Last words - Joy

The last words of the sick ? of the dying ? or of suicides....Have many things to say about last words, but for the time will just remember Joy Division's guitarist playing Isolation.

Gree...

By now everybody sends wishes via email. Have drawer full of greeting cards that I bought - beautiful images. Lots and lots of them. Never sent. The intent matters. Oh, yeah! there are so many people who intended to send me their wishes....

Russian readers

This blog has a significant Russian audience.  Probably Russian readers don't mind my bad orthography  ,poor sentences or my protomarxist views. Oh Mother Russia! you were so pure and beautiful as a young girl.  Your fine bone structure remains madama...

End of the world -Cancelled

Who cancelled? Who are these people who cancel the end of the world? Of course the republicans who could not bear to break with their no tax religion. Or was it the sale of the NYSE? People in China went to jail for this day!

Concert at MSG

They talked nonstop during the songs. At the intermission they checked silently  their ipads. Was it the darkness that incited them to communicate or the lack of internet?

End of The World -Sunday

Where was it said - After death there is nothing? Did anyone mention what is there after life? The Times, formerly the paper of record, published today some poems about the end of the world. Except  those who write poetry, is there anyone nowadays who reads poems? Probably more read the Mayan texts. We need to read everything.

12.12.12

One, two. One, two.  Basic army training.  The Pope twits. The Koreans launch a long range rocket. Marching to the altar  seems more popular than preparing for doomsday. We will never get the  unlucky 13/13/13. Imagine Baker's Dozen/Baker's Dozen/Baker's Dozen.

Historic purity

Visited Charleston recently. Spent two days in the historic district - my wife shopping, me - looking for a spray deodorant. No CVS, no Rite Aid, no Duane Reade. Nothing. In New York I am obsessed with the extraordinary number of these stores that open on every block. In historic Charleston they are serious about maintaining an historic atmosphere. But  no deodorant?

End. For now.

Another end of the world. Not another beginning. The END. This is serious. In the cards. Not to be missed. But just in case, pay your electric bill.

Going for the record

In a couple of minutes I will go underground. I better go to sleep and not watch the news. Will need to be rested tomorrow. It is now or never. Next year the taxes will be so much higher. I will get myself an accountant and become a job creator. Will create three jobs as a matter of fact. Yes, I will get myself three girlfriends. Including a fake blond. And a yacht, not a sailboat.  Will never take the subway again (at  rush hour).  Should I get a haircut? Go underground and resurface in a week with the winning power-ball ticket. It is not the  money I care for, but beating the record.

Cognoscent Radical

As Trotsky said, in moments of crisis, people with no politics tend to develop the worst possible politics. This is from Ann Coulter, an obvious cognoscenta of all things radical.  Should I  be ashamed to quote....? Am I quoting Trotsky or Coulter. Is she a cognoscente or cognoscenta?  The comedy of  permanent revulsion. 
But the observation is right. (although coming from the left)

Downhill Olimpics

Everyday his loss is getting bigger. Now that he could not find a job, is Mitt Romney going to self deport? NO. He feels good and like any winner he went to Disneyland. He'll  just dexport his portfolio at risk now of a 20% tax. He plans to invite Ann Coulter to party in Utah  - to ski ...downhill of course.

Ego echo...

Was always surprised why Google searches on same word returned different results on my computer home and at work.  It turns out that Google builds your profile and its algorithm returns results it thinks you are interested in....Of course my profile at home is different from the one at work...We get back what we expect. And this is the do no evil company. No wonder that the political discourse is so fragmented..Multiple parallel universes...and the gap between them is larger...

predicting hurricanes

Predicting hurricanes? In November? Some cold current can change the rain to sleet. Some air moving from the Midwest could  induce a change in the storm direction. Predicting elections?
Weather or  people choosing? which one can be answered with more reliability?  Scientific reliability.
Give me a good model and I will give you an answer. With all the caveats....

Nothing to say -

No plan Obama and plan du jour Romney could not produce any  excitement in their foreign debate last night. And so will be the election. Unexcited voters dragged to the polls. The country is near a financial precipice.No scare bRombama!  Say nothing, Do nothing, You might disturb the precarious balance and the avalanche...

