Every American who cares about humanity should at least scan this long article
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_gawande

I spent all of yesterday and today until eleven reading an account of Pepys's diary from 1660 until 1667/1668, which is when the site publishes his diary day by day in step with our own dates. Often I dipped into the actual diaries, into annotations by other readers, or notes on wikipedia.
Before Christmas I donated a small sum to wikipedia and they returned a note to me asking for a contribution month by month. Unfortunately this was made on my old credit card. During the holiday I discovered a payment on that card to what appeared to be a BP gas station in Fort Erie. I reported the suspected fraud to the credit card company, which promptly refunded the payment and cancelled my card. Yesterday I received my new card, but all pre-authorised payments are therefor cancelled too. I don't have a list of whom I have pre-authorised moneys to and have no way of re-contacting wikipedia, unless I make a new payment to them uninvited somehow.
Incidentally, it was not a fraud. I had had forgotten a payment to BP magazine for a year's subscription. I don't think of the magazine by its name as I regard it as "the bi-polar" magazine. So I needn't have cancelled my credit card in the first place. Grrr.
This blog is reverting to a personal diary. If I do still have any readers, I completely understand if you delete following me. It can only interest myself some time from now, and maybe not even do that.

This is the night sky pointing at Polaris

from Mount Kilimanjaro.

Evidently at the equator

the poles are visible on the horizon.

The best editor on youtube, that I have found, although a very male choice of films.

(Click twice and watch it on youtube).

^

My son tells me that volcanic ash attracts its own lightning. We both think that this would be a great effect in a Hollywood movie. I am up well before the winter's dawn, again with my persistent toothache. It seems that something is always going wrong with my aging body. Doctors and dentists can usually take care of these ills and thank goodness for provincial health insurance, but it takes time to see the doctors and I must live with some discomfort until I am cured. It was not like this when I was younger, but, on the whole, I prefer the advantages having lived a long and very full life, although not a particularly useful one perhaps. I know this is "begging the question", but it is largely true. I live for myself and my own pleasure. We used to argue that Mother Teresa and Florence Nightingale did too, but now I see the error of the argument, however young people should not be particularly exhorted to live a "useful life". Much better they should be encouraged to find a way to be happy and to promulgate "the greatest happiness of the greatest number".