Areas of Unrest

QOTD: "I thoroughly disapprove of duels. I consider them unwise and I know they are dangerous. Also, sinful. If a man should challenge me now, I would go to that man and take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet retired spot and kill him." - Mark Twain

Reading: Colin Thubron, Among the Russians

Listening to: Preston Love's Omaha Bar-B-Q

Decluttering accomplishments: mostly some household paperwork

20 July 2003 - Catching Up On Nothing

I was reading the news on-line at the office on Friday afternoon and, when Alex asked me what was going on in the world, I mentioned Thursday's coup in Sao Tome and Principe. He just looked at me and said, "oh, stop making up countries." For those of you who aren't addicted to odd world news like I am, there really was a coup in Sao Tome and Principe. The significant part is that this was a rare coup that was actually condemned by pretty much every other African nation. This is also significant because Sao Tome has oil. In fact, the coup happened when the President was over in Nigeria discussing oil related issues with Nigerian politicos.

The celebrity death of the week was that of the Cuban singer, Compay Segundo. If you have no idea who I'm talking about, go out and rent "Buena Vista Social Club" right now. It's okay - I'll wait.

The final news item I want to mention is the tragedy at the Santa Monica Farmer's Market. I'm sure that there will be a lot of people talking about regulating elderly drivers more, as this 86 year old guy who killed at least 10 people was clearly disoriented. The story felt personal as I used to shop at that market sometimes, though usually on Saturday mornings, not Wednesdays. At any rate, the real reason I bring this up is that it struck me that the news coverage missed a major point. The reason a lot of elderly people keep driving long after they should give it up is that they don't want to feel like prisoners in their homes. Without adequate public transit, they may know they're impaired but not feel like they have a lot of choice. More frequent testing is only part of the answer. What we need is sane urban planning.

As for what I've been up to, I spent most of the week in Colorado. My meetings were fairly productive, though I'm rather frustrated with one person I have to deal with. On the personal side, I got to have dinner on successive nights with people I hadn't seen in a while - Marcia, Milo and Suzanne. The last of these also involved notable food - ahi at Zolo, with mixed berry flambe for dessert.

At home, I mostly caught up on doing nothing in particular. I spent the entire weekend alternating between napping and reading, with sporadic attempts to throw out a piece of paper or two and an excursion to the supermarket for a newspaper and lemonade. I'm usually a pretty high energy person, but there are times when I just have to hit the off switch and this was one of them. I actually got a fair amount of household paperwork done and can see some real progress, but the important part was that it was okay not to feel like I had to do anything.