Flotsam

Unrelated detritus:

1) Horse puppets!!! The fact that a generation ago we had Cookie Monster and now we have war horses is an interesting comment on the evolution "debate," since humans created both puppets.* In any case, this is unbelievable ... precisely because it's SO believable. Did I just blow your mind? Yeah, mine too:

NY Times article
YouTube video
YouTube video

2) Today I heard the following story. During a near-shore sailing race off the coast of France last year, a squall thundered in, strong enough that blowing sand stung like fire and drove people off the beach. At sea, the race continued, as races tend to do. The boats were Dragon class sloops, long, narrow, full-keeled needles that go fast and hard.

One was running downwind when it was overtaken by a breaking wave. The tumbling water knocked the helmsman aside, filled the boat with water, and the momentum of wave plus gale-force wind on the towering sail slewed the boat sideways and over in a fatal maneuver called broaching.

It sank. Fast. Everyone got off except a crewman whose leg was tangled in a long line attached to the sail. Down the boat went. Down he went. His water-activated life vest inflated as he dropped into the darkness, tethered to the plunging boat.

He struggled. Got free. And exploded to the surface "like an Exocet missile," said my storyteller.

This is one reason I always carry a knife when sailing!

3) Why do the professions that provide the least to society pay the highest salaries? And why do those that do the most good pay the least? Okay, there may be exceptions but this seems to be the general rule. People in expensive and flashy clothes arguing and caring and worrying over all the wrong things. Or maybe I'm just imagining things, filled with vexed thoughts as I watch a beautiful day through a window.



*The quotes are the limit of my editorializing on this.