Leprosy is for Sissies To me the most notable movie scene involving Leprosy is from the great Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman epic, Papillon, which is about the Penal Colony of French Guiana and the trials and tribulations of Papillon the petty thief and Louis Dega the forger of French National Defense Bonds floated in 1929. During one of Papillon’s daring escape attempts before being sent to the infamous Devil’s Island for his final incarceration,…
The New York Dreams Kim, through her Facebook traipsing, heard of a series called American Experience: New York done by Ric Burns, younger brother to famed documentarian Ken Burns. It is a historical perspective from the western origins as a Dutch colony in 1609. There are chapters of this documentary like any good series and it is all done chronologically naturally. Given my forty-four years living in New York and Kim’s thirty years, the city…
The Spectrum of Life When I acquired my house in Ithaca twenty-four years ago (1996), it is fair to suggest that the technological world looked a lot different than it does today. Back then, the important elements to consider in a home were to have water, sewer, electricity, gas and telephone connectivity. The first four were easy since the United States had had a century of infrastructure roll-out that insured that most every place had…
A High-Functioning Sociopath Tonight Kim and I have been looking for something new and interesting to watch on TV. We started with an attempt to watch something on Apple TV which was not available on the menu of the Samsung Smart TV (I haven’t bothered to set up an Apple TV receiver since the Samsung generally has all the connectivity needed). In fact, I was able to go to the Internet icon and type in…
COVID Part Deux We’ve all seen the charts and are probably all equally scared by what we see. The comparison of the curves showing pandemic infections for the United States and the European Union tell the story of the failure of the United States to combat this pandemic effectively. It shows very similar initial rise of the infections in both regions with the U.S. just a few weeks behind Europe. That is where the similarities…
Residentially Believable I have now been a California resident since February 4th at the very latest. I arrived here in my car on December 21, but was back in NYC in January for a few weeks while we wrapped up move-related logistics and closed-out our apartment. The movers finished up on February 3rd and the apartment was empty and broom-cleaned that night as we slept in the hotel next door. I surrendered my apartment keys…
Lowering the Barr It is hard from day to day to understand what situations perpetrated by the Trump Administration are the new depths to which the rule of law can stoop at his command. The sequence of events between Friday night and today have been stunning and they played out on cable TV in all their glory for us to put hand to lips in amazement. Let’s agree that of all the cabinet posts, the…
Bug Soup I have explained that this house has several lovely outdoor seating areas. There is the wonderfully sunny deck floating out over the hillsides towards the ocean. It has an “infinity” aspect to it the way infinity pools have an endless quality to them, blending the water and the sky. There is the garden patio overlooking the grotto-like hot tub set amongst the boulders and nestled into the succulents and cacti. That patio is…
June Gloom I’ve already taken to debunking the notion that it never rains in Southern California (thank goodness) and I was about to report that the phenomenon known locally as June Gloom was also fiction, but then that changed a few days ago. June Gloom is a local colloquial term for a marine layer effect caused by a temperature inversion with the cool ocean water off the coast combining with a warm air mass from…
Long Live COVID I read the Financial Times article summary every day and most often chase down several articles. I do the same for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, but no publication covers the world like the FT. That is particularly so in one of the areas of my greatest interest, the pension and retirement area. I suspect the reason for this is that while pensions matter to the other…