Friday, January 31, 2020
Bach, Seneca, and More
Check out The Sovereign Professional and be a better person.
[Photo by Giammarco Boscaro at Unsplash]
The United Kingdom Leaves the European Union
"We have not journeyed all this way across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy."
- Winston Churchill
No one should ever underestimate the British.
Even the British.
[Photo by Marlon Maya at Unsplash]
No one should ever underestimate the British.
Even the British.
[Photo by Marlon Maya at Unsplash]
Thursday, January 30, 2020
First Paragraph
What are the odds you'd open your refrigerator door and find a zombie in there, knitting socks? The odds are about the same that a touchy-feely, language-oriented person like me would end up as a professor of engineering.
- From A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science by Barbara Oakley
- From A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science by Barbara Oakley
Modern Times
Nowadays most of the political commentary is funny and most of the comedy is depressing.
[Photo by Lucas van Oort at Unsplash]
"American Dirt" Protest
An all-too-familiar story.
I am far more worried about the conduct of those who seek to squelch this book than about the book itself.
I have not read the book and have no idea of its quality but note how the news article shifts into a "larger picture" slant regarding representation in the publishing industry.
That shift favors the protesters.
How about considering the freedom of writers?
Mega-Draft
Thinking. Scrawling. Typing. Thinking. Revising. [Repeat.]
I'm calling the document a first draft but it's really the third and it is far from the final draft.
That's the way it goes.
Basic Rule #1: To write, you must read.
Basic Rule #2: To write, you must re-write.
[Photo by hannah grace at Unsplash]
But Will There Be New Business Cards?
Reuters: A new job title for Putin is being considered.
[It's neither snazzy nor creative. "Vlad the Impaler" must have been overlooked.]
[
Photo by Nikita Karimov at Unsplash]
Wednesday, January 29, 2020
First Paragraph
The Romans incorporated the eastern end of the Mediterranean into their expanding empire in 63 B.C. They called the land on the southern part of this Mediterranean extremity, lying between Syria and the Egyptian desert, Judea, and hence its people became known in the Roman world as Judeans, hence Jews. This Roman appellation accorded with Hebrew people's reference to themselves as members of the tribe, and later kingdom, of Yehudah.
- From The Sacred Chain: The History of the Jews by Norman F. Cantor
- From The Sacred Chain: The History of the Jews by Norman F. Cantor
Marketing Mistake
There are many ways to attract customers. You can tempt them, flatter them, tease them, surprise them, amuse them, educate them, and even enchant them but there is one thing you must not do:
Insult them.
Some organizations don't quite grasp that.
[Photo by Explorenation # at Unsplash]
Tuesday, January 28, 2020
Great First Lines - A Series
"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."
- From One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- From One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
It Does Not Pay
[Note: I first posted this on January 23, 2017.]
It does not pay to:
- Be too clever.
- View life solely in a rear-view mirror.
- Keep score on who did what for whom.
- Speak without a filter.
- Assume that your interpretation is the only reasonable one.
- Mention a minor fault.
- Worry about matters that are beyond your control.
- Store grievances.
- Operate on unexamined assumptions.
- Think that time moves slowly.
- Rely on magical solutions.
- Compose speeches while others are talking.
- Ignore your homework.
- Level frequent criticism at others and at yourself.
- Believe that good intentions excuse poor results.
Monday, January 27, 2020
Tribalism Has Gone Digital
Science advanced, knowledge grew, nature was mastered, but Reason did not conquer and tribalism did not go away.
- Harold Isaacs in Idols of the Tribe (1975)
[Photo by Joshua Sortino at Unsplash]
Sunday, January 26, 2020
Saturday, January 25, 2020
Fanatics Never Quite Grasp This
One of the things you teach law students is that when you make arguments to juries, make sure you don't insult the jury. That is, you don't want to make statements that make them feel stupid or ascribe any bad motivations to them.
