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I walked into Walgreens behind a fellow you might call “sketchy,” and not in the sense of being loosely drawn. Raggedly, hunched, hood over his head and mask over his face - the exact facial arrangement that would have shrieked THIEF in 2019. Backpack. Heads right for the cosmetics, because he’s either here for lipstick or he wants to seem as if he’s just exploring all the shopping options the wonderful store has to offer.
This is the same Walgreens store where I saw the guy steal a lot of stuff and walk out the door, and the staff just asked him to come back and pay for it. Probably didn’t hear them over the sound of the loss-prevention gates.
I knew where I was going, and went there. Our paths intersected twice, because he was making a strange course through the store, ending up in the frozen foods aisle. Whereupon he took out a bunch of stuff and put it in his coat. He made a beeline for the door. I followed, and ran into the Store Manager, or so I presume, and I said “that guy. He’s stealing.”
He shrugged. “I know.”
“So he’s just going to leave.”
“You want to go stop him, go ahead,” he said, and walked away.
Whereupon I went to the counter and paid for what I had come to purchase. I could’ve just walked out. Why pay? Why bother?
The store has made a calculation: it’s cheaper to let people steal than hire some burly guy to stand by the door and brace the thieves, and it’s cheaper than the theoretical liability of an employee getting hurt if they confront the thief. They are content to say: this person gets to steal. You will pay, because we presume the majority of you play by the rules, but you have to understand that the thieves do not have to play by the rules, and when the prices increase and everything gets locked up, you will be the one who deals with the consequences. And if you don’t go to the store anymore because everything’s locked up, and eventually the store closes, it doesn’t matter, because we have many other stores.
But. If they call the cops, they might come. If they arrest the guy, he’ll be released.
My property taxes went up 20% in the last three years.
Rainy, rained, rain-centric, wet, sheeting, torrents, all those various words. May inverted. Usually the cold wet days come during the first fortnight. I don’t mind. Good for the lawn and all the seed I put down, which has laid prostrate and inert since it was strewn and raked. Odd for the mood.
In the middle of the morning the sprinkler repair people called and said they were heading to my house. To fix my system. In the rain. I can tell they’re working because I am getting notifications on my watch that the system has started - which of course is a hint to turn off notifications from my sprinkler system, which appear on my watch with a slight vibration.
Convenient and informative but also HELL. Notifications are HELL. The only one I really want to get: texts from friends about matters lite 'n' brite, and a reminder that my parking is about to expire. Everything else is a nag and a bother. Okay, work emails. Okay, reminders that the radio show is on in ten minutes. Okay, {that other example you just proposed.} But otherwise no. I think we would all profit from an AI assistant that gathered up our notifications and presented them at the top of the hour, like the news on the radio, instead of fracturing our attention with constant taps and pings and botherations.
We all felt so damned important at first, getting notifications. And then it turned into the equivalent of standing behidn a jet engine into which someone was feeding panes of glaass and sheets of aluminum foil.
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It’s 1937.
Tersley told. Everything else, prolix.
Numismatists in tears, and you can understand why.
Do you remember the story of Hetty?
Hetty Green (November 21, 1834 – July 3, 1916), was an American businesswoman and financier known as "the richest woman in America" during the Gilded Age. Those who knew her well referred to her admiringly as the Queen of Wall Street due to her willingness to lend freely and at reasonable interest rates to financiers and city governments during financial panics.[2] Her extraordinary discipline during such times enabled her to amass a fortune as a financier at a time when nearly all major financiers were men.
They said she was cheap to the point of insanity, but:
The harshest accusation, however, was that she neglected to treat her son's injured leg, which eventually resulted in an amputation. The evidence cited was her refusal to pay for a visit to a single physician. However, there is substantial evidence that Green put great expense and effort to treat her son. This included visits to multiple specialists, as well as temporarily relocating her residence so that she could care for him.
Upon her death, Green was known as the "Wizard of Finance" and the "Richest Woman in America.": 290 Estimates of her net worth ranged from $100 million to $200 million (equivalent to $2.7 billion to $5.4 billion in 2024), making her arguably the richest woman in the world at the time.
What the article doesn’t say is why they burned them.
Speaking of rich people: the kids assemble to watch the train carrying the body of Rockefeller pass.
The guy on the left, standing amongst the citizens, is Rockefeller Jr., who was, as they say, loaded. Beyond belief.
It’s a young country.
Either that's a crown or he was standing in front of a tree.
You wonder which combinations the author went through before he landed on this one.
Also, why? Was this his job - doggeral about the musings of lads?
Perhaps these guys:
Throughout history, the Clan MacDonald of Keppoch gained a reputation for their involvement in illicit activities, including lawlessness, frequent cattle raids, and territorial disputes with neighboring clans, particularly their rivals, Clan Mackintosh. Their loyalty to the House of Stuart was unwavering, and they played a prominent role in the Jacobite uprisings of the 17th and 18th centuries, especially during the infamous Jacobite Uprising of 1745.
And today?
he succession ended when the original line of Coll MacDonald, 16th of Keppoch ended upon the death of the 21st chief, John de Lotbinière. Thus, the clan was without a chief for the next couple of generations.
The next chief wasn't acknowledged until 13 September 2006 when Ranald Alasdair MacDonald of Keppoch was acknowledged as the lawful chief by the Lyon Court, following a 30-year fight for the right to use the ancient title of Mac Mhic Raonuill.
The ceremony is reviewed, here.
If you’re curious what the cost is . . .
. . . it's the cost of not getting the benefits that might have come from the lives of all those who died. According to the author, not me.
Finally, a little bit of fun from O. O. McIntyre. I love this guy. He’s literally phoning it in.
Brings up Nazimova out of nowhere. She’s the creator of the Garden of Allah Hotel, among other things. Carried on an affair with Valentino’s wife.
An inspiration to columnists everywhere.
Oh, let's run him through AI, and see what happens.
That will do for today. Except, of course, for the Decades Project update, and the Miscellany and Outtakes at the Substack. Thank you for your patronage, and I'll see you tomorrow.
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