Barb’s Burblings

While you wait impatiently for an entry with actual, you know, substance, why don’t you enjoy these cute pictures from the early days of the Obama administration?

There was a sweet article in the Post today about students in a 4th grade class sending nice notes to people who work at AIG. It’s really easy for people who’ve lost a lot of money to get mad at companies like AIG, but it’s gone a bit far. I mean, the teacher of the class in the story–who does a daily economics lesson in her school near Houston–wouldn’t give the name of the school because she was afraid people would be upset with her. And I don’t blame her. This whole downturn has been incredibly convoluted; I certainly have problems grasping what happened. So when people see that AIG has gotten a lot of money even after some, um, risky behavior, it’s really easy to blame them. And everyone who works there. Which just totally isn’t fair. For one thing, a lot of people who work there now had nothing to do with the problems before. And it’s not like everyone who worked there was doing something wrong. Seriously, this was just incredibly sweet. I mean, really:

The children adorned their messages with peace symbols and smiley faces, rainbows and vivid red hearts. “Hi AIG. Not all of USA hates you,” wrote one student. “We know you’re not villains,” wrote another. “Keep working hard, dudes! Keep eating your vegatabos!” advised a third.

There was an interesting article in the Post Magazine today about Henry Rathbone and Clara Harris. If you somehow missed who these people are (and how could that be?), they’re the couple who attended Our American Cousin with Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln the night the President was shot. Major Rathbone tried to stop Booth from getting away and was stabbed for his efforts; the blood on Miss Harris’s dress that kept upsetting Mrs. Lincoln that night was most likely that of Rathbone–Harris’s fiance. Anyway, Harris and Rathbone got married, and, years later, Rathbone wound up killing Harris, then stabbing himself. (He survived.)

It’s amazing how far reaching one act can be–and beyond the obvious. The Lincoln assassination was a tragedy for the country; our history would be so incredibly different if Lincoln had seen out his second term. But you see its influence in this story. These two people, who are so associated with that event…it’s entirely possible that Rathbone’s insanity was helped along by the assassination. I doubt it was all PTSD; his medical history seems to indicate that he had problems before April 14, 1865. But the combination of shooting and stabbing that he used to kill her…it was too reminiscent of Booth going into that theater box with a gun and a knife.