London

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

What draws the world to London is opportunity. But it is also a magnet for people looking for a safe place for their money. Having made it in countries like Russia and China with a cowed press, rampant corruption and no rule of law, oligarchs and crony capitalists reach the conclusion that they like nothing as much as democratic systems with real legal systems and a vigorous press. Having trashed the West they trust the West with their money.

Autocratic hypercapitalism without Western checks and balances produces new elites whose dream is an American or British lifestyle and education for their children, and whose other goal is to buy into the rule of law by acquiring real estate, driving up prices in prime markets to the point where the middle classes of those countries, with incomes stagnant or falling (and taxed), are pushed aside.

-- Roger Cohen, "Lovely, Lamentable London" in The New York Times

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Watering

I finally got around to watering our trees. I had to get out of bed early since it's 'trash day', and so long as I was up, I figured I may as well hit that chore. The deluge of the spring has made me lazy and neglectful of watering, but we have been bone-dry for weeks heading into August. The ground is badly cracked up. As for our lawn, even the weeds are struggling to survive.

Raymond Chandler

"Ideas are poison. The more you reason, the less you create."

-- Raymond Chandler

Of course, he is talking about the world of fiction, where I can see how, after a certain point, overthinking might hamper a writer, especially when what you are writing does not even have to make logical sense. Sometimes you have to just start painting: paint something beautiful, or paint something startling, but paint.

[Source: Michael Schmidt, "The Novel: A Biography"]