Flight to the states booked. New York for 3 nights (17-20 Oct). Portland from 20.Oct to 1 Nov.

I just finished “Madness Visible”. It’s a fantastic book about the Balkan war. It reminded me of my trip there a year and a half ago. Riding the train through the countryside you can still see the shot up and destroyed buildings.
I kept thinking of this one woman we met on the train. She said her husband was in Seattle. She had not seen him for “several years”. I got the feeling she was lying, but wasn’t going to press her on it.
I assume her husband was dead and she could not admit it….

“I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid certain surroundings, but they have always a nostalgia for a home they know not. They are strangers in their birthplace, and the leafy lanes they have known from childhood or the populous streets in which they have played, remain but a place of passage. They may spend their whole lives aliens among their kindred and remain aloof among the only scenes they have ever known. Perhaps it is this sense of strangeness that sends men far and wide in the search for something permanent, to which they may attach themselves. Perhaps some deep-rooted atavism urges the wanderer back to lands which his ancestors left in the dim beginnings of history. Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs. Here is the home he sought, and he will settle amid scenes that he has never seen before, among men he has never known, as though they were familiar to him from his birth. Here at last he finds rest.” —W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence

I’ve been reading a lot and enjoying it. This weekend I read “Oryx and Crake” by Margeret Atwood. Great book!!!
Also “Slaughterhouse 5” by Kurt Vonnegut. Enjoyed it as well.

I’ve read several Grazie Deledda books of late. I must almost an expert by now.

I just finished “Ready Player One”. Great book!!! If anyone is of the same era as me and grew up with sci-fi, and game consoles you’ll love it.

I took another swim in the Med.

This is the worst entry ever! I don’t feel like writing…

http://baselinescenario.com/2012/05/28/the-end-of-the-euro-a-survivors-guide/

http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/29/11931934-at-least-15-die-as-58-magnitude-earthquake-hits-italy?lite

The one at 9am was easily felt. The aftershock about an hour later was felt by everyone but me…I was in the elevator at the time.
If you’ve never been in an elevator in Italy you know that this is about the least safe place you can possibly be 🙂

I enjoyed this article…This is basically how I find out about holidays in the states…Stuck reading news and commentary from middle North America.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175546/
So happy memorial day or something…Enjoy the BBQing people!
And a special word to the soldiers…Try not to murder any civilians today <—That can be considered sarcasm 😉

http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/robert-reich-why-obama-should-be-attacking-casino-capitalism/