The power was off for about a third of the homes on my block from 6 p.m. yesterday until the wee hours of the morning today. Snow melt had apparently damaged an underground feeder cable, and ConEd had crews working outside my window most of the night. For me it was a minor inconvenience: I curled up in bed and finished reading Steve Jones’ Darwin’s Ghost: The Origin of Species Updated, by the light of a battery-powered LED booklight my niece gave me for Christmas. But the enforced vacation from my computer, the Internet, television and radio did remind me of how critically dependent I am, how most Americans are, on the power grid.

Right now the power in Baghdad is only on from two to six hours a day (which has interesting implications for the love lives of Iraqis, as you can see from the linked article). That means for the relative few who can afford it, electricity comes from generators that are loud, dirty and expensive—both to buy and to operate. For the majority of Baghdad residents the lack of power is an ongoing misery, complicating every facet of day to day life.

For most Americans, I suspect nothing would invert the normal order of things more than sustained power outages. After the first day or so the lack of entertainment would be a trivial concern. There would be no refrigerated food (and for many people, no way to cook it), no heat or hot water. No fire or burglar alarms. New York City’s water supply is mostly gravity fed, but in a sustained blackout its drinking water would be unfiltered, a potential health problem. In many communities there would be no drinking water. Even if telephone companies powered their cellular networks with generators, mobile phones would begin failing within twenty-four hours because their owners would have no way to recharge them. In New York and a few other big cities, the subway systems would be dead, stranding millions of commuters. Vehicle traffic would slow to a crawl from the lack of signals, and without pumps, subway and vehicle tunnels would begin to flood.

These are just the problems that occur to me immediately. I’m sure there are many, many more I could imagine if I weren’t already scaring myself silly. We like to think of the power grid as a robust technology here in the U.S., but the truth is that our normal way of life, and in many cases our lives, are dependent upon resources over which we exert no individual control (and sometimes precious little collective control, as in the case of Enron manipulating the electrical supply in California). It’s rather a humbling realization.

The Associated Press is reporting that Vice President Dick Cheney shot and wounded a fellow quail hunter today with birdshot. There was no word on whether the hospitalized victim was seeking expanded congressional oversight of domestic surveillance.

George C. Dalmas III, 44, a “mid-level administrative employee” of the CIA has been charged with 17 burglaries after police found “a stunning trove of cash, jewelry, antiques, license plates — and bags filled with more than 1,000 women’s undergarments“* in his home, according to an article in The Washington Post on Wednesday.

* Emphasis Mine

Hello my little forest friends. These are the books currently on my “to buy” list. Some of them are brand new; others have been on the list for a year or more. I’m interested in thumbnail reviews and suggestions for alternate titles from you geniuses.

“Within the Walls of Tyre” (Short Story), by Mike Bishop
Adventures in Time and Space with Max Merriwell, by Pat Murphy
Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon and Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, by Daniel C. Dennett
Engines of the Night, by Barry Malzberg
Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction, by Eric Foner
Kitchen Confidential, by Anthony Bourdain
Legion Of The Lost: The True Experience of an American in the French Foreign Legion, by Jaime Salazar
Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville
Stone Garden, by Molly Moynahan
The Bounty, by Caroline Alexander
Travels Along the Edge, by David Noland
Truths of History, by Mildred Lewis Rutherford
Working, by Studs Terkel
Your Call Is Important to Us: The Truth About Bullshit, by Laura Penny

The Stonehead News theme song, Easter Island Head, by Throat Culture, is now available in MP3 format on my User Profile Page (beneath the “Home Office” picture).

Thanks again to for the, ahem, heads up.