random thoughts on Derby Day

Weather is wretched for the Derby. Rain. Lots of it. We will probably go to a Derby party anyway. Sarah and Aaron are having a Derby Party for friends of theirs in NYC. Including mint juleps, etc. 14 people. Aaron evidently discovered a basketball game he had scheduled this morning, so Sarah is left to prepare for the gig. She phoned a couple of times, and commented that preparing for a party is a LOT of work. I allowed as how I am well aware of this. And I have yet another graduation party I'm working on right now, but that's not really as tough as the parties we used to do for seminar speakers. They were always, ALWAYS on Thursday evenings; I was working full-time; and we had two kids in school.

Some of these hats at the Derby are not just gaudy, but appalling. And if you are at Churchill Downs, you can pay $1,000 for a mint julep. I assume you get to keep the sterling silver julep cup. It's a fundraiser, of course.

I think BP should have to pay the ENTIRE cost associated with cleaning up this oil spill, and I mean ALL of it, including replacing income lost by all those fishermen down there in the Louisiana delta. There is blathering in the paper whining that the government should have done more. This disaster is totally different from the hurricane in N.O. The government was actually responsible (Corps of Engineers, folks!) for soooo much of the damage. That was a natural disaster aggravated by government incompetence. This disaster is caused by corporate incompetence and corporate greed.