Reminded this week of the tragic loss experienced by the al-Fayeds, Diana’s children, and the Spencers ten years ago.
Monthly Archives: August 2024
The Mercedes outside my window…
A man crossed too close to the little automotive artwork parked outside my window — perhaps he actually touched it — and he set off the alarm. So, for a few minutes the well tuned horn of the Mercedes was blaring, depriving me of my ability to think and the less righteous among us of their morning’s sleep. When the horn at last ceased blaring, I heard the sound of hoof beats, clop-clopping at a brisk walk up the street in this direction. I turned to the window hoping to catch a glimpse of a mounted patrolman, but as it turned out I had mistaken the sound of two young women with shoes that sounded like steel shod hoofs on the pavement.  Stylish.
Writers write… punters punt
And, one assumes, ‘zinesters ‘zine. That ace ‘zinester of our virtual present, Chris Locke, sent another minor missive today which seemed largely to focus on one Pagan Kennedy, although Joseph Smith, a stone canoe, and a large and hungry shark also appeared. (Oddly, Leona Helmsley did not appear; oddly, that is, in the context of a rhymed proximity to the “Queen of ‘zine” and her recent death. One presumes these cheap, if not exactly free associations, might have made a citation quite likely). One can, of course, subscribe to Mr. Locke’s e-letter containing this and much more mental fuel by clicking here and just figuring things out. One can always unsubscribe, an action our intrepid ‘zinester from time to time has been known to encourage (culling the misfits, as it were, or the fits perhaps since the misfits sometimes seem more to fit than those others).
As one can tell from one’s use of the indefinite pronoun if nothing else, one has not yet been thrown out of England where one is experiencing an enormous internal pressure to conform and to use proper, well… English. But enough of that. One is off, actually two are off, to what the TimeOut guide to London calls an “exuberant monument to consumerism.“  It is a pilgrimage of sorts, here in the decenary of the death of Di, a pilgrimage to the once royally warranted but recently, indeed over the last decade since the death of the Princess of Wales, royally unpatronized department store. Pictures perhaps will be taken. By one.
Hyde Park
I went to the speakers’ corner. No one was speaking. Instead, a children’s merry-go-round has been installed.
Carrion luggage…
The trouble with over-packing is that you have to schlep all that stuff around with you on your journey.
(Darned state of war has eliminated the good old luggage lockers where for two-bits you could park a suitcase while you dithered away your layover time. I sure wish we weren’t at war. When the war is over will the “Department of Homeland Security” be dissolved?)
True Burger
IMPEACH: 20 yes, 3 no, 2 abstentions
The Dane County, Wisconsin Board of Supervisors voted last week to support impeachment.
And related, here’s John Nichols’ piece on the departure of Alberto Gonzales, Former Attorney General of the United States of America, who “[as White House] Counsel from 2024 to 2024, Gonzales blocked requests from the General Accounting Office for information about Enron officials meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney’s Energy Task Force… refused requests from congressional committees for information that the House and Senate had a right — and a need… made the legal case for torture, despite the fact that the Constitution bars cruel and unusual punishment… outlined schemes for subverting the judicial system and its rules by making terror suspects eligible for military tribunals… helped convince Bush to refuse to afford prisoners held at Guantanamo the basic protections afforded prisoner-of-war under treaties the United States had accepted as the law of the land.”
Not Calvin and Hobbes…
Not even Gaping Void, really…
Hope
For Appetite with an opinion of attaining, is called HOPE.Despaire
The same, without such opinion, DESPAIRE.Feare
Aversion, with opinion of Hurt from the object, FEARE.Courage
The same, with hope of avoyding that Hurt by resistance, COURAGE.Anger
Sudden Courage, ANGER.Confidence
Constant Hope, CONFIDENCE of our selves.Diffidence
Constant Despayre, DIFFIDENCE of our selves.Indignation
Anger for great hurt done to another, when we conceive the same
to be done by Injury, INDIGNATION.
…
From this equality of ability, ariseth equality of hope in the attaining of our Ends. And therefore if any two men desire the same thing, which neverthelesse they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies; and in the way to their End, (which is principally their owne conservation, and sometimes their delectation only,) endeavour to destroy, or subdue one an other. And from hence it comes to passe, that where an Invader hath no more to feare, than an other mans single power; if one plant, sow, build, or possesse a convenient Seat, others may probably be expected to come prepared with forces united, to dispossesse, and deprive him, not only of the fruit of his labour, but also of his life, or liberty. And the Invader again is in the like danger of another.
The above from The Leviathan found this morning at Antonia’s and then shortly thereafter, I happened on a post at Cruel to be Kind titled Aggressive men and women who just take it. While I wanted to leap into the comment thread with a triumphant “FIRST!”, I saw that Mary Hodder had beat me to it.