No brainer

A good friend is having a no-good, very bad day because…

“This girl I had been kind of seeing insisted on keeping on seeing other people, which I wasn’t wild about but also didn’t mind all that much because it wasn’t like it was serious or anything (she’s moving away in two months anyway). Now I have been downgraded because – and I’m sorry if this makes your brain pop – she found someone more “sexually compatible” (who insists on being monogamous). At first I was like, “eh,” but increasingly I am thinking that is a rather insulting thing to say to someone. Learn how to lie better, girlie!”

Clearly, she is pure evil. Second, she is an idiot. No brainer. Don’t diss my friends.

Office politics

One of the perks of my job is listening to Adam and Rebekkah arguing in the neighboring room. Usually, Rebekkah begins an indignant rant about a quotidian indignity and Adam follows up with baiting questions. You can tell he has a little sister…Today, it’s about street canvassers. The streets around Columbia are lined with people with laminated paper on clipboards – they look reliable, but…

R: “Like I’m going to give my credit card number to someone on street!? Usually, I’ll go to the website later and check it out, but no way!”

A: “What if they are legitimate? What if you’re walking by a perfectly sound cause? and because YOU don’t give, some kid starves?”

R: “Even if I believe them, I’m still not going to be giving them my credit card number…I’ve been looking for a way to give something to Amnesty International, but I’m not giving it to you, teeny girl on the street! I’m surprised people even walk around with $40 cash!”

A: “Well, ya, ya, I would have that kind of cash, but…”

This was one of Adam’s poorer showings. Stay tuned for more.

Backsolving

My mother wants to stockpile gold coins in the basement.

This is what she tells me as I make mustard vinaigrette.

“Uhhhhh…I’m sorry, but where did this idea come from?”

“Well, I was talking to a friend of your father’s…”

Uh-oh. In a nursery-school game of “telephone,” my mother would fail miserably. Accurate listening is not one of her strengths. Extreme amplification of basic points? Oh, yes! World champion!!!

“and he said…”

Uh, Mom? What do you think?

“and he said that the one thing he’d do for security today is to have $50,000 in gold coins in the house.”

Ok, ok, I can actually come up with good reasons for shifting money into commodities – real assets are the best thing to hold in an inflationary period. Duh. I know that. But why not a gold fund?

“Uh, Mom, are you sure that’s exactly what he said?”

“Yes, I’m pretty sure – he apparently does this himself.”

What you don’t know is that this friend of my father is easily a centi-millionaire, so $50,000 in gold coins hidden on his highly fortified estate is a no-brainer. It’s a little different for a widow on less than an acre who lives with her seriously disabled son with a loud, yet ineffective dog. Is she predicting social unrest? an apocalypse?

A few weeks ago, she was talking about buying a gun. Mark and I talked her out of that. So I approach these “a friend of your father” conversations carefully. Gold, guns, she is looking for security. I am trying to make sure that her security does not come at anyone else’s expense…

AIG Friday roundup

Spend Saturday touring the homes of bonused AIG execs in scenic Connecticutt!
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/03/19/bus-tours-of-aig-exe.html

Throw tomatoes at AIG Execs!
http://www.moveon.org/tomato/?id=15776-9025963-DHKoqjx&t=1

Now, I’m not saying that I think these actions are particularly useful are they are advocating for necessary change or just any change – I am still considering what phoenix should arise from these ashes, and I hope others are too. The point is to have fun while we do it. So proceed!

T-Rex Sex

In an attempt to distract me from present worries, a friend sent me an oldish NYT article about Darwin’s other major works, in particular “The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex.” The academic treatise is about erotic bedazzling, animal embellishment, or the sexual ornamentation of different species. I admit, though, that I stopped reading and started imagining at the phraseTyrannosaurus Rex Sex. What would that look like, let alone sound like? But I like that writer Olivia Judson wonders about obscure things with little present relevance, as I do…

Open for business

Switzerland, like most countries, has its fair share of xenophobes. A recent Conservative (Swiss People’s) party poster depicted 3 giant, black ravens gleefully pecking at a bloody map of Switzerland. Uh, sometimes overstatement stinks.

But sometimes the good team wins. On Sunday February 7th,

“Swiss voters gave a resounding “Yes” Sunday to an agreement extending the right of European Union citizens to live and work in Switzerland, despite fears of immigrant labour and job losses in the deepening recession.

Official results showed 59.6 percent of voters backed the deal, renewing an existing agreement allowing migrant workers into Switzerland and extending it to new EU members Bulgaria and Romania. Swiss workers also have access to EU countries.” (Reuters)

Nice move, CH.

This following news Friday that Switzerland’s unemployment rate rose to its highest level in 2 years – 2.9%. Ya, 2.9%.

Nobody feels sorry for you, Switzerland.
U.S.: 16-year high, 7.6%, January 2009
Spain: 12-year high, 13.91% last 3 months of 2008
I can go on…

Make ‘em laugh

Check this out!

http://weeklyworldlaugh.blogspot.com/

The whole world will laugh tomorrow at 9 a.m. -wherever you are. So, time-zone to time-zone, a wave of laughter will roll around the world. Sign me up! I’ll take all I can get.