I was a bit pollyannaish yesterday but I confess I was feeling pretty discouraged about things. Our university president sent out an update on its parlous financial condition and confirmed that significant restructuring lies ahead; we must "disenthrall ourselves from any specific allegiances to programs, to colleges, to structures, or even to individuals." Those rather overwrought words have predictably sent everyone into a tizzy! But I was also reeling at another president, the White House grifter who signed an executive order banning not just silly TikTok but WeChat, the main vehicle for communication with people in China. The wholesale destruction of American-Chinese relations continues. (I'm also really annoyed that the spacy new blogger is forcing my style!) With yesterday's caption I was trying to be hopeful since the New School has made it through crises before, and it's not clear that or how one could ban an app in the US (and the one thing all Chinese internauts know is how to get around a ban). Still, our future feels a lot more fragile, more embattled. The holes we have to dig ourselves out of feel deeper and deeper. Hence these images of damage from Tuesday's storm we saw today along the top of Morningside Park, an iron railing knocked off its pedestal by a toppled tree and the curling leaves of a tree which has evidently lost access to its roots. A little grim; sorry.
