Back to normal

It's only an interlude -- the earthquake and hurricane safely behind us, and the worst of the flooding and power outages over, and a few days still to go before the awful anniversary next weekend.

It's the end of a low, dishonest decade rivaling what Auden looked back on in 1939, even if the personification of so much that was bad about it, the vile Mr. Cheney, is still granted respectability by theoretically responsible news outlets while he peddles his mendacious little book.

Here's the extraordinary light on an ordinary evening, a little of the reliable comfort of the quotidian.