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Literally.

My spy at the New Yorker tells me Packer posed for this family portrait. That's his wealthy fund manager life partner on the right with current boy toy left. (I'm proud of myself...tonight it didn't take but two or three minutes see the humor. )

"The only thing I regret about my past is that there's so much of it." I had thought this was one of Diana Vreeland's but have not been able to reliably pin it on her. If Google doesn't help me soon, I may just appropriate it and let her estate track me down.

Fret not. I do hereby solemnly swear (and affirm!) that cycling from New Haven to Stratford is one of those rare things that I did not, do not, and almost certainly never shall regret leaving undone ere 'parting this vale of tears. That is to say, quite satisfied with the choice made that particular day...

If this is turning into one of those "roads not taken" threads, I'm outta here. Ooops.

OK, I give up. Who? Best regards, RA1

For a pol, relatively small personal gains almost always outweigh any resulting (even far greater) harm to the larger society. Consider the current mess in Iraq: the new government reports that north of 50,000 ghost soldiers are being carried on the muster rolls of the Army so that officers can pocket their pay.. This when ISIS is making a serious threat to take down the whole fucking lot of them and chop off their heads in the public square! What would any sensible brigade commander do except destroy unit morale to grab a few thousand bucks a month for himself? The greater the local culture of impunity, the smaller the private gain needs to be. Witness the Mexican mayor who murdered a bus load of college students because the noise they made was disrupting his wife's garden party. ==== My favorite political story of all time is one told in Brazil in the 1960s: Tourist at the celebration of the opening of a small town's new bridge: "How much did the bridge cost?" Local: "100 million reals. We all love President Goulart for building it!" Tourist: "What? No way that bridge cost more than 10 million." Local: "of course not. Goulart embezzled 90%." Tourist: Then why do you say you love him?" Local: Only a fool of a tourist would ask such a stupid question. The last three presidents took the money and didn't build the bridge!" ==== It's no use worrying about pols who do idiots things because it benefits them. That's the nature of the beast. The only standard to which you can realistically hold them is whether they get the bridge built.