Did I ever mention that my favourite TV theme is John Williams’ music to ‘Meet the Press’? It’s driving, but catchy music, and the part where the violins leap by a minor-ninth always sounds like a Mahler symphonic theme to me (I’m thinking the 6th or 7th Symphony — one of these days I’ll play excerpts and point it out). The other part I like is near the end of it, where the brass break out into a bit of counterpoint, which has been said to be a musical representation of political sparring, but I just hear John Williams making a little nod to J.S. Bach.
Not long after that introduction, we had one of those jaw-dropping, did-he-just-say-that? moments this morning at breakfast. We had TiVO’ed Meet the Press (yes, once a US News Wonk, always a US News Wonk). The guests this morning were the Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, the Governor of Pennsylvania, Ed Rendell, and the Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger. The three men were all campaigning for spending on US Infrastructure. I was thrilled to hear the term ‘High-Speed Rail’ mentioned more than a dozen times. What made us nearly spill our coffee was this bit, said by the ‘the Governator’ himself:
Well, they had me fooled, at least in terms of a love-fest here between the private sector and the government when it comes to transit. (The recent proceedings of a lawsuit by a merchant whose business was all but eliminated by the CanadaLine construction on Cambie Street comes to mind). Still, compared to the bitterness and hatred between all things public and private in the US, I guess we do have relatively more cooperation here than they do there.
I will be thrilled to see high-speed rail show up in the US, and it would be even more surprising to see them use British Columbia as the model for financing it.