Nine point seven (except for the East German judge)

I’m ending Friday of a strange week with something that’s strangely compelling.

Don’t know about you, but I needed that.

Killing the boys with the luggage

The incident in London on Wednesday is horrifying for so many reasons. You know—two men (one a Muslim convert) attacked a young man outside Woolwich Barracks with knives and cleavers (maybe a machete), hacking him to death before anyone could stop them. Some stories say the victim was beheaded.

Then they lounged around making statements to witnesses with video cameras. Bloody hands, bloody knives, bloody minds.

Police responded to 999 calls, but they had to wait for Armed Response Units (ARUs) before they could take down the alleged murderers. British police do not carry firearms.

Today the Ministry of Defence (MOD) released the name of the victim—Drummer Lee Rigby, 25, serving in the 2^nd Battalion, the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. He leaves behind a wife and a two-year-old son.

Rigby was 25, and allegedly targeted because he was wearing a tee-shirt for the charity Help for Heroes, which raises funds to mitigate the circumstances of military men and women wounded in the line of duty.

He was 25. 

When I saw that, I was reminded of the scene in Henry V, as the soldiers discover the slaughtered boys who’d been sent to the rear of the battle, with the baggage. Fluellen cries, “Kill the boys and the luggage! 'Tis expressly against the law of arms. ‘Tis as arrant a piece of knavery, mark you now, as can be offert, in your conscience now, is it not?”

Oh, indeed it is—like hacking to death a lad in a tee-shirt.

I look at that face and I weep.

Phenomenal voice, phenomenal woman

You know, I’m not sure where I came across Ruthie Foster, but she’s got one of those go-to voices, warm and sweet as honey on a sore throat. I’ve been hitting her rather heavily, lately, because—well, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

And one of my favorites is her take on Maya Angelou’s “Phenomenal Woman”. When Angelou has recited it, she’s been high-energy and very close to attitudinal.

(As an aside, one of my colleagues at the Monolithic Enterprise Software Company once remarked to me, “We gotta get you some attitude.” I replied, “I’d have thought that attitude was the one thing with which I was singularly well supplied.” She shot back, “We gonna get you some sistah-attitude.” That’s what Angelou expresses.)

In Foster’s hands, though, it’s languid and inviting. She absolutely knocks it out of the park.

Damn.

Insuring health?

Anthem BCBS is the worst possible health insurance you can have while still having insurance. I’ve loathed them since I was in Virginia; they had the lock on the small-organization/individual market there, and they do here in California, too.

They’re snotty for both member and provider to deal with. On a recent six week round of me chasing up a claim, I was lied to by three separate member reps. Three separate, contradictory lies about the status of a claim that everyone knew in advance they were going to deny.

But imagine my surprise to receive an envelope in the mail announcing Big Discounts for Anthem Members! And finding these enclosed:

Hey, you useless example of everything that’s wrong with the US healthcare system—I do not want coupons for $1 off ice cream or mayonnaise from my insurer. I’m paying you stupid money every month for you to process my claims in accordance with our contract without a load of either stick or lies.

Imagine that!

The big questions

Attention grocery industry. I have a couple of questions for you.

Why can’t you package feta cheese in some quantity that a single person could actually use up before it starts resembling something that needs to be disposed of as a hazardous material? I’ve had to throw away more half-finished tubs of feta than the entire Greek army.

& I look very suspicious hanging out in the cheese section of Trader Joe’s, soliciting: “Psst—hey, cutie! Wanna go halvsies on some feta?”

Question numero second: Why are English cucumbers so freaking expensive? Seriously? It’s not like they’re really imported from England, you know. The last one I bought was labeled “Hecho en Mexico”.

They cost something like six times as much as a regular, domestic cucumber & what’s up with that?

Someone? Anyone? Bueller?

Gratitude Monday: Serendipitous friendships

Gratitude Monday again & I’m really happy about the kind of serendipity between friends that caused me to email one Friday morning to suggest we get together at the weekend because we’ve not had a long natter for a while.

& her to reply that she’d been thinking the same thing, & did I want to come over for dinner, as she “does a mean filet mignon”?

Well, not just yeah, but hell, yeah.

She’s a UX designer & her development team was given a long weekend because they just finished one hellish four-week pedal-to-the-metal spring, & are about to start another one today. (For those not in the software business, just think of the most intense, complex all-encompassing project you’ve ever worked on; quadruple it; condense it down to four weeks of ten to 16-hour days; & add several metric tons of caffeinated beverages & pizzas.) So making dinner for a friend (i.e., me) & talking about non-software topics for several hours made a nice change for her.

& carrying on an extended conversation that did not involve the words “latte, please” made a nice change for me.

Plus—dinner was scrummy.

So I’m really grateful for friends who look out for each other.