Iranian Bomb

A bomb from NYT. In this article, cooked just before the elections,  everybody talks and everybody denies. Should one talk to the Iranians?  Who will deny first? They always talk about the big Satan. The breakthrough seems to be that they accepted to talk to Satan. Probably they see themselves as martyrs for doing this.
It's nothing. A rumor in the bazaar
- to lower the price of oil. 

Imagine the coming revolution.

There is this black president - without a birth certificate. Could not manage the economy but created this tribunals that will decide the fate (death) of sick people. Imagine he will be reelected without a popular majority!

How to make money

How to make money from the upcoming election? Simple. Be a millionaire. And you will pay less taxes.

Dirsrepectously

The politics of disrespect, my friends. Biden disrespected Ryan because he lied about data. Ryan disrespected the team Obama/Biden  because it mismanaged the economy. Biden had no respected for Romney and Ryan because they do not respect the middle class. Ryan disrespected Obama because the president has not shown leadership. And so on. Nice fight, my friends. What else do you have to say for yourself.?

Fox News Misquote

Misoverestimated  article opened my eyes to a beautiful word. It seems this recent word was made up to balance Bush's misunderestimted. Of God I underestimated one and overestimated the other. Missed in action as they say.

Back to percentages

 The current discussion woke me up. Who is Thurston Howell Romney? Percentages is what I understand. 1% vs 47%.We are only pennies in the millionaires' money bags. Bad pennies!

Doing good....

I had this intern, a student from Brown, who upon getting her degree, decided to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. I was disappointed and advised her to first improve her skills in her chosen profession and only then volunteer. On TV today Gingrich said it better: "You need to have a job to be thy brother keeper."
As to whom your brother is????

Reading Alice in Wonder

Under all the appearance of creative freedom, surreal humor and irony biting in all directions, one can discern a deeper Lewis Carroll perspective  – the benevolent Englishman visiting the colonies. Poised, civil, sure of her rationality, almost always entitled, Alice visits the other side of the earth where everything is...curious.  Alice has trouble finding the right size to fit in that foreign world, but otherwise she knows that after all she is bigger (stronger) than the others  and can draw help  (from her dog and cat).  She believes that because her culture is based on rationality, it is superior. The benevolent argument was that British colonized the world to bring civilization. All these countries with card kings and queens, where beheading was around the corner and jury trials misused, deserved to be under British rule. Civilization brings playing crocket, dancing quadrille and having tea parties.

Bookends

In the subway everybody was using a phone of some sort. Playing one game or another. I was at one end of the bench reading Dracula. Noticed  at the other end of the bench a young lady who was also reading a book . As I got off I could see the title of her book: Bargains for Brides.

Recovering

‘I am real!’ said Alice and began to cry.

‘You won’t make yourself a bit realler by crying,’ Tweedledee remarked

....

‘If I wasn’t real,’ Alice said — half-laughing though her tears, it all seemed so ridiculous —‘I shouldn’t be able to cry.’

never complained

My mother died last week, at 97. She lived through tough times and I don't know if she ever had a happy period.  Her family did not let her study medicine, so she studied philosophy. Started as a teacher and later became a psychologist. She had an extraordinary capacity to listen, but was probably too compassionate for a psychologist. She wrote several books. About twenty of her research papers on youth development were published in specialty journals.  In her seventies, she worked as a cashier. In her late eighties she started to collect cooking recipes  for cookies and  tortes. Each one had a date and the name of the provider. The last entry was her own marvelous nut cake.

Who's entitled now?

Obama's infrastructure argument is easily refuted by what is essentially a controlled social experiment. Roads and schools are the constant. What's variable is the energy, enterprise, risk-taking, hard work and genius of the individual. It is therefore precisely those individual characteristics, not the communal utilities, that account for the different outcomes. This is from Krauthammer. 

True. How true!

 But what we have is the unwillingness of one entitled class to contribute to roads and schools, to  the constant, to contribute in a fair way. The genius of the individuals that feel entitled to infinite riches. Seems to me the one-percenters  are claiming and feel more entitled than the poor.  The risk taking individual that doesn't care to pay the communal utilities bill.

