A movie in San Francisco tomorrow with Mr. E and one or two of the usual crew, something to get me out of the house. Which is good. Getting me out of the house. Maybe a walk down the way later to take pictures at the farmer's market. Not easy to get decent photographs on the street, somewhat easier when people are all packed together not paying attention to the lone photographer. The lone photographer with a good heart, of course, not looking for less than flattering images.

Do you believe that?

Mostly. The problem with an “unflattering” picture is when the unflattering picture is also a very good picture and the unflattering aspect is due to the subject's personal idea of how he or she should look. Put it behind the logo under the picture, maybe, if there's a question. Put a picture of say a building up on top.

Later. An article in the business section of the Chronicle this morning reporting APL, my old company, had been fined twenty-five million dollars for war profiteering in the Middle East. They were an American company until Neptune Orient Lines bought them out in the nineties, but I have every confidence the old all American crew would have profiteered every bit as aggressively. I'm sure we were all into equal opportunity graft.

I'd heard we were making a lot of money through storage charges on empty containers in Kuwait and the like, but had no idea we were double and triple charging for all the market would bear. The APL employee in Denver who blew the whistle collected five million and some odd dollars plus attorneys fees. Good for him. Usually, you blow the whistle on your company and they find your perforated body leaking coffee at the bottom of the back stairs.

That's a bit over the top.

Money will get reasonable people to behave like actors in a film noir. We are, after all, talking about the shipping business with its many opportunities for personal gain (none of which were available, fortunately or unfortunately, in the IT department). I just wonder how many people in senior management understood where all that money was coming from.

Later still. A walk down to the farmer's market, as promised, feeling light headed now that the upward adjusted dose of blood pressure medicine has proven itself a bit too upward (85 over 53). A slight adjustment down tonight. Up, down. Up, down. I believe I've mentioned this before. Yes, a picture or two, nothing I haven't shot before, nothing I won't shoot again. Two groups of anti-war protesters picketing one another from opposite sides of the street, splitting hairs, one in front of an anti-war theater, one in front of an anti-war farmer's market. Easy to say in mixed company you're against war, harder to say when you don't fully understand there are “good wars” and “bad wars”:, good wars killing bad women and children, bad wars killing good women and children. I'd include dead men in the mix, but they don't really count. OK, boys, an exception.

Where'd that come from?

Who knows? All this psychological stuff is impossibly complex. Ask me why I drink sake and watch Korean soaps.