September 5, 2006

Adela and I were hauling water for the first spring crops—peas, potatoes, spinach and lettuce. With five-gallon buckets in each hand we headed down to the creek, dipped our buckets, hauled them back up the hill, then handed them off to another crew.

Adela handed off her buckets with a smile, and we talked—she in rapid Mexican Spanish, me in halting gringo Spanglish. She told me about the years she worked in the tobacco fields. We rested. Then we went back to work.

According to theologian David Ray Griffin, the attacks of 9/11 were not the work of jihadist suicidal terrorists but were orchestrated by the Bush administration to provide the pretext for its military adventures and its quest for global dominance.

On a blustery Wednesday evening in central London, about a dozen people from different parts of the city made their way to St. Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace. They included an attorney from a large London law firm, a political lobbyist, a corporate consultant, a Muslim college chaplain, a university professor, a female rabbi and a research scientist. After pouring cups of coffee, the group began a two-hour discussion marked by moments of intense debate as well as laughter. Conversation veered from economics to the nature of citizenship to London politics.

When it was announced that Oliver Stone would be directing a film about the downing of the twin towers on 9/11, there was a collective gasp. Would Stone focus on one of the many conspiracy theories about the disaster, as he did in JFK? Would he transform the story into a mythical tale of good versus evil, as in Platoon? Would he pull out all the stops and dwell on the death, destruction and violence, à la Natural Born Killers?

If you’ve never seen a film written and directed by Woody Allen, then you’ve missed about one a year for a biblical generation. Those who have seen them all are like the old-timers in the congregation of a long-serving minister: they know that Allen is apt to repeat his standard themes, retell his favorite jokes and rely on a well-worn bag of tricks.