Month: July 2010

Do You Believe In Confidence Fairies?

by digby

Krugman comments today on his blog about the wide-eyed belief among elites that “confidence” is going to rescue us from all this economic unpleasantness:

You see, while traveling I reread Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August, and there it was: Plan XVII:

Entirely offensive in nature, Plan XVII made extensive use of the belief in the mystical élan vital assumed to be instilled within every Frenchman – a fighting spirit capable of turning back any enemy by its sheer power.

Unfortunately, fighting spirit proved not very useful when charging machine guns. And I’m afraid that relying on confidence to deal with the downdraft from a financial crisis will work out no better.

Coincidentally, I recently re-read Guns of August as well and was struck by how much these martial cheerleaders reminded me of the famous Confederate belief that the south would win the civil war because every southerner was worth 10 Union soldiers. This kind of magical thinking is fairly common, I’m guessing, among people who want to justify something they know doesn’t make any logical sense.

I wrote about the confidence fairy thing yesterday but I think I got it wrong. I was assuming that they were talking about “confidence” in the sense of average Americans having confidence and being willing to spend and invest in themselves and their futures. And that’s a big problem right now:

In every recession over the last three decades, it has been America’s small businesses — those Lilliputian companies with fewer than 100 employees — that stepped forward, began hiring and pulled the country out of the mire.

Not this time….A host of factors — some well-recognized and others seemingly unnoticed in the national debate over economic policy — are converging to restrain small-business owners from hiring. Among them:

* Near-stagnant demand for goods and services as a result of consumers’ reluctance to return to their free-spending ways.
* A disturbing falloff in the creation of new small businesses.
* The devastation of the real estate market.
* Uncertainty about the economic outlook at home and abroad.

….The fact that many small firms are seeing little increase in demand for their services and products is decisive for Scott George, owner of Mid-America Dental & Hearing Center, which employs 55 people in the southwestern Missouri town of Mount Vernon.

“I’m not having any trouble getting money,” said George, who recently got a $250,000 loan to renovate one of his buildings. But he’s not hiring more workers because of little or no growth in sales.

I don’t blame people for not spending. This is a tough downturn and the burden of debt left a lot of us hungover. But they aren’t going to come out of that very soon if they are continually being hammered with a drumbeat of apocalyptic talk about the deficit and calls for even more sacrifice and austerity. If you are an average person you see nothing but black clouds on the horizon, from terrorists lurking on every corner to suffocating fears of a health catastrophe to crippling national debt that will require you to work until the day you drop dead from exhaustion — and that’s if you’re lucky to have even a dead end job from which you cannot escape. What exactly is there to be “confident” about? Wealthy gasbags lecturing people to feel confident in the same breath that they calmly discuss the need for decades of austerity is a confidence fairy tale all right.

But then I thought about it and realized that this thinking is even more magical than I knew. It isn’t that these leaders think consumer confidence will save us — they don’t care about the real economy at all. Growth is solely a measure of elite confidence that their wealth will continue to grow. Somehow, these people have so completely sealed themselves in a bubble that they think that their ability to keep their game going is the only thing that matters. The real economy has become the fantasy and their arcane financial instruments have become the reality.

I don’t know what you do about this. It’s irrational behavior and very difficult to counter. The global financial gamblers are unwilling to admit that the party’s over and so they are going to steal money from the average workers to keep it going for a while longer. The “confidence fairy” is nothing more than the desperate bravado of addicts trying to avoid hitting bottom. And taking everybody else with them.

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Conscious Servility

by digby

I haven’t written anything about the Weigel matter because everyone else seemed to have the ground pretty well covered.

But reading the article in today’s NY Times about the flap contains something so revealing that I can’t help but make a note of it:

The Post’s precipitous action suggests that the editors had no idea of what they were buying in the first place. He probably could have survived if he had slammed Rachel Maddow or had some fun at Al Franken’s expense, but his willingness to train his guns inside the conservative movement was a bit much, especially in the eyes of The Post’s ombudsman, Andrew Alexander.

“Weigel’s exit, and the events that prompted it, have further damaged The Post among conservatives who believe it is not properly attuned to their ideology or activities,” he wrote. “Ironically, Weigel was hired to address precisely those concerns.” Loosely translated, it means someone whom they thought they hired to build bridges was blowing them up instead.

