That's a Fine Way

 

I don’t generally “watch” the news.  I’d rather read it.  Reading it today, in the Washington Post I was drawn in by an article about House review of Congresswoman Greene’s right to sit on committee’s given her pockmarked past of endorsement for racist and violent conspiracy theories, which drew attention to the speech given by Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.)  I found it on Youtube and I was glad I did.  He speaks well, rising sonorously to the theme.  The theatre of his pedagogy, walking around the floor with a picture of Ms. Greene with an automatic weapon and the faces of three Congresswomen, AOC, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib suggesting they, “the squad”’s worst nightmare was an armed Ms. Greene, was also rather effective.  And still only eleven, of the two-hundred-plus Republicans in the House were swayed.  It is impossible to reconcile how they could rationalize that this wasn’t something worth of censure.

On to another collection of medieval Chinese poetry.  This collection “New Songs from a Jade Terrace” was a collection of Love Poetry spanning the previous four hundred years, compiled by the Southern Liang Dynasty emperor’s son, the court poet Xu Ling, around the year 545 CE. Woman are idealized, adorned, left pining for men who run hot and cold.  Even when they're true, as they are, sometimes unto death, there is usually a cruel mother figure who rejects the married daughter, disrupting bliss, rendering marriage impossible. Pre Tang Dynasty, (608 – 906 CE.) this also antedates the popularization of foot binding and helps as well, to inform the great poetry of the subsequent period.

 

I didn’t read nearly as much as I would have liked.  I spent most of the day running through my list of to-dos.  A conference call at ten.  They are all in London or the Bay Area.  My colleague was in Perth.  This was my first time meeting these people, but we all seemed to know many people in common and before long we were exchanging invites on LinkedIn.  One of my Chinese New Year resolutions is to clean up the antiquated mess that is my LinkedIn page.  I have lots of new clients, have shed a number of old ones.  I don’t use the tool much, but other people do.  They go there and form an impression.  China will be down for two weeks starting next week.  I should use this time to get something I otherwise wouldn’t do done. 

I should mention that the day started out well.  I opened a big envelope from the bank that had, until last month held my mortgage and found that when the new bank settled on the refinance they overpaid and so the old bank was sending me $7.5K.  I’ll take it.  That’s a fine way to start the day.  If every day began that way, I could get used to it.  And then, after a spell, I’m sure I’d want more.  I drove over to the bank today and deposited this check, after a late afternoon session of cross-country skiing.  And on the way, driving over I called my older one who is back at college.  Today she turns twenty and like any father at that mile marker, you spin your head and wonder where the years went.  

 

 

 

Thursday, 02/04/21