This photo shows the license plate of the van, hopefully the owner will see this. The van driver stood there swearing at the bus for honking the horn and kept slowly setting the luggage carts on the sidewalk. I could not maneuver to get a photo. A few of the burlier bus riders were about to take matters into their own hands when somebody noticed the crazy driver was a woman. We looked. Sure fooled us.New book, another bestseller, “Numbered Account”. I daresay the latest crop of authors tend to be experts in some field. CIA, law, psychology. Some of these novels become difficult to read, as in I don’t identify with royalty. I also don’t bond well with these specialists, you could say I prefer stories about ordinary people thrust into extraordinary circumstances. Reading the book jackets suggests there is some form of “bestseller” school out there grinding out generic authors.
To get closer to what I mean, there are a spate of bestsellers following a new format. The same tired plot, usually the unsolved murder of a relative, but imparted with a twist from some occupation. The ones that I recall are forensics, the Vatican, and archeology. Now it is international banking. There are other examples, but I think this is enough to reveal the pattern. I’m not complaining, because if that is the new winning formula, I can write books like that.
Around late afternoon, I was laid low by this flu. The earlier days [days 1 to 3 of the infection] were bad, but by today, the tenth day, I found out what coughing was really like. Several important calls came in and I could not converse. I can lie down but the slight extra effort to talk initiates a minute long bout that leaves you gasping for air to breathe. I know, boring, but history is full of breakthroughs because a patient was able to better describe the symptoms. So there.
Home, to bed, a good book.
ADDENDUM
“Two wrongs don’t make a right.”
That’s a phrase I’ve dubbed “The Instigator’s Defense”. Is it a second wrong to blast some killers caught in the act? Do they deserve a trial? Have you seen the US and British pansies taking on the Somali pirates? Helicopters and zodiacs and bullhorns. They are clowns in a circus. Trying to board the pirate ship and take prisoners. Who in hell came up with that one?
Take them into custody. Feed them and house them in prison, give them free lawyers, let them go with a fine. There, there, we are sorry you got profiled, Mr. Black Fellow with an AK-47 who tried to board our ship at night. Be sure to house them together so they have plenty of time to cook up a story. Then we can listen to them say they were lost and mistook the stern of your vessel for their wife’s butt. (We are given to understand the similarity is indeed most striking.)
Well, here is how the Ruskies deal with the same problem. Think of the money they save. Not to mention the much-needed live target practice since they high-tailed it out of Afghan. Do you know what a “secondary” is? That’s when you shoot at something and it explodes, like you see the fuel tank on this Somali pirate ship. Russian freighters have a 30mm antiaircraft cannon on deck. Under a tarp. Until the bad guys get within range.Open fire. I ask, is that the second wrong, or the next first right? What I find odd is once these pirates get some money, they don’t revert to their ancestral way of life. Instead, they act like, well, like Americans. Booze, women, cars. That is interesting behaviour for nationalities that say they hate our way of life. You should see, like I have, the way Muslims act once they get to Thailand. Religion, my eye.