There is absolutely no doubt that if he or any other reporter had made fun of Rachel Maddow or Al Franken it would have been fine because its considered completely acceptable to treat liberals with derision. For instance, if it had been revealed that Ezra Klein had insulted Markos Moulitsas on his listserv is it even imaginable that he would have been fired? Even if a bunch of lefty bloggers got up in arms and complained? I don’t either. Of course, Ezra wasn’t hired to cover the progressive movement — but then no one was, were they?

The Post’s ombudsman made it clear that they are determined to cater to the conservative movement. The NY Times ombudsman revealed the same thing in his post-ACORN apologia promising to consult FOX News as a legitimate source in the future. Despite all their blathering about unbiased reporting,the two most politically influential papers in the country are admitting openly that they are capitulating to the sustained, cynical right wing campaign to force the media to treat it with kid gloves. They’re not even trying to hide it anymore.

I think Ana Marie Cox has it right in the article when she says that the Washington Post didn’t know they weren’t getting a doctrinaire conservative in Weigel. In fact, from their reaction it appears that they don’t actually know what movement conservatism is, nor do they care. They’ve simply decided that the path of least resistance is to show deference to people who lay claim to the identity.

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Woodstock Nation 2010

by digby

Looks like Dennis Miller has some competition for biggest right wing jackass “comic”:

Then Gallagher gets going. And fuck. Bremerton is a military town and a conservative one: It’s more than just a slide into obscurity that delivered Gallagher to the Admiral rather than, say, the Moore in Seattle. You see, Gallagher is—how best to put this?—a paranoid, delusional, right-wing religious maniac. I HAD NO IDEA.

“Hey, President Obama,” he spits out the name like a mouthful of burning hair. “You ain’t black. I don’t care what you say—you’re a latte. You’re half whole-milk. It could be goat milk—you could be a terrorist!” I am too busy losing my mind to catch the next joke, which is about Ted Kennedy’s brain cancer. Aaaaand we’re off.

Gallagher is upset about a lot of things. Young people with their sagging pants (in faintly coded racist terms, he explains that this is why the jails are overcrowded—because “their” baggy pants make it too hard for “them” to run from the cops). Tattoos: “That ink goes through to your soul—if you read your Bible, your body is a sacred temple, YOU DIPSHIT.” People naming their girl-children Sam and Toni instead of acceptable names like Evelyn and Betty: “Just give her some little lesbian tendencies!” Guantánamo Bay: “We weren’t even allowed to torture all the way. We had to half-torture—that’s nothin’ compared to what Saddam and his two sons OOFAY and GOOFAY did.” Lesbians: “There’s two types—the ugly ones and the pretty ones.” (Um, like all people?) Obama again: “If Obama was really black, he’d act like a black guy and get a white wife.” Michael Vick: “Poor Michael Vick.” Women’s lib: “These women told you they wanna be equal—they DON’T.” Trans people: “People like Cher’s daughter—figure that out. She wants a penis, but she has a big belly. If you can’t see your dick, you don’t get one.” The Rice Krispies elves: “All three of those guys are gay. Look at ’em!” The Mexicans: “Look around—see any Mexicans? Nope. They’ll be here later for the cleanup.” The French: “They ruin our language with their faggy words.”

And then he threw some food on the floor.

I suppose it’s fairly predictable that aging baby boomers who were too afraid to rebel 40 years ago would wind up laughing at some reactionary bozo yelling the word fag. He’s the teabaggers’ George Carlin.

Via Down With Tyranny, here’s the real thing, to cleanse your brain of that puerile jerk:

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Baffled Villagers

by digby

Here’s a little blast from 1995:

Q. What do MacNeil/Lehrer’s Mark Shields, U.S. News & World Report’s Steve Roberts and Gloria Borger, syndicated columnist Haynes Johnson and former New York Times reporter Hedrick Smith have in common?

A. They all receive a weekly paycheck from Lockheed Martin, the nation’s largest military contractor.

The pundits are paid to appear on a D.C.-area radio talkshow, WMAL-AM’s Look at Today, that is sponsored by the conglomerate; their checks come directly from Lockheed Martin, a company spokesperson told Washington City Paper (8/4/95).

Nationally prominent pundits don’t usually appear as regular commentators on local radio shows, even in Washington, D.C. Local stations generally can’t afford the famous journalists. Giant military contractors can afford to pay appropriate fees, of course- -but what exactly do they think they’re buying?