Socio 101

Seems to me that nowadays the sociological imagination is being displaced by the environmental imagination where people try to situate themselves in the history of  Earth.   Sustainability  is not likely to shed light  on their biography, condition, problems or malaise,but  it gives them the opportunity to feel contributing to society. (without solving the problem of child poverty.)

Mortua est

The coffin is lowered with lots of attention and care. We dump soil on it. When they die we call them cherished and beloved. Is it because we are afraid they will haunt us?

There is no freedom in being oneself.

Is this a misquote? I thought I saw this yesterday on the internet somewhere, thought interesting and tried to find it again. Nowhere. My fading memory ... could it be in being yourself? or for being yourself? Did I read too fast or is it my own imagination? Can I say this is mine? No ancient Greek or Hindu ascetic has gotten this? Being yourself is just being shackled by your fate. Your genes, your looks, your cultural determination. Or is it purely idiocy? Half baked sentence, good only for some pop song.

artifice

Everyone likes fire works. It seems that the heart designs are more popular than the flags or the earth. We look and we wonder is this the best? Can they outdo themselves? Is this the finale? Glorious finale? But the expression in French is more appropriate -feu d'artfice. ars facere, ingenious and cunning. Pleasurable false explosion.

Mermaids. NO MERMAIDS

 Sad news. I am going to give up sailing. Or can one believe NOAA? They are rarely precise in their predictions. Science is going haywire. There is a boson. But no Atlantis. No mermaids. Just winds....
And they announce this on the 4th of July.

Teenage dream on Facebook.

I started a Facebook account to be able to access my club. Rejected first request to befriend.  Don't want friends. But second request was from a woman in Romania, a hairdresser?! Of course a woman I did not know, but this seemed such an unusual request that I accepted.  Have not accepted any other request since.
As I was telling this story to a group of people (of course excusing myself for not accepting..) I remembered that in fact my dream in my teenage years was to have a girlfriend who was a hairdresser or manicurist.  Well, at my age now I can have hairdresser  girlfriend only on Facebook. And of course would not accept any other friend to share our intimate circle.
Why was I dreaming of a hairdresser. Why not a blond, or a tall, or anything else? I believed then as I do now that hair dressers know all there is to know about life. (It was dream to understand life...HA!)  And they have these perfumed hands....

sailing on summer solstice

Don't remember the name of this book I read many years ago, but I remember the hero, a Chinese poet,  celebrating solstice by drinking and reading poems to the setting sun. Impressed me and since I have been trying to pay my respects to the sun on solstice day.  This year decided to sail. Splendid. Booked a sailboat for today. Turns out the solstice was yesterday.

Plague, cholera, holera

Cholera.  This is what scares me most, although it seems that contemporary medicine is relatively successful in treatment.  How do doctors get the diagnostic right? Since they probably never seen such cases how long does it take till they figure it out?.

Wisconsin

Despite the polls, was preapred to write Walker Walks. But he won decisively.  This is hard to swallow. But in reality these unions have gotten totally corrupt and corrupting. Unions in local government! But to cut their basic rights is not the proper way of combating corruption. Wisconsin had a reputation for citizen's involvement in civilized politics. Getting down the drain in a rancid smell of tea par..tisane.

Forever.....

Was sailing with a guy over sixty today, who told us at the end of the trip: I learned a lot today! Hmm. You see these people in their fifties or sixties saying: Oh, this is good for my resume. 
When does one stop learning. When does one stop adding to the resume? Learning is an old habit, difficult to stop....As to adding to one's resume. It is just a consolation.

Life is not fair

Bill Gates' eleven things that school does not teach? How did he select just these 11 things? Shocking!? From a Harvard dropout to those who actually had finished school. To tell  some students that Life is  not fair- get used to it is pretty harsh.  Maybe true, but the school should educate  to strive to  fix this not fair. For everybody. Not to get used to it.
But then found out that Gates did not offer these 11 things. I was quite disappointed. It had matched my opinion of Gates.
It took him years to start giving to charity. But he knew some things about business that school doesn't teach.  That the other geeks did not know and even IBM did not suspect he knew. When you start a business make sure you have an attorney. That is what his dad taught him.

no more bullying

Enough. So Romney did some stupid things as a teenager.  Enough. This is quite unprecedented, to dig so deep and so long....This is just the media playing out, the writers revengeful for some of their teenage frustrations. 

