Rain and other observations

• It is currently raining in Wuxi, Jiangsu, China.  I have been told by my students that this spell will last three days, which is long enough for me.  Rain and Wuxi and December can make me like a very dull lad.
• I feel the effects of my month-long cold in the morning just as I wake up.  I need to blow out all the "stuffiness" that has accumulated in my head overnight.  Then, taking a hot shower, taking some medicine, and drinking hot liquids make me feel top-notch till I have to go out, ride the bus, and then talk. 
• The Halls company is making a mint as I have been buying two packs of their throat candy a day.
• Sunday night, my son Tony, Wuxi's #1 Expat Child falls asleep in my arms.  Nice.  It makes my withdrawal from the normal life of a Wuxi Expat worth it.
• I was reading an online piece from the Conservative American Spectator site about John Lennon, who died tragically thirty years ago, December 8, 1980.  The piece opened recollecting a moment I will never forget, as I was watching Monday Night Football game in which Howard Cosell announced John Lennon's death.  At the time, I was a high school student in Shilo, Manitoba.  It was three years earlier that I had bought the Beatles Red Compilation of their songs from 1962-66.  The death was a sad thing. Still, I have had mixed feelings about John Lennon.  I don't care for the movement that made him a sort of Saint, based on the song Imagine, the song Give Peace a Chance, and his lying in bed for peace,  Those things were silly and repugnant.  The piece I have linked to talks of a Lennon, who before his death, came to regret those days of political radicalism. Getting away from an alcoholic and drug-induced haze, says the article, Lennon spent his final years as a responsible house husband.  What Lennon would have been like had he lived through the eighties, ninties, and odds, we will never know for sure.  Would have he been a tad more conservative?  Would he have spoken the truth about in the infantileness surrounding the election of Obama?  Who can say?  The posit of the article of a more-mature Lennon could well be the rationalization of a conservative who did like most of his music.  But none would disagree with Howard Cosell's words: Lennon's death was an unspeakable tragedy.  The man who had no father was seeking redemption by being a good father to his son Sean, but was tragically prevented from doing so.  Lennon the father cut down, is an image I can appreciate more than Lennon the Pacifist.
• Lennon's example of withdrawing from public life to be a father certainly appeals to me at this time in my life.  It was so wonderful to be able to take my Tony to school van this morning.  The little guy was quiet and shy, and so attractive to all who laid eyes on him.  The security guards and street sweepers were smiling at the sight of him.