Monday

Thanks to 3 for a belated guest entry under the Sunday heading. 1 is officially on notice for next Sunday.

3 also added a comment to the most recent entry on 4's site. Of particular note was her reference to Sartre and existentialism. (Exactly what sound does the falling tree make in the woods when no one is there to witness the event?) She hit another winner with the reference to the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon as that game theory might relate to Chicago Marathon stories. Very clever.

Monday is a good day for Current Events, as we have not only the most recent weekend to consider, but also those things from the previous week that the Sunday editorials may have put into the spotlight. Unfortunately, most of the editorials were about Hillary or The Other Suits Who Would Be President. There will be plenty of room for politics later. I mean we only have a little over 12 months until the National elections!

The local paper today carried a story on the front page of the recent life and times of a former Davenport mayor who passed away this weekend of cancer at age 64. He was a local high school football star who went on to law school and then to work with the biggest law firm here in town. He never lacked for confidence, and his flippant side got under the skin of some people. But I think that he was genuinely committed to doing good for his hometown, and he was unafraid to try things that might help in that regard.

Among the things that give you cause to ponder at this death are: 1) His age. I mean like, he wasn't that old. 2) His education. This was a bright guy with graduate degrees. He invested in himself. 3) His youthful successes. Those headlines and accolades are transitory. 4) Professional proximity. I worked on a couple of tax engagements with the guy. 5) He was a biker. He and his wife road a tandem on some of the event-rides that I participated in over the years. 6) He had some dirty laundry. I mean, don't we all?

Without getting too morose, that's a death that gets pretty close to home.

Speaking of loss, I have a very close friend/client who lost his house today in the fires in San Diego. He is one of three brothers whose collective business interests constitute one of my top three client groups. They attempted to get some of their personal things out in front of the conflagration, but the local brother didn't think those boxes got out of the garage.

And speaking of drought, the Governor of Georgia has predictably pointed to Washington D.C. as a co-conspirator on the water shortage in the state. There are issues with the Corps of Engineers, recognizing that the Corps is a bureaucracy, but geeze, are natural disasters always Washington's fault?

The World Series is news, but I don't have a lot of excitement about it. I don't like the American League, generally, and the Bosox are even way down on that list. And it's hard to digest that the National League's representative is Colorado. Mix in the fact that FOX will probably start the games at 7:30 Eastern, there's no way that I'll see the end of the games regardless of the participants. Could we extend here a theory that the grapes were probably sour anyway?

And in entertainment news, I see where Kid Rock and some of his boys got thrown in the slammer someplace near Atlanta at 5AM for involvement in a fight outside a Waffle House restaurant. Do these celebrities just try to do this stuff? They surely can't think that they can act this way and stay below radar. This is a guy who got Cheryl Crow to do a duet with him...before Lance. (Ok, the fact that he was married multiple times to Pam Anderson may explain his dark side, but she did look good 15 years ago on Baywatch.)

Hope everyone has a good week.

BCOT