So How Much Would You Owe Us, W?

Bush: Link exec salaries to performance

By BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writer 32 minutes ago

NEW YORK -
President Bush took aim Wednesday at lavish salaries and bonuses for corporate executives, standing on Wall Street to issue a sharp warning for corporate boards to "step up to their responsibilities" and tie compensation packages to performance.

Can he be serious!?!?

Take this eating test...

Still haven't read that article?

I've come up with what I think is a pretty reliable way to measure the health of the diet around here: How often do you empty the kitchen compost bucket? It you're eating well, it's often. I'm emptying mine at least twice a week, and sometimes every other day. That means lots of vegetables and fruits are being prepared.

Don't have a compost bucket? Then you need to ask yourself a question: Why not? Anyone, anywhere, can compost. If you're feeling challenged or need some tips, post your questions.

One thing that doesn't seem destined for a compost heap anytime soon is our Christmas tree. It's still drinking plenty of water, and dropping no needles to speak of. This makes me happy. I was just reflecting the other day how tragic it is to cut a tree down to honor it only for a few short weeks. I think I'll beat my Valentine's Day record this year. Wouldn't it be great if it lasted all the way 'til Spring!?

By way of explanation...

"It's a nervous work. The state that you need to write is the state that others are paying large sums to get rid of."

— Shirley Hazzard
Short story writer

Hurry Up and Read This!

...before the Times moves it into the premium area. The best, simplest wisdom yet for what to eat, and what not. An excellent, if long, article by Michael Pollan — author of last year's hit, The Omnivore's Dilemma — on the American diet, nutritionism, and the food industry.

Read it here.

Dr. Weil's Daily Health Tip

Breathing as Meditation

In Buddhist and yogic traditions, people claim to have reached an enlightened state by doing nothing more than paying attention to the rising and falling of their breath. What easier way could there be to reach such a state? Especially since breathing - following the ebb and flow of your breath - is an intrinsic part of meditation. By paying attention to your breath, you will rapidly change your state of consciousness, begin to relax, and slowly detach from ordinary awareness. Try to focus on the dimensionless point between your in-breath and out-breath, and glimpse the elements of enlightenment in that space.

Correction

Thank you, kind reader!

On Pain

And a woman spoke, saying, "Tell us of Pain."

And he said:

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;

And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.

And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

Much of your pain is self-chosen.

It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.

Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity:

For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,

And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.

Gibran

Joy & Pain

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy.

— Kahlil Gibran

Radio-Free Uniontown

Yesterday was a rare and blessed "no-drive day," when I didn't get in the car at all. I treasure these fleeting gems. I highly recommend giving it a try, if you're one of us who always have kids or work or shopping or some other reason that pulls us into a car everyday.

Driving home from Sunday lunch at Mom's, I thought maybe when I got home I'd try to go "radio free" for the rest of the day, including all passive forms of electronic entertainment — no radio, no music, no TV, no DVD. Just the hum of the refrigerator and furnace and computer fan — oh, and my brand new vacuum cleaner! I can't really swear off the computer since I have to work.

It's only been what? Five hours? But it is a challenge already. I always have Internet radio on while I'm working, the background drone of New Age (elevator music), classical, or classic jazz. It's different. Quiet.

That new vacuum, though, man! It really sucks. And it's "convertible" — you can press a latch and pull the main sucker off the chassis to use as a canister vac, great for the steps. It's the first time I've had one with one of those clear dirt cups. I'm amazed at how much it pulls up, so quickly. I'm even dirtier than I thought. It's incredible what they've managed to do in the vacuum world in the last 15 years or so since my last new one, onboard tools and all that. I'm loving it. HOWEVER...

They still can't get the frickin' cord right! There's at least 12" to work with between the cord spindles — that seems like a lot of margin to me, and how many ways can you wrap a cord between two points? Yet, the way I wrapped it (straight, no crossover), the plug clip ends up right at the bottom of the curve where it's nigh impossible to clip. So yeah, maybe if you do the math for me, you'll tell me that crossing over each loop can easily suck up 12". I try it and let you know.

Anyhow, thanks Mom, for the Christmas cash. Bissell and Costco thank you, too!

What's In My Journal?

Odd things, like a button drawer. Mean
Things, fishhooks, barbs in your hand.
But marbles too. A genius for being agreeable.
Junkyard crucifixes, voluptuous
discards. Space for knickknacks, and for
Alaska. Evidence to hang me, or to beatify.
Clues that lead nowhere, that never connected
anyway. Deliberate obfuscation, the kind
that takes genius. Chasms in character.
Loud omissions. Mornings that yawn above
a new grave. Pages you know exist
but you can't find them. Someone's terribly
inevitable life story, maybe mine.

by William Stafford, born this day in 1914
from Crossing Unmarked Snow
© University of Michigan Press
stolen from The Writer's Almanac (as usual)

Another Bushticker Spotted...

20 January 2009
The End of an Error

Yet Another Bushter Sticker

"Fermez le Bush."