Meanly, like ants

In this age of multi-tasking, a dose of Thoreau really clears the palate. If he felt out of place in the mid 1800s, what would he think of an era in which people listen to music, carry on a conversation and send text messages while driving a car?

...we live meanly, like ants...Our life is frittered away by detail...Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail.

That's a tall order for an ADHD nation.

IMPORTANT SENATE VOTE. The vote to extend key provisions of the Recovery Act--including unemployment insurance extensions and aid to states--is likely to take place today. It has been scaled back further after a failed vote yesterday. If you haven't contacted your senators, please do so today and urge them to vote yes on "the extender bill." Click here to get started.

MAKING THE CASE. In testimony before Congress, Lawrence Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute urges more aggressive action to deal with unemployment.

THE COMMON DENOMINATOR between BP and Massey Energy is greed, according to union leaders Cecil Roberts and Leo Girard.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Curse of the zebra mussels

Well, El Cabrero is back in Paradise (he said, with irony) after over a week beside a lake in Vermont. Sometimes I get a little nervous on leaving my beloved state of West Virginia because I'm afraid of missing something, but I was able to monitor conditions here by means of the Precious (aka, the iPhone).

One big insight came my way last week: the wheels of karma may turn slowly but they do turn. Sometimes anyway. Pity me not but lend thy serious hearing to what I shall unfold...

Several years ago on another visit to the in laws up there, we stopped and splashed around in Lake Champlain. At one point, my mother in law attempted to dissuade her grandson from venturing further into the lake by warning him about zebra mussels.

I must admit that this struck me as hilarious, a typical grown up way of scaring a kid into not doing something, as in "if you go one step further into the lake, a savage pack of carnivorous zebra mussels will tear you limb from limb."

I've laughed about that ever since, most recently last week when I decided to take a swim in the selfsame lake. But no sooner had I ventured out to where it was neck deep than my own toe was seriously sliced open by...you guessed it...a zebra mussel shell.

I was hoisted on my own petar...this is what happens when you mess with my mother in law.

FROGS IN HOT WATER are us.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, a number of economists are talking about the need for a second stimulus.

SIMPLE LIVING, by itself, may not cut it, according to this item.

TOP TEN SCIENEC MUSIC VIDEOS here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED