Helmintholog

forget to renew their domains — look at Mitch Kapor’s Chandler project. Whois knows nothing of osafoundation.org this morning, either.

I’m sorry. I know you have been a good person all your life. I know you have deserved salvation, and — believe Me — God would have taken you to heaven, but it’s just … well, rules are rules; Gabriel forgot to renew the domain, and you have been redirected to spend eternity in a yahoo mailing list about Hugh Jackman instead.

Jonny Boatfield has a show coming up in Cambridge in mid-August: portraits of people in care homes around here. He sat and talked to them until he had their life stories. Then he drew what he saw. It’s at the Michaelhouse Centre.

The admirable Billmon has a statistic I don’t understand and can’t really believe: All told, real wages dropped more than 20 per cent between 1972 and 1992. I’ve often wondered what the political fallout would have been if that same decline had been administered the old-fashioned way – through direct pay cuts by employers instead of the gradual, indirect erosion of inflation.”

I can’t think of anything which Americans were able to buy 20% less of in 1992 than in 1972 — not even illegal drugs. So in what sense did real wages fall? The statistic I always remember is that for the “middle classes”, real wages have stayed approximately the same since the 1970s. This alone would produce a certain dissatisfaction and political savagery, especially in a culture where everything is always meant to be improving.

But maybe I am just showing a lack of imagination. Things that might be 20% less affordable for the average American include health care, child care, and housing.

I caught sight of the Conservative party’s logo on a web site that people were being invited to mock, and I thought it represented some kind of delta-winged craft crashing after an erratic flight. Only later did I remember that it’s supposed to be a torch. I think my subconscious got it right first time.