- Jonathan Turley
- Jonathan Turley
First Paragraph
The mail didn't come that day. It didn't come a week later, either. Yet the sleigh from Kezhma did deliver something to Fedya the storekeeper.
- From Fear by Anatoli Rybakov
- From Fear by Anatoli Rybakov
A Teacher of Words
"Through him I started to sense that words not only convey something, but are something; that words have color, depth, texture of their own, and the power to evoke vastly more than they mean; that words can be used not merely to make things clear, make things vivid, make things interesting and whatever else, but to make things happen inside the one who reads them or hears them."
- Frederick Buechner, Listening to Your Life
[Photo by Aaron Burden at Unsplash]
"The Age of Entitlement"
City Journal: Seth Barron reviews Christopher Caldwell's new book. An excerpt:
Thus, America created a situation in which two constitutional regimes occupy the same space. The first one stresses equality of the individual before the law; the other demands that historical injustices be accounted for through affirmative action, racial preferences, and the imposition of judicial authority over broad areas of social and commercial life to ensure the erasure of inequality. The two constitutional regimes, Caldwell maintains, represent opposite and competing visions of society.
[Photo by chloe s. at Unsplash]
Friday, January 24, 2020
D.Fined Interview
Here's more of the podcast interview conducted by the kind and patient Doug Fine. He skillfully guided me through quite a bit of territory on leadership, management, and more.
A Question to Ponder
"It's the dirty little question no one wants to know the answer to: Would I be happier if I threw away my phone?"
- Thomas Dolby in the foreword to Left to Their Own Devices: How Digital Natives Are Reshaping the American Dream by Julie M. Albright
[Photo by Pim Chu at Unsplash]
Thursday, January 23, 2020
Truly Beautiful
Law Latte has the stained glass time lapse photography from Washington National Cathedral.
Stunning.
Stunning.
Jim Lehrer, RIP
Jim Lehrer has passed away.
He was so good he was missed before his departure. I often wondered how he could even watch the bias of other journalists, particularly when they moderated presidential debates.
He was so good he was missed before his departure. I often wondered how he could even watch the bias of other journalists, particularly when they moderated presidential debates.
Hmm
People are finding that, because of the way the machines are changing the world, more and more of their old values don't apply anymore. People have no choice but to become second-rate machines themselves, or wards of the machines.
- Kurt Vonnegut in Player Piano, 1952
"Night on Earth"
The trailer for the Netflix documentary.
The trailer for the 1991 film.
[Photo by Ganapathy Kumar at Unsplash]
Few Thrills
I have no doubt that few thrills can match that which accompanies being completely caught up on paperwork.
And as soon as I catch up, I'll file a confirmation.
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
Night of the Iguana
FutureLawyer should be able to write a great love poem from the romantic image of iguanas falling from trees.
Part II of Some Novels You May Not Have Read But Should
Part I is here.
Here is Part II:
- The Time of the Assassins by Godfrey Blunden
- The Rector of Justin by Louis Auchincloss
- The Devil's Advocate by Morris West
- Life with a Star by Jiri Weil
- The Joyous Season by Patrick Dennis
- An Operational Necessity by Gwyn Griffin
- A Coffin for Dimitrios by Eric Ambler
- Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- Killing Mr. Watson by Peter Matthiessen
- Burmese Days by George Orwell
- Wolves Eat Dogs by Martin Cruz Smith
- Tourist Season by Carl Hiaasen
- Black Sun by Edward Abbey
[Photo by Pj Accetturo at Unsplash]
Tuesday, January 21, 2020
My Guess is The Colonel Would Have Approved
The Guardian on the KFC ad that will no doubt lead to the end of civilization as we know it.
Defending Patriotism
Professor Amitai Etzioni on the complexities of publishing a book in defense of patriotism.
[Photo by Andrew Neel at Unsplash]
For the Growing Good of the World
For the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
- George Eliot
[Photo by David Veksler at Unsplash]
Attention: Robert B. Parker Fans
The Spenser-Hawk novels by the late and great Robert B. Parker are highly addictive.