A company dependent on government contracts obviously needs to stay on the good side of the Washington elite. What better way than by sending regular checks to some of the city’s most influential pundits–especially those who are considered liberals, and might be expected to be critics of Pentagon spending?

Mark Shields, for instance, is positioned as the “left” edge of conventional wisdom on MacNeil/Lehrer and CNN’s Capital Gang–but is hardly a critic of the military. (He once wrote a column that said that “anti-military bias” was the “anti-Semitism of the American intelligentsia and elites”–Rocky Mountain News, 3/1/94.)

But not everyone sees a conflict of interest in the Lockheed Martin arrangement. When asked by City Paper whether being in the pay of a major military contractor posed a problem, Steve Roberts was unconcerned: “We all work for corporations and it baffles me that people see this as any different. It’s not.”

And people wonder how we got to where we are today.

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Inalienable Gasbags

by digby

Rush Limbaugh says Elena Kagan wants to flush the Declaration of Independence down the toilet:

KAGAN: Senator Coburn, I believe that the Constitution is an extraordinary document, and I’m not saying I do not believe that there are rights pre-existing the Constitution and the laws, but my job as a justice is to enforce the Constitution and the laws.

RUSH: And to hell with the Declaration of Independence. She is basically just throwing the whole concept of natural law down the toilet and flushing it. She is throwing the Declaration of Independence down the toilet.

I wonder how he explains the arch conservative Texas School Board’s decision to downgrade Jefferson in their schoolbooks because they’ve traced “separation of church and state” to him.

Conservatives have a very hard time with the founding documents because they really don’t believe in human rights — they believe in property rights, which they confuse with freedom. Glenn Beck even changes the terms of the Declaration by making up a story out of whole cloth about how Jefferson originally wrote “life, liberty and property,” but it was changed to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” by northerners in the Continental congress because of slavery. It didn’t happen.

I just have to share this extended comment by Rush about inalienable rights. It’s hilarious:

Rush: Now, I know the Declaration of Independence is not law, but the Declaration of Independence defines us as a people. One of the reasons why this is one of the greatest countries on earth is the Constitution and the founding documents — all of them, including the Declaration. “We are all endowed by our Creator, certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. If the government, whatever branch, will not stand for those things, who will? Abraham Lincoln, who freed the slaves, held the Declaration above even the Constitution, its ideals at least.

So it makes sense that those who seek to re-enslave us, loosely defined, would feel the opposite way. They’ve convinced themselves that there is a “living, breathing Constitution,” which means there’s no Constitution at all. The Constitution is what they want it to be at any given moment. So inalienable rights — an absolute guaranteed by God no less — they find threatening. And we’re about to put somebody who obviously holds this view on the United States Supreme Court. I wonder if Elena Kagan would agree that all human beings have an alien right to live in the United States and become US citizens. Obama clearly does. Obama vomited the cliche line: “These people are only seeking a better life.” The implication was, “They’re only seeking a better life! Who are we to tell ’em they can’t have a better life?” So I guess the people coming here illegally, they got all kinds of rights and we’re going to make sure that they are enshrined somewhere. In the process, the natural rights and conferred rights of American citizens are going to take a hit administered by this administration.

I guess Rush thinks our “Creator” didn’t mean for all those aliens to have inalienable rights — indeed, those “natural rights” are reserved for Americans. Like I said, very confused.

If you haven’t read the Declaration recently, it’s worth looking at today. It, along with Bill of Rights, is the best realization of the founders’ idealistic vision.

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Saving The Turtles

by digby

This story is for Darcy Burner’s seven year old son Henry, who’s very worried about the turtles. They’re launching a daring rescue plan to try to save the babies.

And they won’t know if it worked until Henry is in his 40s!:

H
undreds of turtles and birds have already died in the oil spill, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is determined that this year’s hatchlings won’t be among the casualties. Biologists plan to relocate all the nests from the Gulf Coast to Florida’s eastern coast, agency spokesman Chuck Underwood tells NPR’s Scott Simon.

[…]

In a couple of weeks, he says, the rescue team will dig up an estimated 700 to 800 nests, place them in foam containers and ship them overland to Florida’s far side.

