Tuesday, March 29, 2022

Being informed

My body has informed me that it is Spring Break and that I am not supposed to work this week. Certainly not today and I'm guessing that tomorrow is also out. Instead, I've done some minor tax-related chores and read a book. After dinner we will watch television.

Graham had some rather heavy gloves out on the island in the kitchen and I asked what they were for. He said it was in case he had to drive to Srinivas' house to help with the robot or something like that and he showed me that it was 36 degrees outside. As I pointed out, clearly if he needs heavy gloves for such conditions, he belongs in school in Chapel Hill and not in Easton, PA, Schenectady, NY or Cleveland, OH. Really it's pretty clear. 

For Christmas I got this book Unstoppable about a guy named Siggi Wilzig, an Auschwitz survivor who became a Wall Street legend, albeit one I had never heard of. Somebody gave it a good review, so it went on my list and Santa brought it. 

Frankly I got it for the Wall Street part because I've learned a lot about the business and business in general by reading page-turners like this. But to get there, I had to go through the Auschwitz part. I hadn't read a Holocaust narrative for a long time, but it was good to go back through it and to have what happened thrown in my face in detail. We easily forget how horrific it was, what people are capable of under the right conditions. What we are seeing in Ukraine is but a pale shadow. 

We have to wonder what is actually going on in Xinjiang.

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