This is the first accumulation of snow. There have been the
occasional flakes but this is the first time that you could see your
footprints. The sky is gray. The leaves are on the ground and mulching. Clouds hover above the bares sticks that
cover the bluffs. Smoke waffles off in a southeast direction.
Well, one wearies of the Public Gardens; one wants a
vacation / Where trees and clouds and animals pay no notice; / Away from the
labeled elms, the tame tea-roses – Sylvia Plath –
Collected Poems, 1981 p144
Left-handed people tend to earn 10% less in annual salaries
than do right-handed people
We cannot declare that we are “off
the beaten path” if we aren’t, at first, on it – Lyand Lynn Haupt – Crow
Planet, 2009 p103
Panic – I can’t find my keys. They aren’t where they belong.
My keys are not in the front right pocket of my slacks. They are not on the
table at which I sit. They are not on the floor under my chair. I am sure. I
just checked. I go outside to look in my truck. I am in a rush and don’t stop to
put on my coat. It is cold outside. I am in a panic. I am looking down at the
sidewalk. Maybe they fell out of my pocket. But first I looked for my white
Tacoma. It was still there. If the keys were still in the ignition at least no
one had yet stolen it. They were, however, not in the ignition. At least I had
not locked the vehicle. They were not on the driver's seat either. I am in a panic. How shall I manage to get home? It is cold. I’m in a tizzy. Where else can they be? I consider telling the cashier to be on the
lookout for a set of keys. It is cold. Take note. I was wearing my coat when I
got out of the truck. They could be in the pocket of my coat. I went back into
the coffee shop while carefully rechecking my route. I was making double
sure they that I had not dropped them. At least I'm still thinking rationally or at least I think that I am. I go back inside. There they are in the pocket
of my coat that I hung over the back of a chair. There is an obvious bulge in
the coat pocket. I can feel their extra weight as I pick the coat up. I jam my
hand into the pocket. There is a reassuring firmness of metal in there next to
my right glove. Why all the fuss?
The delirious ravings occasioned by fever are an ugly,
distorted reflection of what the patient thought and felt before he was ill. Thus
the acts and thoughts of madmen are a distorted reflection of the acts and
thoughts of a normal person – Vasily Grossman – The Road, 2010 p117
To be everywhere and somewhere is the paradox of political
power
We can have a market economy without having a market society
– Jamie Raskin – The Nation, 6/27/11 p14
Six of the past ten Presidents have been left handed. Left
handers make up only 10% of the population.
Likeness to truth is not the same thing as truth –Peter L
Bernstein – Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk, 1996 p16
The elite use technology to spy on its inferiors. It’s
time to abandon this notion of privacy. It enables the elite and does nothing
for the masses. Make all financial transactions public and accountable for
their providence. We already have cameras everywhere. Today they are tracking you but you can’t track them. Let’s equalize the playing field. Mobil
telephones collect data on locations and keystrokes. But the corporations
promise that they won’t use this information. Bullshit! Today it’s all one way
– their way. The answer – eliminate the bourgeoisie concept of ‘privacy’ all together - it's an enabler of inequity.
Loiter in the neighborhood of a
problem. After a while a solution strolls by – Harold Rosenberg
The long legged blond fed her blond child some of her
banana. She would take a bite and then hold it in front of his mouth to nibble
at. He kept pounding his fist on top of the table, keeping in beat with the
ambient music. Everyone thought that it was cute. She’s siting at a table
across from her spouse. They both are dressed all in black. They stab at their tapas with forks
and order more. She finishes her banana and neatly folds the peel and lays in
on top of her table. She jogs. Her calfs are well developed. There is an
expanse of taught white skin below the hem of her jacket. She rises and self
consciously pulls her blouse down. He spouse has his left leg crossed over his
right. He takes his arm from around her shoulders to animate a point in their
conversation. He is a urologist. He brought his family from Minneapolis to see
the city while he attends a conference. The next morning I become excited by
all the big women that I encounter – not fat or even stout – well proportioned
and sexually big. I have this thing for big women today. Yesterday it was
Indian girls with long slender brown toes and nails all painted bright red. A
fantasy a day keeps the shrink at bay. She was so prissy. I had an urge to know
if she ironed her panties.
Behind every large human brain,
there is a potentially very sweaty human body – Nina C Jablonski – Skin: a
natural history, 2006 p49
“Immense potential for entrepreneurs” – online learning is
expected to grow 43% by 2015, to become a $24.4 billion industry in a process
of converting our schools into cash cows for Wall Street. Education is viewed
as the next big “undercapitalized” sector of the economy, like healthcare was
in the 1990s. Educational reform is synonymous with pushing policies that
benefit private investors. Study after study indicate that the real problem is
financing educations through property taxes – the well off get all the money
and the poor districts show poor results. The entrepreneurs will do for
education as they did for healthcare – turn it into a luxury commodity.
Vast ills have followed a belief in certainty – Kenneth
Arrow
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