Business barometer

From day to day I assess the state of the economy based on the facial expressions of Betsy Stark, business correspondent for ABC News. She delivers financial reports on "World News With Charles Gibson," and the outlook lately has been bad:


Some relief came on Tuesday, when the Fed cut interest rates and the stock market rallied. It wasn't all good news, of course, but Betsy finally allowed herself a wry, tight smile:

Keep smiling, Betsy Stark! When you're happy, everyone's happy.

Good word

"Torture, among its other applications, was part of Stalin's war against the truth. He tortured, not to force you to reveal a fact, but to force you to collude in a fiction."

Martin Amis, Koba the Dread

Good word

"Eisman knew subprime lenders could be scumbags. What he underestimated was the total unabashed complicity of the upper class of American capitalism."

-- Michael Lewis, "The End"

What I'm doing now that it's wintry in Wisconsin

• Moisturizing. There's hell to pay if I don't.
• Taking the bus to work. Kudos to Madison's winter bikers for their perseverance. I'm no winter biker.
• Running at the gym. You won't catch me running in this, though the neighbors do.
• Shoveling snow. Sometimes I do this in lieu of running at the gym.
• Formulating new rituals for taking out the recycling. I don't want to track snow and mush all over my nice clean (?) floors by hauling the recycling container back and forth. So I have to get creative.
• Staying indoors. Fuck it's cold out.
  

Revelation

If on the left hand side of an accordion you press the C root button and the A minor chord button, you get a C6 chord. Likewise, if you press the C root button and the E minor chord button, you get C major 7. What this means is that if you throw in the obvious C root-C major chord combination, you can play the exciting C major-C6-C major 7 vamp that begins "Begin the Beguine." All on the left hand! Leaving the right hand free for skeetily bop bop, skeeby da doo.

Good word

"Womanizer woman womanizer you're a womanizer oh womanizer oh you're a womanizer baby you you you are you you you are womanizer womanizer womanizer."

Britney Spears, "Womanizer"

Strange basement

In his memoir Witness to Power, Nixon White House counsel John Ehrlichman describes FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover's rumpus room. Stupefying:

After dinner we were led down the narrowest of basement stairs to "the recreation room" for an after-dinner drink. Again, every inch of wall space held some framed memento. In this room the prevailing motif was horse racing. There were pictures of Hoover with winning horses; Hoover with jockeys; Hoover in his box at Del Mar with movie stars, heavyset men, even a child.

Near the door was a small bar. All the walls over and near this counter were decorated with girlie pinups of the old Esquire vintage. Even the lampshade of a small lamp on the bar had naked women pasted on it. The effect of this display was to engender disbelief -- it seemed totally contrived. That impression was reinforced when Hoover deliberately called our attention to his naughty gallery, as if it were something he wanted us to know about J. Edgar Hoover.

Nixon had enjoyed the dinner conversation, but he was not comfortable in this strange basement. After one drink, he exercised the Presidential prerogative; he said good night and we left.