August 14

At this point in our time on this particular planet, I think most of us have gotten used to delays and, hopefully, manage to take them in our stride with some measure of dignity. After all there is little that can be done when the cable company tells us that a technician will be at our home at some time between 9 am and 8 pm during the second week in March and we have no choice but to patiently wait. In New York, where people only seem happy when there is something to complain about, people have started grumbling about delays in the progress of construction of that memorial to the event which occurred on September 11, 2001. Eventually a sense of resignation will come over the loudest of these people and they will finally shut up about it for a while. They are New Yorkers however and those sort of people are only content when they have something to complain about. New Yorkers are rather fun to watch when they get ticked off and it can make for an amusing day to watch them become frustrated and start mouthing off. If they’re making such a fuss about a delay in construction of a memorial for something that only occurred five years ago can’t you just imagine what they would be like if they were suddenly transported to thirteenth century Germany? Construction of the Cologne Cathedral began in 1248 and the building wasn’t finished until August 14th 1880!