A Suspicious death in Russia!

Yes, we said 'Russia' in Tucker Carlson voice. Synergy, kismet. 

Great Day in the morning, Stroock's Books Codominium. The Stroocklettes have no school today for some reason, so we're one big happy family here at home. Later we're taking Oldest Daughter to get her driver's permit. Oh! And we successfully chain sawed our neighbor's downed tree limb. Fingers and appendages update: all still attached. 

We are informed this morning that we're supposed to care deeply about the death of this Alexei Navalny fellow. Of course! Of course we care deeply about his death. We support the Current Thing. That being said, we agree, nothing suspicious about Navalny's death at all. Alexei Navalny didn't kill himself. 

A European friend from a nation that has an NFL football team named after its ancestors keeps pestering us about Russia, Putin, and Tucker Carlson. He sent us this clip of Tucker in a Soviet, sorry, Russian grocery store. People are mocking Tucker for being amazed at a coin dispensed shopping cart, but one doesn't see those much in America.  And here, Aldi's is a fancy store. Exit question: was Tucker's trip to the market a kind of reverse Yeltsin at Randall's Supermarket moment? Sub question: if so, what does it mean?

Charlotte Cowles, a writer with The Cut, gave a scammer $50,000, in cash! Charlotte Cowles is (was, we hope) The Cut's financial advice columnist. Reader(s) are right to point and mock. She's a dingbat. Ms. Cowles is not a J-School grad, which is surprising. She's an English major, which is not.* Columbia, oh my! We remind the gentlelady that we ourselves attended Wesley College.

As devotees of this blog will no doubt recall, we liked to keep scammers on the phone as long as possible. We once had a guy from Mumbai on the horn for half an hour. 'Your name is Bob? Bullshit. I know that accent anywhere. I live in Chindia, sir. Your name is Rag or Suresh or some such.' We once became FB friends with a scammer out of Karachi and built a file on himself and his company. 'You know Ali Jinnah was gay, right?'

You want financial advice? [What do you know?-Ed] I know I don't have to work a fucking 9-5 job. Save your money. Eschew frivolous expenses. Make dining out a weekend treat. When buying a house or car, put down as much as you can. If you come into some money, give 2 percent to charity (we like the Technion among others) and give the rest to a bank to invest. And if someone says they need a shoebox full of cash, ignore them. 

*Ms. Cowles has more prestigious publishing credits than we, but not as many. We call it a wash. [You tell yourself that -Ed]