Taxation Without Representation

I was just in Washington D.C., and that's the tag line on Washington D.C. license plates. Not news, I know, but still clever. Much better than New Hampshire's Live Free or Die.

Racy Stuff

Last night I watched a video of the performance of Vivaldi's Hercole Sul Termadonte at the 2006 Spoleto music festival.

The story is of the Amazons being attacked by the fiercest enemies of their sex - men - (Hercules included), and both sides finally succumbing to that "strange feeling in their heart" - love. Or is it actually sexual famine?

Either way... The most striking part of the performance was not the really
great voices, but Hercule's outfit. Naked except for a lion's skin cape worn around his back and tied in front with two paws dangling above and to the right of his male member. You couldn't help but laugh as he would burst out in song, hands held up wide, balls dangling, circumcised penis bouncing. The claws swaying just above, looking like outsized versions of his own jewels, gave an added element of ridiculous titillation.

In a tit for tat, the Amazon warrioresses went around with one breast
exposed, while the queens wore pushup corsets with transparent gauze over their breasts that made every detail visible.

Yes, this was Spoleto Italy, 2006. Thumbing their nose at the Catholic
church in the name of art. Or as a friend of mine commented - actors will
do to anything to appear on stage

Certain Circumstances

My boyfriend and I broke up about a month ago; sad, but it had to be. A couple of weeks later, I got a save-the-date e-mail for a baby shower for the wife of his best friend.

I thought that was cool, that she would still invite me to the shower, and since I liked her and am always thrilled when new babies are on the way, I thought (without actually making a final decision), that I'd go.

Today I get an e-mail directly from her, saying that she was not aware of "certain circumstances" until recently, and neglected to remove my email from the baby shower list. So, please, she says, ignore the invitation.

Is it just me, or is there something a bit obnoxious here?

The Logic of the Markets

A quote from today's AP report on the markets:

"Stocks lifted Tuesday, after dips in manufacturing growth and construction spending rasied investor's hopes for an interest rate cut that would bring more money back into Wall Street."

For the past few weeks, every hint of bad news brought a market drop. Today, the market is rising on bad news, because it may bring good news. No why is today's bad news any different from last week's bad news? It isn't. All I can say is that the long weekend revived the optimism of the traders, or else some charismatic guy or lady out on the trading floor convinced them all that this time, bad news is good news.

I don't object, I'm heavily invested in having the market go up, I just find the "logic" that these supposedly brilliant guys and gals apply to it to be, dare I say?, laughable.