BLUF bottom line up front: Politics is like making sausage, in this case quite literally, and deliciously.

I am very responsive to New York Times. I was pleased to see the photo today of Turkish Basketball star. Reminds me that I am 10 (intend) to print notice of meeting international soccer superstar at new café here 535 Brian Street they have great creamy lentil soup.

edit to add, 6 May 2018: I left the errors intact in publishing above partly because I had not thought through the possible outcomes of printing the actual story of this man, this cafe and this country. Someone sent me the link to the Times article, which came out 3 May. That is to say: Plastic Alto scooped the New York Times here by four days. Interestingly, I also have a clipping from a think-piece about that country’s politics per se, it’s elections, it’s leadership, circa 8 April, about a month ago. In that piece the writer uses the colloquial term “tut-tutting”. I wonder if the name of the cafe is therefore political, to indicate dissent.

I file this under “Platos Republic” which usually is code for U.S. public policy. I guess the decision to extradite or not is how this qualifies. I am rooting for a soccer academy with a diverse group of investors.

I checked “ethnicities” which usually means people who worship Torah, because someone heard that our hero defended an author of that heritage, from his country. Also, the leader of a dissent group from that region said that my people are not from our ancestral homeland but were from the soccer player’s country and converted to my faith in 8th century, and then went to The Pale. I dunno. Or as Steve Young’s son allegedly once said, in his third grade Spanish class: Me no know.

I checked “this blue marble” which usually means “geography” but here also means soccer ball.

I checked “words” because I will consult my Webster’s Ninth to see when “tut-tutted” entered the language (if it did by 1986, my cutoff point — everything more recent is bastardization).

Terry and I had a crepe and waited like Godot for the dress shop to open. We bought an apple buy from the best — not the soccer place.

I saw Messi score in El Classico thru the window, i.e. from the sidewalk of Leading Sports Bar. Warriors are up by 15 last I checked. Sharks circle later, looking for blood. (That’s a sports reference, you hockey puck!)

and and: I was at Stanford, near Mem Chu and Rodins when a group of a dozen runners with numbered bibs (but not “happy birthday, Bibi’s”, I was trying to recall the tune) and waving two or three flags jogged by. One said that May 9 is “Victory Day” when Russians or people from former Soviet Republics, possibly, celebrate the end of World War II. News to me. Not sure how that last bit fits in with the rest other than Palo Alto nowadays is pretty near to these two countries. It’s a big world, outside your door.