at a slight angle to reality

Visited seven ponds here in S. Denver this last week, looking for carp, so far 0/7.. did see two fish lying  close by the bank in the S. Platte near Overland park, but they faded away quietly and comprehensively when I clumped down the bank to get  around some trees. There were 4 other flyfishers on this stretch at 11am on a weekday morning, don't they have jobs to go to ? ha. 

Meantime the Public Domain Review has some sketches from a painter of the floating world (ukiyo-e) of Kintaro riding a carp,



Kintaro is a kind of superbaby from Japanese folklore, who seems to like carp. Here's another pic of him wrestling an alarmed-looking big carp, from the Metropolitan Museum collection,



But my favorite is the one from Wikipedia's page on him,

The weary mother scanning the horizons for her renegade baby, who is happily plunging with the fish, strikes a note that my mother would recognize. The mouth of the fish is portrayed in feeding mode, so I guess he isn't much bothered by his rider. 

wealth creators

and the poor were, what they were used to being,
the creators of wealth not, as now they are,
      an expensive nuisance.

 Letter to Philip, W.H. Auden. 1969.

This echo sounded by the modest proposal from the Tennessee legislators, using school test scores to deny welfare to families with underperforming children. Dickens would not have thought to make a villain so cruel.

The bill was withdrawn when its author was shamed by a little girl following him around the Capitol. He's still keen on punishing the poor, though:
"Stacey Campfield asked the state Senate to further study the bill, giving him the opportunity to bring it back up next year."
Watch for him to sneak it through in a midnight session, after the children have all gone to bed in their cardboard boxes.