Here's the trailer for "Spenser: Confidential."
Here's the trailer for "Spenser: Confidential."
Monday, January 20, 2020
Martin Luther King Jr. Day
When people explain what makes their lives meaningful, they describe connecting to and bonding with other people in positive ways. They discuss finding something worthwhile to do with their time. They mention narratives that help them understand themselves and the world. They talk about mystical experiences of self-loss.
- Emily Esfahani Smith in The Power of Meaning
Civilization's Beginning
The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.
- Sigmund Freud
- Sigmund Freud
Sunday, January 19, 2020
Saturday, January 18, 2020
Abbey
From Flag to Winslow to Holbrook; and then through strange, sad, desolate little places called Adamana and Navajo and Chambers and Sanders and Houck and Lupton - all the way to Albuquerque, which we reached at sundown. I left the train when two rough-looking customers came aboard my boxcar; one of them began paring his fingernails with a switchblade knife while the other stared at me with somber interest. I had forty dollars hidden in my shoe. Not to mention other treasures. I slipped out of there quick. Suddenly homesick I went the rest of the way by bus, nonstop, about twenty-five hundred miles, the ideal ordeal of travel, second only to a seasick troopship.
- From "How It Was" in Beyond the Wall by Edward Abbey
- From "How It Was" in Beyond the Wall by Edward Abbey
Simplicity
You have to work hard to get your thinking clear to make it simple. But it is worth it in the end because once you get there you can move mountains.
- Steve Jobs
Law Latte on Boards
Many thanks to Miriam Robeson at Law Latte for the kind comments about my post on the value of having a board historian.
I'll be posting on some related board-management topics over the next few weeks.
Friday, January 17, 2020
Tuition: Onward and Upward
City Journal: Scott Yenor on "How to Guarantee Higher College Tuition Costs."
[Photo by Jody Hong Films at Unsplash]
Thursday, January 16, 2020
Steeling Yourself
The trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is that the same steel that secures your life against being destroyed secures your life also against being opened up and transformed by the holy power that life itself comes from. You can survive on your own. You can grow strong on your own. You can even prevail on your own. But you cannot become human on your own.
- Frederick Buechner
- Frederick Buechner
Some Novels You May Not Have Read But Should
You already have a sizable reading stack so let me just say this: I believe the following novels deserve a far greater readership.
- The Fortunate Pilgrim by Mario Puzo
- The Wonderful Country by Tom Lea
- The Last Man in Europe by Dennis Glover
- Middle Passage by Charles R. Johnson
- Memoir from an Antproof Case by Mark Helprin
- A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin
- Mendelssohn is On the Roof by Jiri Weil
- Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa
- The Centurions by Jean Larteguy
- The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning
- Eagle in the Snow by Wallace Breem
- I Was Dancing by Edwin O'Connor
[Photo by 2Photo Pots at Unsplash]
Powerful
This ad for the re-election of Taiwan's President Tsai.
[HT: A Large Regular]
[Photo by Mihaly Koles at Unsplash]
Wednesday, January 15, 2020
Slow Down
Three committees approved the report. People debated it, at least superficially.
All efforts were praised. Bows were taken.
There was only one problem.
No one had read the background information.
But every deadline was met.
Tuesday, January 14, 2020
Listening and Reading
Much is made of the problems that can arise when people don't listen but what about the problems that arise when people listen but don't read?
Most Checked-Out
Check out the New York Public Library's list of its most-checked-out books of all time.
[Photo by Erol Ahmed at Unsplash]
Avast!
Wally Bock's review hits just below the torpedo line.
Among his observations he notes what has become a common problem in the publishing world: the absence of good editing.
Monday, January 13, 2020
"Poems for Lovers"
Rick Georges, The FutureLawyer, is a man of many talents: lawyer, techie, blogger, parrot advocate, smartwatch collector, and poet.
His new book of poems is now available at Amazon. I've placed my order and am planning dramatic readings.
Because all poetry should be read aloud.
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