Positives

Let’s start with good news. On July 6th Cleveland Indians pitcher Carlos Carrasco, 32, revealed he is battling leukemia. Last night he made his first minor league rehab appearance, pitched a scoreless inning and hit 97 mph on the radar gun. Kudos.

Police in southern England pulled over a weird, apparently home made electric vehicle constructed from balsa wood and duct tape. It turned out to be a custom electric motorcycle that was registered and insured. Here it is:

First unveiled in 2016, the sculpture in the photo below is by Melbourne-based New Zealand artist Ronnie van Hout, who made the “partial self-portrait” to sit in his home town of Christchurch following the devastating 2011 earthquake. It has been moved to the Wellington City Gallery, where it stands on the roof, and it has freaked out many locals. Wellington suffered its own earthquake in 2016. The title of the piece is Quasi, a reference to Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Quasimodo. Some see a resemblance to President Trump. (Facts and pic from theguardian.com):

Sign of the times headline from foxnews.com: “Robot ‘associates’ reportedly help Walmart beat earnings expectations.”

My thanks to Ludmila, Wolf and Lev, who bought 16 books in Russian between them; and to Alice, who purchased Jeffrey Archer’s Debt of Honor; and to the woman who selected a cook book; and to the one who took home Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, the novel that has had the profoundest effect on yours truly, the inspiration for Close to the Edge, which I dub “Crime and Punishment with sexuality as it core.”

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