Wisdom about war from "The Lord of the Rings"

I am rereading J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings many years after my last reading.  At the front of the copy, on 11 Jan 2002 I wrote:

“Do we Orc-hestrate our wars?  We are the Fellowship and our enemies are the Orcs.  We slaughter hundreds of them without qualm and bury with great honor the few of us who suffer more than scratches.  See p. 58.”

On p.  58 I bracketed:
‘Deserves it!  I daresay he does.  Many that live deserve death.  And some that die deserve life.  Can you give it to them?  Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.  For even the very wise cannot see all ends...'

Gandolf gave this response to Frodo’s condemnation of Gollum who is “as bad as an Orc, and just an enemy.  He deserves death.”

All things are connected

In a reply to my Christmas letter, one relative noted that her nephew died in the fire at the Ghost Ship in Oakland, California.

I responded with

"Your note about your nephew’s death reinforces my belief that we are all connected, often by far less than six degrees of separation.

“Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”
- John Donne

What corporate efficiency?

“Free marketers” laud the efficiency of corporations over the inefficiency of government.  I think there is no difference between the forms.  What it depends on is management.  A good mayor or governor can get some great things done.  A lousy CEO or low-level corporate manager can make a real mess of things, such a mess as to cause death or injury.

What follows are my notes in trying to navigate vanguard.com to find a report that I was told today was available.

Vanguard site navigation

You sent me email that I had a report for Vanguard High-Yield Corporate Fund Admiral Shares Report, but you provide no direct link to it.  I finally reread the message and find that there is a link to Fund Reports.

I clicked on that but did not find Vanguard High-Yield Corporate Fund Admiral Shares listed!

Oh, there is a little drop-down box in the upper right corner that toggles between regular and admiral shares.

I toggle to admiral and then I get "Please wait".  I waited!  I went downstairs to get a snack!  I came back!  The "Please wait" box was still present.  I did something or another and got a page that asked me to log in.  But I already had a page up that had me logged in!  I am using that page, without logging in again, to send this message.

Off to try to get back to where I was ten or fifteen minutes ago.

Comment in satisfaction form

Recd msg today, 2016-09-20 of fund report for High Yield Corp Admiral.  No link given in msg.  Finally found my way to page with list of reports.  Latest report is 2016-07-xx!?!?

Also added in another part of satisfaction request: hire some good human interface people.

Follow up after signing off ins satisfaction.

Downloaded report, but Vanguard was unhappy with my Adobe Reader XI.  Report would not open, damaged.  Version is 11.0.17, undated.  Finder gives date modified as 2016Aug 5.  Checking for updates gives “Already up to date”.

End of notes.

It's a sad day in the funnies

The comic section of newspapers has come a long way from depicting the foibles of adults, kids, and animals and the feats of heros and super-heros. Nowadays we see more political satire such as "Doonesbury" and "Mallard Fillmore" and more real-life stories such as "For better or for worse" and "Funky Winkerbean". Now we get involved in the trials and tribulations of characters who seem to be part of our daily lives.

People have died before in the funnies, for example, Ellie Patterson's mother died some years ago. But today we get two signals that death has happened. Ellie's father's second wife finds him immobile and Lisa Moore's dream has a masked tuxedoed man coming to escort her elsewhere. It was hard to get up from the breakfast table without a lump in the throat or a tear in the eye.