Who Makes the Rules

Dear Paolo, Maybe it's time to drop this, but I think we're both the kind of guys who need to have the last word, even when there is no last word. As for the difficulties of politicians and diplomats, I don't seem them having difficulties. They know who they're working for. When the billionaires say, no, we can't continue unemployment benefits, etc., etc., because that would cut down on our billions, people just seem to not their heads to some kind of higher wisdom. They want to "obey the rules," apparently, no matter how destructive those rules are to their well-being. To me, the USA is a nearly pure plutocracy, and, owning most of the money, they also own most of the media, without which it would be much harder to make people believe lies. I agree, there are good billionaires and pols out there, but they're exceptions. The rule is corruption.

Love,


Bert

The spoon:
A lesson on how consultants can make a difference in an organization.


Last week, we took some friends to a new restaurant, 'Steve's Place,' and noticed that the waiter who took our order carried a spoon in his shirt pocket.


It seemed a little strange. When the busboy brought our water and utensils, I observed that he also had a spoon in his shirt pocket.


Then I looked around and saw that all the staff had spoons in their pockets. When the waiter came back to serve our soup I inquired, 'Why the spoon?'


'Well, 'he explained, 'the restaurant's owner hired Andersen Consulting to revamp all of our processes. After several months of analysis, they concluded that the spoon was the most frequently dropped utensil. It represents a drop frequency of approximately 3 spoons per table per hour.


If our personnel are better prepared, we can reduce the number of trips back to the kitchen and save 15 man-hours per shift.'

As luck would have it, I dropped my spoon and he replaced it with his spare. 'I'll get another spoon next time I go to the kitchen instead of making an extra trip to get it right now.' I was impressed.


I also noticed that there was a string hanging out of the waiter's fly.


Looking around, I saw that all of the waiters had the same string hanging from their flies. So, before he walked off, I asked the waiter, 'Excuse me, but can you tell me why you have that string right there?'


'Oh, certainly!' Then he lowered his voice. 'Not everyone is so observant. That consulting firm I mentioned also learned that we can save time in the restroom.


By tying this string to the tip of our you-know-what, we can pull it out without touching it and eliminate the need to wash our hands, shortening the time spent in the restroom by 76.39%.'


I asked quietly, 'After you get it out, how do you put it back?'


'Well,' he whispered, 'I don't know about the others, but I use the spoon.'

Interval

An elderly gent is poking in his closet, looking for a beloved pair of brown oxfords. He pokes and he pokes and then it dawns on him. He took them to a shoemaker to resole twenty-nine years go but forgot to pick them up. But he remembers the name of the shoemaker and, lo, there's the address in the book. So he drives over, steps in, and, yes, he even remembers the shoemaker, though he's older now.

"Look," the guy says, "you're going to think I'm crazy, but after twenty-nine years I just remembered, I brought a pair of brown oxfords here twenty-nine years ago to be resoled, and then forgot to pick them up. I don't suppose there's any chance that you have them?"

Without batting an eye the shoemaker goes to the back room, and he's gone a long time. But then he comes back and tells the guy, "Sure, I still got 'em." The guy's so tickled he can hardly contain himself. What glorious karma, for them to be still there. "Great," he says, "can I have them?" The shoemaker thinks for a moment. then, "Sure you can have 'em. They'll be ready Thursday afternoon."

Something Borrowed

Yesterday afternoon, as I was walking up steep School Street Hill, a likely lad was plunging down on his bike, his hands dancing high over his head. Me oh my, as a whiff of his energy coursed through me!

Sauce

Today I'm thinking of last night's lamb stew. The key is rosemary and white wine, but lacking wine I used saki instead. Flour the lamb and brown it. Sauté abundant onions and carrots. How much flour you allow into the sauté determines thinness or thickness. Some add tomatoes and tomato paste. No time. I stick to the way the French make it, though I also put potatoes in. Balance the veggies strongly against the meat. Help the lamb forgive you.

Today spaghetti sauce with sausage. With plenty of oregano and capers. Black olives if I have them. Red wine, which I do have. Sauté onions and carrots. Brown sausage meat out of the skin. Canned tomatoes, tomato sauce. I haven't cut an onion yet, or browned a sausage, but I smell the sauce.

Today, poetry sauce is Sir Walter Ralegh's translation of Aeneid, vi,724-7, in Raleigh's History of the world:

The heauen, the earth, and all the liquid mayne,
The Moones bright Globe, and Starres Titanian,
A spirit which through each part infus'd doth passe.
Fashions, and workes, and wholly doth transpierce
All this great body of the Vniuerse.

China

In 1984-85 my family and I lived on the campus of Peking University, where I was teaching. During that year I regularly visited a 97-year-old American who had been in China continually since 12923, a year after the Chinese Communist Party was formed. Fascinated with the stories he told me, some of them coherent, some not, I launched a research project that continued after I returned to the States and through a second visit to China to attend his 100th birthday celebration, followed in tend days by his death. Winter's story is that of a sensitive and keen participant observer who puts his listener/reader in touch with both the nuances of Chinese social life and also the violence of China's modern history.

Now, through a series of karmic coincidences, I am excited to be working with the manuscript again.

Day after Thanksgiving

At the dinner table last night at my daughter's home, with a wildly diverse bunch of people, including a macho sheriff, I ate what maybe the biggest meal in my life. A heaping plate and then a second heaping plate. That's not usual for me. I'd fasted the day before and maybe that explains it. But I've gotta admit that the second plateful was as good as the first.

Two of my three children were the red. So good simply to enjoy them. And my grandson, now almost eleven, who holds a very big warm place in my life. How could I not be thankful, basking in the warmth of a peaceful family.