2011 — 1 March: Tuesday — Rabbits!
I'm willing to bet1 that dear Mama won't remember to say "Rabbits". Yesterday she was talking (again, though only vaguely) of returning to where her mother lives (not "lived", notice). There's a cruel joke about Alzheimer's to the effect that with it you keep on making new friends... every day you make the same new friends. She again asked me how my job was, too.
I suppose it would be funny, if it were funny. But it's not remotely funny. It's just that ol' "Intelligent Design" rearing its ugly head. G'night.
Nothing says...
... "Wake up, tastebuds!" quite like a fresh grapefruit. Though why it's called "grape" when it looks like a large, yellow, orange has always puzzled me. That, and the initial blast of Mozart's 4th Horn Concerto, have more or less rebooted me. It's 09:16 and grey but currently dry out there. I need to nip into Eastleigh before the day is much older.
I was going to add "Because that's where the money is" (in the words of serial bank robber Willie Sutton) but (of course) it turns out that he never quite said that. Thank you, Mr Wikipedia. Another cherished childhood illusion shattered.
Back from my little expotition...
... and fresh cuppa at hand, I find Willie Sutton cropping up again, this time in a review of four financial analyses of the recent minor glitches in the world's banking "system". Source and snippet:
The fault lies not with our bankers, but with ourselves. Wall Street certainly has problems, especially with the rise of a bonus culture that encourages a short-run mindset and rewards increased risk taking. But greed is nothing new. People don't work in high finance in order to make the world a better place. They do it for the same reason that Willie Sutton robbed banks: because that's where the money is.
All four of the books reviewed refer to this one, too:
R.I.P. Gary Winick
He was only 49, but directed or produced several films I greatly admired; most recently "Letters to Juliet". The NYT obituary by Bruce Weber is here.
I can see (through) you
Crikey. Remind me not to get a medical X-ray next time I'm over the pond!
"It's amazing to us, knowing the complexity of medical imaging, that there are states that require massage therapists and hairdressers to be licensed, but they have no standards in place for exposing patients to ionizing radiation," said Christine Lung, the technologist association's vice president of government relations.
Not really a surprise, if you read Catherine Caufield's "Multiple Exposures".
Safely back...
... from the cuppa / cake emporium maintained in Sir Harold Hillier's name. It's a distinctly chilly +5C out there. I'm hoping to squeeze in a walk tomorrow if only the blizzards hold off. It's 16:03 and very dull grey outside, but still dry.
[Pause]
Unless I miss my guess, it seems to be just about the end of the first day of Spring. Where did it go? G'night.