Defective Blue Weasels

Last Names that are Fun to Say:

Loquasto
Schickelgrueber
Sepulveda
Simmons
Jones
Funcannon
McGee

*****

They're sending Kofi Annan, the Saviour of Rwanda, to Kenya. I should probably invest in machetes and shovels.

*****

They're doing a census in the Congo with the expressed goal of seeing how many people are left alive. The Beeb has pictures:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/08/africa_surviving_congo/html/1.stm

That's incredible. Fifty years ago, that was the richest and most promising country in Africa, with schools, transportation and hospitals approaching European standards.

Our church library (United Methodist) used to have lots of books about the Congo, since we maintained numerous missions there, all long-since closed. I used to think I might go there when I was grown up. I feel a vague sort of free-floating guilt over not doing something to help them, but short of becoming a primary-care doctor (which I would have made a shitty one anyway) and going over to help on an individual basis, I'm not sure what can be done.

*****

Congoleum actually does come from the Congo. I'd vaguely wondered for years, but wasn't motivated enough to find out. One of the life-changing things about the internet is the way it allows you to find out stuff like that without even standing up to get a book.

*****

In a rare burst of good sense, NASCAR seem to have moved the Daytona 500 back to the afternoon again. The 24 Hours is this weekend.