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AIM HIGHER
Dr. Timothy Leary said it: “Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.”
Timothy Leary In 1992, Covered In Psychedelic Images, Natch
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FOUND MONEY
This time of year Hoosiers reach into their hall closets for those coats they haven’t worn for nine months or so. They dig into the pockets and, lo and behold, find folded up five dollar bills.
Happens all the time.
Gov. Mitch Daniels did the same thing yesterday and was so pumped that he called a press conference.
Only it wasn’t a fin he found. It was $320 million.
That is, 64,000,000 five dollar bills.
“I’m Gonna Go Check Under the Sofa Cushions Now!”
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The Indy Star reports the swag was found in some hidden-away bank account by a State Department auditor. The dough was revenue from corporate income taxes. It was all a happy accident, Daniels said, beaming.
Yeah, what a thrill. Especially for Indiana school districts which — mirabile dictu! — have suffered some $300 million in funding cuts over the last three years.
The whole charade stinks, no?
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OLD NUMBER 33 IS 55
Happy birthday, Larry Bird.
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ILLITERATES
So, Bloomington’s unofficial poet laureate Ross Gay comes into the Book Corner yesterday afternoon. We chat about our work habits. He tells me he likes to get up at 5:30 in the morning and write for three hours or so. Then he says he isn’t disciplined enough. I tell him he’s nuts.
Poet Ross Gay
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Then he browses for a few minutes, comes back, and puts a couple of small books on the counter. One of them is by Marcel Proust.
Anybody who hopes to be considered intelligent must read Proust. Me? All I know of Proust is from that movie, “Little Miss Sunshine.”
You know, where the Steve Carell character has spent his life studying Proust? And finds himself pretty much in nowheresville?
I confess to the lanky rhymer: “I’ve never read a word of Proust.”
He exhales as though he’s relieved. “Neither have I!” he says.
Cool. Ross Gay and me.
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JUNK SCIENCE
Let me get this straight. Investors the world over were thrilled that Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy agreed on a plan to put wayward European Union nations back on the right track.
Money Can Buy Me Love
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Markets went up in the US, China, Japan, and Europe itself. Even those stuffed shirts in the UK started investing again. The party lasted a single day.
Standard & Poors issued a warning Monday night saying the honchos took too long to come to an agreement. So, S&P just might downgrade the credit ratings of 15 eurozone nations. And now the markets are going all to hell again.
What is it about this shell game that I don’t get?
Besides everything.
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CATS AND MACHINES
Click the thumb below and see Episode 5 in Grover & Sloan’s tale of the cat and the air pump.
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BASEBALL IN DECEMBER
I’m still giddy over the election of my favorite baseball player of all time to the Hall of Fame Monday. Ron Santo had an Italian daddy-o, was as emotional as an opera singer, loved pizza, and hit home runs for the Chicago Cubs in the 1960s and early 70s. When I was a little kid, I imagined he was a member of my own family.
So shoot me if I have the diamond game on my mind. Luckily, baseball junkie Eric Van Gucht reviews the book, “Satch, Dizzy, and Rapid Robert” on our Salon page. This kid is good and I hope he’ll do a lot more writing for us from here on out.
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WE DO FACEBOOK SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO
◗ Only one link today: Facers were particularly unimaginative last night and this morning. This one, though, is well worth standing alone.
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Krista Detor, our town’s sweetest canary, is putting on her annual holiday show Thursday, December 15, 7:30PM, at the Bloomington Convention Center. Whip out that wallet and splurge. You’ll thank me — and Krista.
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