Very Recent History: An Entirely Factual Account of a Year (C. AD 2009) in a Large City by Choire Sicha Page B
Authors: Choire Sicha
Ads: Link
good times can’t go on forever. . . .
Some of our largest employers and most established companies are in turmoil—and others
don’t even exist anymore. . . . We may well be on the verge of a meltdown, and it’s
up to us to rise to the occasion. . . .
As our economic situation has become increasingly unstable, the question for me has
become far less about the theoretical and much more about the practical. And so, to
put it in very practical terms, handling this financial crisis while strengthening
essential services such as education and public safety is a challenge I want to take
on for the people. . . .
On the same day, the head of the City Council came out and said that they would be
introducing legislation to repeal the two-term limit law, which meant that the Mayor
would be clear to run for office for a third time. She said that the decision would
be made in a week. “The Mayor has made very clear that he wants the City Council to
consider legislation that will extend term limits from eight to twelve years. We will
obviously do that. Each person will have to stand up and vote yes or no,” she said.
This did not make a whole lot of sense on the face of it. The people of the City had
voted twice, as a group, to not allow mayors to serve more than two terms. But then
the Mayor had “made very clear” what he wanted, and he was used to getting what he
wanted.
Two of the City’s living previous mayors came forward to endorse the Mayor for this
third term. The other did not.
JOHN’S BOSS CALLED all of the staff into the conference room. It was a bright white room. He was going
to quit, Thomas said. He couldn’t protect them from the owner anymore, he said.
“Are you leaving us for another woman?” one woman asked.
He didn’t want anyone talking about this in public, he said. “If anyone leaks this
before we’re willing to announce this, I’m going to be bullshit,” he said. Everyone
looked around at each other in the white room. He meant “batshit,” everyone realized.
“Bullshit” meant something that was aggressively false. “Batshit” meant crazily angry.
Right before he’d come into the meeting, Thomas had taken a phone call from a woman
with a website. “I can’t talk to you right now!” he’d said to her. “I’m about to go
into a meeting and announce that I’m quitting!”
And so while they were in the meeting, she’d written about this on her website. So
when everyone eventually stumbled out of the conference room, it was already done
and everyone knew, thereby, at least, putting no one in the awkward position of having
to tell people themselves.
TWELVE YEARS BEFORE John was born, the country renounced a policy that tied its paper currency to actual
reserves of gold. The country had maintained a set price for gold—thirty-five dollars
an ounce, which is what citizens were paid in exchange for the gold that they were,
for a time, no longer allowed to own. Other countries held their own currencies tied
to an exchange rate of the country’s “dollar.” A good chunk of the powerful world
was in league—briefly.
The name “dollar”—the name for a currency unit equal to one—supposedly came about
from the “thaler,” a currency name dating from another continent, hundreds of years
ago. The dollar coin was first defined as twentysomething grams of pure silver, according
to a statesman ages ago; that amount of silver, however, was reduced twice and then,
eventually, no silver at all was put into silver dollar coins.
While the coins were made of silver, the paper version of the dollar represented gold.
But soon, the government had many more “dollars” in the world than it had gold. To
pay some debts, it made a great deal many more “dollars.” And then: The countries
in league with the U.S. currencies demanded that their debts be redeemed in actual
gold instead of some paper that
Some of our largest employers and most established companies are in turmoil—and others
don’t even exist anymore. . . . We may well be on the verge of a meltdown, and it’s
up to us to rise to the occasion. . . .
As our economic situation has become increasingly unstable, the question for me has
become far less about the theoretical and much more about the practical. And so, to
put it in very practical terms, handling this financial crisis while strengthening
essential services such as education and public safety is a challenge I want to take
on for the people. . . .
On the same day, the head of the City Council came out and said that they would be
introducing legislation to repeal the two-term limit law, which meant that the Mayor
would be clear to run for office for a third time. She said that the decision would
be made in a week. “The Mayor has made very clear that he wants the City Council to
consider legislation that will extend term limits from eight to twelve years. We will
obviously do that. Each person will have to stand up and vote yes or no,” she said.
This did not make a whole lot of sense on the face of it. The people of the City had
voted twice, as a group, to not allow mayors to serve more than two terms. But then
the Mayor had “made very clear” what he wanted, and he was used to getting what he
wanted.
Two of the City’s living previous mayors came forward to endorse the Mayor for this
third term. The other did not.
JOHN’S BOSS CALLED all of the staff into the conference room. It was a bright white room. He was going
to quit, Thomas said. He couldn’t protect them from the owner anymore, he said.
“Are you leaving us for another woman?” one woman asked.
He didn’t want anyone talking about this in public, he said. “If anyone leaks this
before we’re willing to announce this, I’m going to be bullshit,” he said. Everyone
looked around at each other in the white room. He meant “batshit,” everyone realized.
“Bullshit” meant something that was aggressively false. “Batshit” meant crazily angry.
Right before he’d come into the meeting, Thomas had taken a phone call from a woman
with a website. “I can’t talk to you right now!” he’d said to her. “I’m about to go
into a meeting and announce that I’m quitting!”
And so while they were in the meeting, she’d written about this on her website. So
when everyone eventually stumbled out of the conference room, it was already done
and everyone knew, thereby, at least, putting no one in the awkward position of having
to tell people themselves.
TWELVE YEARS BEFORE John was born, the country renounced a policy that tied its paper currency to actual
reserves of gold. The country had maintained a set price for gold—thirty-five dollars
an ounce, which is what citizens were paid in exchange for the gold that they were,
for a time, no longer allowed to own. Other countries held their own currencies tied
to an exchange rate of the country’s “dollar.” A good chunk of the powerful world
was in league—briefly.
The name “dollar”—the name for a currency unit equal to one—supposedly came about
from the “thaler,” a currency name dating from another continent, hundreds of years
ago. The dollar coin was first defined as twentysomething grams of pure silver, according
to a statesman ages ago; that amount of silver, however, was reduced twice and then,
eventually, no silver at all was put into silver dollar coins.
While the coins were made of silver, the paper version of the dollar represented gold.
But soon, the government had many more “dollars” in the world than it had gold. To
pay some debts, it made a great deal many more “dollars.” And then: The countries
in league with the U.S. currencies demanded that their debts be redeemed in actual
gold instead of some paper that
Similar Books
