I am pleased to see that Anthony Scaramucci is back in the news but not because I care about his views of President Trump. Instead, as during his eleven days as White House communications director, I hope that his prominence will  bring cult showings of the movie “Scaramouche” starring Stewart Granger, and this will bring a revival of the author Rafael Sabatini, who, of course, wrote the marvelous book Scaramouche as well as the equally delightful Captain Blood, and this will lead to cult double features of Granger’s “Scaramouche” and Errol Flynn’s “Captain Blood,” and all this would lead to a revival of Baroness Orczy and her novel The Scarlet Pimpernel, and this would lead to cult showings of “The Scarlet Pimpernel” starring Leslie Howard. Right now, we seem to need some swashbuckling heroes.

In the old days, including during my career in criminal defense, when a person informed the police about (i.e., ratted on) another, it was said that the informant had “dropped a dime” on the other one. No one calls a cop on a pay phone with a dime any more. So today, what is the informant doing?

The blonde server told us she was from Siberia. She elaborated. From western Siberia, from Siberia near Kazakhstan. She said, “From the nice part of Siberia.” Who knew?

As I walked to the subway, I heard a street person in a doorway say to no one in particular, “Did you see that old couple who just walked by?  They did it.”

My friend worked for Nokia. She liked the work except for the trips to the headquarters in Finland, even though it amused her that Helsinki was the only place where she saw women with blonde roots.

I got to the escalator at a local Target. A man carrying more stuff than I offered to let me go first, but I insisted that he proceed. When I got to the escalator with him in front, I realized that the escalator was not working. I said to him, “But I expected you to get it to work.” He immediately replied, “That’s just what my wife says.”

As I passed a group of toddlers after some rain, I heard the teacher calmly state, “It is your choice whether you walk in any puddles.  But first think about whether that is a good choice.”

If the Gospels are divinely inspired, why did He inspire four different people who wrote four different accounts inconsistent with each other? Wouldn’t it have been better to have one comprehensive narrative so that those without faith would have less to pick at?

A Sunday School teacher once said to me, “There are three main religions in this country: Christians, Jews, and Catholics.”

“I believe in children praying—well, women, too, but I rather think God expects men to be more self-reliant.” Joseph Conrad, Victory.