Cold Rainy Day in Wuxi.

• This Saturday (or AKIC Tuesday) is starting off cold, wet and miserable.   I pity the people I saw who were getting married today.
• This article tries to make sense of Taiwan's parliamentary elections.  Is Taiwan warming up to China?
• Obama says that the Republicans have had better ideas than the Democrats the last ten or fifteen years.  Or so Hilary Clinton says.
• Tony was in a happy state this morning when he awoke.  The little fellow is bolstering the spirits around the Kaulins household.  That should be my job!
• Tony is getting better and better with his hands.  He can transfer things from hand to hand.  He is grabbing onto sheets.  We can occupy him by playing handsies with him.  "What are handsies?" you ask.  It is what I call it when Tony and I grab at each other's fingers for a period of time.  Tony seems to want to test the strength of his grip and his dexterity.  I want to keep him occupied so that he falls asleep.
• Word on the net is that Christopher Hitchens is trying to quit smoking.  Here is his take on the U.S. Democratic Party's presidential contest. 
• I hear Kelson the Brazilian is leaving Wuxi and never coming back.  There will be a party for him Saturday night at the Blue Bar.  I hope I can go.
• The Duke of Wuxi took his wife and newborn child out for the first time yesterday.  They went to a buffet at one of the fancy Wuxi downtown hotels.
• Another Tang Dynasty poem for your enjoyment:

Wei Yingwu

SETTING SAIL ON THE YANGZI
TO SECRETARY YUAN


Wistful, away from my friends and kin,
Through mist and fog I float and float
With the sail that bears me toward Loyang.
In Yangzhou trees linger bell-notes of evening,
Marking the day and the place of our parting....
When shall we meet again and where?
...Destiny is a boat on the waves,
Borne to and fro, beyond our will.

• I had a no-show at 1800 last night, so I pulled out this copy of the Norton Anthology of English Literature and read some Shakespeare, Pope and Samuel Johnson.  Sometimes, you have to get away from the Internet.  I have recently  tried reading Montaigne on the Internet but I find myself wishing I had a book instead to leaf through his essays.  One essay of his entitled The Education of Children seems worthy of repeated readings.
• My poor wife has to head off to the new apartment in this weather.