man of war

Saw Billy Bud at the Met. Opera without aria cannot be moving. the program notes describe a more moving action than one sees on the stage.  What kept me captivating was the nautical terminology. Thought that sailing kept old traditional words. Not so. Larboard?? Yardarm? Man-of war. Pressed sailor.

death of the world

Oh yeah.So the predictions were wrong. There might ave been a mistake in interpretation. The Maya at Xultún were likely less concerned with the end of the world than the end of their world, according to Mayan-writing expert David Freidel of Washington University in St. Louis.
Like the end of my world  is not really the end of the world. You bet, it is. Like the end of the world is not the death of the world.

Arthur, le phantome.

They are voting in France. I have been following french politics since I was eigth , nine. Grew up with Vaillant - Yves le Loup and Pif. Every week was waiting for Ragnar le Vikling and all the others. The postman who was late or hiding my issues or circulating them before delivering. Oh? these were not French politicians? They were exciting.  Wha? They were not even french people?  Doing the right thing. Generous and courageous.
Now they are all fighting for the Le Pen voters.

OWS NIMBY

I was walking on the empty street when a policemen told me to move onto the sidewalk. There was no car anywhere five hundred feet all around.
These were nothing when some idiot policeman pepper sprayed them into public attention.
There was no cars, no demonstration, so regular pedestrians took over the entire street. A nice afternoon  stroll on Bway.
Was thinking I am with OWS, just hope they are not going to complicate my commute home.
 OWS NIMBY

As I was making left on Prince St. they showed up. First, municipal union reps, sad and thin in numbers.
At the end there were quite joyous young people. A good show. 1st of May. Better than than the Thanksgiving parade.

dubious data

One would say that science based on hard data leads to hard truths. Incontestable. In fact there is not even  agreement on the basic phrasing-  data are or data is? 

wasted words

Was contemplating my days...and observed that I spend a lot of time a la recherche du mot perdu.  Then I wondered how this might sound in English. Obviously could not remember the title in translation. It turns out there are at least two...In Search of Lost Time and Remembrance of Things Past ...of course, it should be lost time more like wasted time. And now, after these thoughts, I feel better.  I am a la recherche du mot juste.My snob aunt met another old nobility snob who complained that her grandson was an actor. Famous, but just an actor.My generous aunt consoled -He's not an actor. He is an artist.

the taste of liberty

When we got to Paris, a friend of my mother gave us twenty francs.  I was hungry and left the hotel to get something to eat. These twenty francs were all the money we had and it was not clear if and when and how much more I could get.  Not far found a vegetable store. A kilo of bananas was five francs. Extraordinary. In my entire life I had not eaten more than three, maybe four bananas. In total. Splendid, happiness! I bought two kilos. Ate five or six bananas on the spot. Later on that day I was throwing up in the bidet.

sharing

I hate so much to give, I hate so much to share. Since I was a kid. Hated to get gifts from other kids because this somewhat required to reciprocate. But don't mind when the government redistributes. Seems fine .....till I have to prepare my taxes.
A left wing paper tiger. Flying with the wind

In a word..crapulence

I follow  Word of the day. This is more interesting than Reuters ....Here are some recent words crapulence, rixatrix,  deliquium,  metagrobolized...
To tell a woman she is a rixatrix. If she knows what this means she'll fall in a deliquium. More likley she'll  be metagrobolized....
Oh, if I could speak like this...

rut of exchange

Originally thought it was gringo imperialism - expecting to have free sex just because you are a young American buck in Latin America.  But at second analysis it might have been  the escort trying to exploiting the English speaking folk.  Was she asking exorbitant prices??? For a secret service?  Quite attractive and the dollar is not what is used to be.

Post without shame

There is no evidence that jobs fly away in a service economy when you increase minimum pay. May be it is true in manufacturing. But people working at McDonald? Will it lead to fewer Dunkin Donuts in the city? So when salaries of top people can go high in the sky will there be fewer CEOs?  Isn't there the same theory? These FOxpOST people see everything from the super rich point of view. The Post should say it straight, without shame  - increasing the minimum wage is a new tax on the rich.