They don’t make car seats for baby turtles, but it turns out some companies do specialize in transporting wildlife — like FedEx, which will be delivering the eggs. Another big name is offering luxury accommodations for the eggs when they reach their destination: the Kennedy Space Center.

“The space center’s provided the opportunity for us to utilize one of their large, climate-controlled warehouses,” Underwood says. It even has a wildlife contractor on staff.

[…]

But playing with Mother Nature has its risks. There are some things the rescuers just don’t know. “Once we get them there and they emerge, there’s a lot of questions: Are they going to be put on the beach and released into the surf? And are they going to go into the ocean like they would normally do? Or are they going to do circles? We just honestly don’t know.”

Even if the little guys make it to the water, we won’t know if they’re OK for another 35 years.

“This is a very slow-maturing species,” Underwood says. “Thirty-five years from now, they will reach their sexual maturity and begin coming back to the beaches.” Only then might we find out whether the rescued turtles went back to the Gulf or not. Or if they even survived…

The plan isn’t ideal. “This is the least offensive solution of a bunch of poor solutions. We know with some certainty that if we don’t do something, these hatchlings are going to emerge. They’re going to go into the Gulf and their chances in the Gulf will be almost nil. So this is an effort to do what we can. We’ve tried to minimize the risk, manage those risks to the greatest extent possible, but we do expect that we will in fact cause some additional losses.”

Godspeed little guys.

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Every Day’s A Revolution — Welcome To The Future

by digby

I’m tired of feeling like hell about everything. I just don’t have the right temperament for constant anger, frustration and depression. And anyway, the Fourth of July is my favorite holiday — a beautiful, secular, mid-summer celebration of freedom — and I just don’t want to feel awful today.

So, I’m going to put up this Youtube of Brad Paisley singing “Welcome to the Future” at the White House last summer. I heard the song on the radio the other day and was reminded that while I live in the trenches of the political battle and the day to day is relentlessly frustrating and unsatisfying, it’s important to step back and take a look at the big picture once in a while. And watching this country music superstar singing a song about progress for the first African American president makes me feel good.

I don’t cut President Obama much slack — the job is too important for that and he doesn’t need patronizing sycophants — but on Independence Day it pays to remember that the election of the first black president is still, as the Veep would say, a Big Fucking Deal:

I know that many of you are not country fans, but hey, you can’t please everybody. It’s the fact that that’s a country song that makes it so poignant.

We have come a long way.

Oh heck — alright, here’s Dave Alvin singing “4th of July.” Somebody finally uploaded the video.

For those of you who prefer the more rocking X version, here it is.

I want everybody to be happy today.

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Saturday Night At The Movies

Double Feature: Of Western noirs and Eastern fables

By Dennis Hartley

Hard-boiled eggs: Hudson and Affleck in The Killer Inside Me

There have been a number of good films adapted from pulp writer Jim Thompson’s novels and short stories. Neo-noirs like The Getaway, Coup de Torchon, The Grifters; After Dark, My Sweet; and This World, Then Fireworks reveled convincingly in the author’s trademark milieu of tortured, brooding characters and dirty double dealings. Unfortunately, as much as I was rooting for it, The Killer Inside Me is not destined to be held up among the aforementioned. Filmed once before in 1972 (with Stacey Keach in the lead), it’s a nasty bit of Texas noir about a sheriff’s deputy (played in 2010 by Casey Affleck) who leads the proverbial “double life”-with a dark side much darker than most.

Affleck plays Lou Ford, a taciturn, seemingly well-mannered 1950s small town lawman whose gaze always appears to be fixated on an indeterminate point just beyond your shoulder. When he is assigned to personally deliver an “out of town by sundown” ultimatum from the sheriff’s office to a local prostitute (Jessica Alba), he learns quickly that this young lady is not so easily intimidated. In fact, she instigates what essentially turns into a slapping contest between the two. One thing leads to another, and before you know it, we’re witnessing what could be the beginning of a beautiful sadomasochistic relationship. This is our first inkling of what may be lurking beneath Lou’s robotically polite, “yes ma’am, no ma’am” countenance. In accordance with Film Noir Rules and Regulations, the lovers are soon embroiled in a complicated blackmail scheme. Yes-he is a bad, bad deputy (not to mention that he’s already fooling around on his sweet-natured fiancée, played by a virtually unrecognizable Kate Hudson). His transgressions get worse. Much, much worse (erm…take a moment to ponder the film’s title). Corpses accumulate.

