Unimportant Small Things

The speaker rehabilitation worked! Our speakers haven't sounded this good in about 15 years. I am so glad J made the repair. I can hear the bowing on Il Giardino Armonico's Il Proteo. Even the treble sounds better, although J only fixed the bass speakers. (I don't quite understand that, but both J and I noticed it.)

It's been a bit cooler for the last couple of days, so cats have started coming in earlier for their afternoon nap. Said afternoon nap now takes up most of the afternoon. But they want to go back outside just as it's getting dark. That's not permitted.

I checked in on the auto executives testimony before Congress over the last couple of days. While it's difficult to have much sympathy for the people who fought against seat belt laws and for the nine gallon to the mile SUV, it's hard to understand why we're not bailing them out if we've already rescued the people who gave us the SIV. Yes, one does have to wonder at their political incompetence--leave the corporate jets at home and go slumming in first class. However, is it really that big a deal when the financial services executives have been able to keep the salaries and bonuses they got for--I can't think of anything else--convincing the Secretary of the Treasury to keep them out of bankruptcy?

Maybe it's just that the financial services sector employs people who are more likely to be white and to have attended elite universities, while auto companies have a more diverse employee base, most of whom did not attend Harvard or Yale.