. After my uncharitable thoughts about Cairo, it is rather disturbing. It is now too late to board the flights to Copenhagen and London Heathrow.

I wonder if it is too early for a beer.

At the next table, a woman wearing Nikes is reading a newspaper with a headline about the Egypt Air 990 crash. I do not read French, but I understand the word “kamikaze” in the headline, and the blurry picture of a plane on the cover. It is odd pleasure reading before boarding a flight. I hope my pilots have families waiting for them back home.

8 AM at Charles de Gaulle

I spend 20 minutes in a fruitless search for a power outlet. Boarding an airplane without a fully charged battery always makes me feel faintly queasy. I have 10 hours of music and five hours of South Park episodes on my PowerBook, yet I keep forgetting to buy extra batteries.

The business center here is located behind a mirrored glass wall, with no indication of operating hours or services. It could be the airport offices. I want to check my e-mail, as if there is anything there that will not keep until I get home.

I decide to risk the airport lavatory, crowding into the stall with all of my baggage. For the fourth time this week, I have a sudden urge to go to Euro Disney; part of the Disney unreality is the sanitized bathrooms that make you feel like you are the first person to use them. The foot pedal flushes the toilet for 90 seconds, vigorously enough that I crowd myself and my bags against the lav door to prevent being splashed.

The woman at the TWA ticketing counter—not the same woman who was wiping it down this morning—tells me that the check-in will open in 20 minutes. Nothing better to do, so I am the first in line.