I can’t quite put my finger on why this film didn’t work for me. Director Michael Winterbottom is no slouch; he has demonstrated a talent for effortless genre-hopping with a diverse resume that includes 24 Hour Party People (my personal favorite), Code 46, Tristram Shandy and The Road to Guantanamo. Maybe it was the “near-miss” vibe of all the film’s essential elements. He catches the look of a small west Texas town circa 1950, but not necessarily the flavor; it all feels too glossy (or maybe stagey). John Curran’s screenplay (with additional writing credits to the director) is just “OK”, but not spectacular (we’re not talking Chinatown here). It’s a great cast; with good supporting players like Ned Beatty, Elias Koteas, Simon Baker and Bill Pullman-but they’re window-dressed as noir archetypes, given nothing substantive to do with their characters. This is also one of those films where everyone mumbles or stage whispers their lines-I couldn’t follow a good portion of the dialog (what?). In particular, I found Affleck’s vocal inflection (a peculiar, reedy croak) to be something akin to chalk on a blackboard.

There has been some controversy regarding the violence in the film; viewers are subjected to not one, but two uncompromisingly brutal scenes where a female character is punched, kicked and stomped to death. There are no artful cutaways; it is grisly, and hard to stomach. Now, one could argue that murder is a horrible act, and should not be sugar-coated or glorified; after all this is a film about a psychotic killer (GoodFellas had some of the most sickening violence I’ve ever seen on screen, but in the context of the world that its characters live in, it “worked”). But in this case, it feels a bit gratuitous, especially since I can’t really say that the film surrounding those scenes redeemed their inclusion in any major way. I’ve seen this movie before (American Psycho, The Stepfather, Henry – Portrait of a Serial Killer)-and, speaking for myself, I think I’ve had my lifetime quota.

Canola dreams: Little Big Soldier

I will confess up front that I have not gone out of my way to follow action star Jackie Chan’s career. According to the Internet Movie Database, he has made 99 films; after a quick perusal of that impressive list, I’d guesstimate that I have seen approximately, let’s see, somewhere in the neighborhood of, oh, around…four. So when I say that Little Big Soldier is the best Jackie Chan flick I’ve ever seen, you can take that with a grain of salt.

There is one camp of Chan’s devotees who would tell you that you can’t truly appreciate the full spectrum of his prowess as an entertainer until you’ve seen one of his Hong Kong productions; I think I understand what they are talking about now. Of course, you could easily apply this caveat to any number of accomplished actors from Europe or Asia who, due to their broken English, give the impression of impaired performances when they star in Hollywood films. For example, let’s say that I was a (what’s a polite term?) “casual” ‘murcan moviegoer who had never heard of The Last Metro, The Return of Martin Guerre or Jean De Florette, and my very first awareness of Gerard Depardieu was seeing him in 102 Dalmatians. “Loved the puppies, but who was that dopey fat French dude?”

So, while Chan’s latest Hollywood vehicle, The Karate Kid (talk about your pointless remake/summer fodder) inundates 3700 screens, in the meantime this unique, splendidly acted and handsomely mounted comedy-adventure-fable from director Sheng Ding sits in the wings, awaiting U.S. distribution. The film had its North American premiere at the Seattle International Film Festival a few weeks ago, but I couldn’t make the screening. Luckily, I found a Region 3 DVD version available for rent at my friendly local independent video store (the movie opened in the Asian markets back in early February).

The story is set in the era just prior to the unification of China under Qin Dynasty rule, a time when many of the country’s states were in a perpetual state of war with each other. Chan is the “Big Soldier” of the title, a Liang survivor who emerges from a veritable mountain of corpses in the film’s opening scene, poking around the remnants of a recent battle. When he happens upon a wounded enemy Wei general (Lee-Hom Wang), he takes him prisoner, hoping to collect a reward. Big Soldier, a cynical, dirt-poor farmer who was grudgingly conscripted into military service, would just as soon leave the fighting to those who care, and fantasize about what he’s going to grow on the “5 mou” of land that he is going to purchase with this windfall (paddy…or canola field?). The young general, an arrogant nobleman, is appalled to be at the mercy of such rabble, but in his debilitated state has no choice but to grin and bear it until he sees a chance to escape. An arduous, episodic journey ensues, with the “prince and the pauper” dynamic providing most of the comic and dramatic tension. Along the way, the pair encounters interesting characters, most notably a motley crew of cutthroats led by a whip-wielding bandit queen (“They are trustworthy, but truculent,” as one character describes the bandits, in the film’s best line). However, it’s the animals who threaten to steal the show; my favorite scenes feature a bear, an ox and a pregnant rabbit. There’s also a Shakespearean subplot, concerning royal intrigue in the general’s home court, which leads to an unlikely alliance between the two.

