Quote of the Day: Rainer Maria Rilke

“The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.”


I am feeling quite flattered today. I called the CFO at National Geographic to check back if he had a chance to read the information I'd sent him earlier about one of our customer service solutions, and you know what the receptionist said when I asked for him? She said, "Is this about an article you wrote?" "No, why?" "You just sound like it." I'll take that to mean I sound like a writer. I'll take the compliment.


So I had Ethiopian food for the first time the other night and I liked it even if I did get a little messy eating with my fingers. I'm also pretty sure I would not have liked the communal arrangement if I'd been in different company since I'm not the biggest fan of sharing things like plates. It's funny, since I'm a child of the 1980's the image of the country of Ethiopia will always be bound up in my mind with the issue of hunger. Say what you will about Sally Struthers, but you can't say her commercials about saving the children weren't effective. I always expected that if I went to an Ethiopian restaurant all that would happen would be some self-righteous grad student with a ponytail would put a plate of dirt on my table and say, "This is all they have to eat in Africa because of your Greedy, Western, Imperialist ways. I am happy to report that nothing like that happened. It was really quit delicious and tasted a little like Indian food.


Disclaimer
I really do think worldwide hunger and malnutrition is a serious issue. In fact, I wish our global elites would spend more time trying to solve that very real problem than talking endlessly and doing nothing about future problems like climate change.