The Factory of the Future

The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.

- Warren Bennis

[Photo by NOAA at Unsplash]

A Film That Deserves More Attention

 

Genius

 

There was a multitude of optimism and genius in the musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein.

Unlike many recent musicals where there may be one or two memorable songs, you'll find an array of great songs in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals.

Oklahoma and South Pacific are grand examples.

Another powerfully creative duo was Lerner and Loewe. Their genius can be found in My Fair Lady and Camelot.

It's unwise to assume that such talent will always be with us.

The Good Old Days?

 An interesting quote about a bargain getaway in Spain:

"We stumbled across Lloret de Mar on a hike up the coast from Barcelona. It was five miles from the railroad, set in the half-moon of a wide, sandy beach under the foot-hills of the Pyrenees. Tess liked it at once. So did I. We found a furnished house on the beach - three storeys, ten rooms, two baths, central heating. When the proprietor said the price would be fifteen dollars a month, we paid the rent for a year. Our expenses, including rent, have averaged sixty dollars a month."

Sounds great, but it comes from William L. Shirer's memoir, Berlin Diary, and the date was January 11, 1934.

Tough times were ahead.

Disparate Impact Discrimination

City Journal has an excellent article on the Justice Department's new policy on disparate impact discrimination cases.

Although employers had a possible defense against such cases in the past, the easiest way to reduce risk was to avoid disparate impact in the first place. In many cases, that meant lowering employment standards.

The key test, of course, is whether the courts will agree with the Justice Department's new criteria.

Hmm

 

Classics That Don't Connect

 

Many people experience some shame or guilt when they dislike a literary classic.

Please don't.

I confess to enjoying Ernest Hemingway's short stories while finding his novels to be very hard going. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is another slog for me and yet, of course, many people love it.

Here's my list of some that I set aside but which I'll give a second chance:

- Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

- Scoop by Evelyn Waugh

- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

- Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

- Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

On the other hand, I know people who cannot stand Moby-Dick and I'm in the process of re-reading it. Another re-read on my list is Bleak House.

Which classics have you set aside?

[Photo by Tom Hermans at Unsplash]

"The Pacific"

 

First Paragraph

It's cold on the Wall. That's the first thing everybody tells you, and the first thing you notice when you're sent there, and it's the only thing you think about all the time you're on it, and it's the thing you remember when you're not there anymore. It's cold on the Wall.

- From The Wall by John Lancaster

Well Done