Chan (who wrote the screenplay) reportedly has had this project percolating for nearly 20 years. Despite its relatively simplistic narrative, the film does have an epic feel. The misty mountains, serpentine rivers and lush valleys of China are beautifully photographed; suggesting an almost mythical sense of time and place As per usual, Chan choreographs and directs all of his own fight scenes, executing them with his Chaplinesque blend of gymnastic prowess and deft comic timing. As I mentioned earlier, I’m no expert on his oeuvre, but his performance here sports a noticeable upgrade in nuance and character immersion from what I’ve seen of his Hollywood fare (don’t worry, fans-the closing credits features the requisite blooper reel). If you have a multi-region player, it is worth seeking out; although this is a film likely best served on the big screen.

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Bleeding The Patient

by digby

I’m going to embroider this on a pillow:

When I was young and naïve, I believed that important people took positions based on careful consideration of the options. Now I know better. Much of what Serious People believe rests on prejudices, not analysis. And these prejudices are subject to fads and fashions. — Paul Krugman

That’s from yesterday’s column in which he explains that these Very Serious People have all decided to believe in fantasies about invisible bond vigilantes and confidence fairies, making wild assumptions about people’s future behavior based on well … prejudices, fads and fashions. And sadly for all of us, those fads and fashions happen to be based on a fascination with austere “tough love” at a time when we are in such a weakened state that such things might just kill us.

And what’s most amazing is that it has almost nothing to do with the arcane subject of macroeconomics at all. It has to do with the notion that a bunch of politicians and economists are making important decisions based upon what they perceive to be human behavior. I’m not sure that most of the people who are doing that have a clue about human behavior. (There are some economists, like Robert Frank, who study that aspect of the field, but I don’t get the sense that they are being consulted.)

It’s certainly possible that many of these elites believe they have special knowledge of the world of markets and can, therefore, predict how bond traders will react to certain situations, which seems to be of the utmost concern. However, their predictions have been miserably off the mark on that so far and there’s little reason to have confidence that their rather simple-minded view of what motivates people has any validity at this point. As for their magical thinking about “confidence” well — good luck with that. For the most part people have confidence because they perceive, though a complicated set of observations both obvious and subliminal, that the future is bright. Why anyone thinks that a grim call for sacrifice while they are still reeling from a massive loss of of wealth and security is going to do that is anyone’s guess. I’m guessing this idea seems reasonable because they aren’t going to be the ones doing the sacrificing — and since our elites “identify” as salt of the earth, middle and working class Americans they figure everyone else will be as unconcerned about a generation of lost dreams as they are.

Both Krugman and I have written that Keynesianism is counter-intuitive and hard to explain, but as Avedon Carol perspicaciously observed in this discussion, that’s not really true. She said “when the patient is hemorrhaging you give it a blood transfusion and right now the doctors are prescribing leeches.” It really is that simple.

And these “doctors” are just as medieval in their understanding of human psychology. They are basically saying that invisible demons have invaded the minds of the people and they need to be beaten out of them. I’m guessing if these devils fail to flee, the patient will be deemed to be a witch and burned at the stake. Welcome to the new Dark Ages.

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Small Town Target

by digby

My spouse is in Fairbanks Alaska right now (where we met back in the dark ages) and he pointed me in the direction of this hilarious front page news story when I asked him what people were talking about in town right now:

A crane working on the Barnette Street Bridge crashed into the Chena River on Tuesday morning.

Witnesses described hearing a loud crashing noise just before 11 a.m. as the crane, with its base originally on the north side of the river near the Big I bar, fell on its side.

“I was running on Cushman Street, and I heard a loud boom,” said a man watching from a hill above the construction site. He would only give his name as William. “I said, ‘What is that?’ I thought it was something like a terrorist attack.”