I know a place where everything is fine

Whenever I go to the Wall Street Journal mobile Web site on my Treo — something I do about once a day — it defaults to the main page that initially loaded at 08:32:00 EDT on Jan. 4 of this year. I'm not sure why it does that, especially since if I then refresh the page, it goes to the current one — without changing the URL or anything. The shift is dramatic, since the site was redesigned a couple of months back, with a different color scheme and everything.

But lately, I've been a little reluctant to refresh the page and bring it up to the moment. That's because on the frozen-in-time page that is my default, the following things are true:

  • The Dow is up 12.76 points, to 13,056.72.
  • The Nasdaq is down 6.95, to 2,602.68.
  • The S&P 500 is even, at 1,447.16.
  • The lead headline is "Obama, Huckabee Win Iowa." It's particularly cool that THIS should be the preserved moment, since it was the moment when fresh possibilities were opened. (Here's what I wrote about it at the time.) The two candidates with the freshest, least angry, most positive messages in their respective parties had overcome the gloomy partisan warrior types such as Hillary and Mitt. Iowa sent the signal that good things could happen in this election year. It was the moment that it became possible for Obama to win the S.C. primary, since black voters here had been withholding support because they didn't think he was viable. All those white Iowans backing him changed their minds. It was a moment when a person who was not a supporter of Hillary or Mitt (or Rudy) could say, "Maybe something good can happen." Huckabee's win was good news for those of us who liked McCain in particular, since Huckabee's win destroyed Romney's momentum, opening the way for McCain wins in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida.
  • A stock market story said stocks were expected to climb Friday, "with traders awaiting a key report on December payrolls."

So it was just a good day all around. Yes, there were some ominous rumblings here and there. The dollar wasn't doing well because of "fears about a potential recession" (which we now know we were already in. Japanese stock prices fell because of "concerns about the state of the global economy." But on the whole, the news was good. Things were looking up.

So you see why it's sort of nice that I get to revisit that time at the touch of a button.

9 thoughts on “I know a place where everything is fine”

  1. Brad Warthen

    Ignore this comment.

    This is just a test, using the new TypePad platform for composing posts, to see whether I can get HTML to work on my comments. For instance, can I get boldfaced type, or better yet, italics?

    Will my links work? That’s the biggest question.

    Also, will such things as

    • bulleted items
    • and other stuff
    • work on this platform?

    Let’s hope so.

    Quick, here’s another link!

  5. p.m.

    Brad, your display of your HTML skills has inspired me.
    After Al Gore invented the Internet, did he move to the ozone lair?

Comments are closed.