Saturday, April 30, 2022

Termination

A trader listened to the firm's "chief" economist's predictions about gold, then lost a bundle. The trader was asked to leave the firm. He then angrily asked the boss who was firing him, "Why do you fire me alone, not the economist? He too is responsible for the loss?" The boss: "You idiot, we are not firing you for losing money - we are firing you for listening to the economist." 

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Commodore Shatner: Cutting Edge

 



Taboos

Tackling taboos is difficut, but necessary. Very often - MOST often - they are used not to shield strong and valid ideas from pointless attacks, but rather to protect weak ones from worthwhile criticism. The censor tends not to be an individual fully confident that he is right, but rather one who is terrified to the core that he is wrong. Only by ignoring the censor's taboos and beginning to speak can we challenge bad ideas, overcome them, and replace them with better ones.

- Wilfred Reilly, Taboo: 10 Facts [You Can't Talk About]

Necessity Can Be a Guide Post


Wally Bock has business (and life) lessons from Estee Lauder.

[Photo by Juriel Majeed at Unsplash]

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

 Jonathan Turley on the new head of the Disinformation Governance Board.

Friday, April 29, 2022

Reprise

 


Push Back Against the Times

If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today.

- Thomas Sowell

Woke Capital: The New Colonialists

Year Zero: Wesley Yang on "Woke Capital in the Twenty-First Century." An excerpt:

"While we are accustomed to seeing culture war issues as an ideological struggle, the rise of woke capital suggests a better framing of our predicament. We are deeply mired in a class struggle. One could even compare this exercise of distant elite power to colonialism. To put it in the starkest of terms: globalized professionals and managers are on one side; regional elites and the middle classes are on the other. The stakes are high, impinging on democratic self-government and the power to define reality itself."

Jaron Lanier's Warning: Beware of The Manipulation Machine

 


The above is one of the most interesting interviews I've seen.

Also check out Jaron Lanier's books:

  • You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto
  • Who Owns the Future?

Thursday, April 28, 2022

Good Question

Do you want a society that is nothing but an endless power struggle among organized groups?

- Hubert H. Humphrey 

In The Background

 


Indoctrination Update

 Preschool of the Arts: "Social Justice and Toddlers."

Organizations are Flawed



Organizations, like the people who run them, are flawed.

Never forget that. No matter how shining the reputation or noble the achievements, the organization is not without flaws. 

All organizations need regular doses of humility blended with serious introspection. [For recent examples, look at the FBI, the CIA, Disney, The New York Times, and Harvard. Excellent in so many ways and yet capable of making mind-numbing blunders.]

David Halberstam's "The Best and the Brightest" should be assigned reading in high schools. Tuck it in with the classics by Orwell and Huxley.*


*That is unlikely to happen. The high schools are flawed.

First Paragraph

In recent years it has become clear that there is a war going on: a war on the West. This is not like earlier wars, where armies clash and victors are declared. It is a cultural war, and it is being waged remorselessly against all the roots of the Western tradition and against everything good that the Western tradition has produced.

- From The War on the West by Douglas Murray

All for Our Own Good, Of Course



The Department of Homeland Security is creating a "Disinformation Governance Board."

The Five-Hour Rule

The Epoch Times: The reading habits of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Jack Ma.

[HT: Jonathan Wade]

Wednesday, April 27, 2022

Hard Truth

Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know.

- Eric Hoffer

On My List

 


Unduly Optimistic

Once again, Steve Layman is adding to my book stack. The description of General Braddock is one that I will keep in mind. 

Most of us have met some "Braddocks" in the workplace.

This is Strangely Forgotten Nowadays


If you lead a movement within an organization or a community and sainthood is an admission requirement, don't expect many members.

First Paragraph

The man straightened up in the airport waiting room and lowered his newspaper. His face was contorted with a mixture of emotions - anger, fear, sadness - at what he had just read. His rumpled suit and outdated waistcoat strained under the pressure. They'd killed Danquah.

- From The Last Imperialist: Sir Alan Burns' Epic Defense of the British Empire by Bruce Gilley

Country Life

 


Tuesday, April 26, 2022

Elon Conquers The Twitterverse


Common Sense:
Mike Solana on the panic over Elon Musk.

A New Political Divide?



City Journal: Guy Sorman on the French election and possible changes in the Left-Right divide.


[Photo by Gautier Salles at Unsplash]

Find Your Style


 

[Photo by Apostolos Vamvouras at Unsplash]

Firing By Omission


All of us have seen or heard of good employees who resigned because of bad managers.

Part of that can be commission - the bad manager performs poorly - and yet part of that can also be due to omission: the bad manager fails to act in circumstances where action is needed.

A classic example: the manager who fails to fire poor employees may be inadvertently "firing" good ones.

Humor Break: Dictators Have Gone Libertarian

 


From the Wilds of Indiana

Don't forget to check in on Law Latte.

Monday, April 25, 2022

Twitter

I felt a strange disturbance in The Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and then nothing happened, but they kept right on crying out in terror for no apparent reason

- David Burge at iowahawkblog

On My List

 


Acting Class and Identity

 Gabriel Brown examines an important lesson picked up in an acting class.

The P.C. Culture Didn't Decline and Fall


Reason magazine: Greg Lukianoff on how P.C. became a woke underground that exerts enormous influence on campus. An excerpt:

"Radical open-mindedness would be wildly out of place at most contemporary universities. Getting there will take substantial cultural and political change."

Hmm

 


"Collateral Damage"


That offensive term came to mind while I was reviewing some management policies which achieved the desired results while producing negative consequences elsewhere in the organization.

What was done about the unintended consequences? Nothing, because the loud cheering over the primary achievements kept those in the inner circle from hearing any distant groans.

Besides that, questioning success is not good for careers.

Get with the program.

Modern Times

 Newsweek: Ben Appel on "The New Homophobia."

Look Up

 


Off the Books

 Nations have been far more willing to engage in cyber-attacks on each other than other kinds of attacks, because the information sphere is largely not on the books, which would otherwise reflect how globally interdependent it really is. Chinese interests have hacked American corporations like Google, but they would hardly be motivated to toy with the infrastructure in America that delivers Chnese goods.

A warehouse should not be perceived as being in a separate economic category than a website. China is as economically dependent on an American website's security as it is on the truck that delivers goods made in China. But that dependency doesn't show up adequately in international accounting.

- From Who Owns the Future? by Jaron Lanier

Sunday, April 24, 2022

Saturday, April 23, 2022

Friday, April 22, 2022

"The War on the West"

Douglas Murray has a new book coming out.

He recently went on the Joe Rogan show.

International Crime Novels on My List

  • Nairobi Heat by Mukoma Wa Ngugi
  • The Case of the General's Thumb by Andrey Kurkov
  • Murder in the Central Committee by Manuel Vazquez Montalban
  • The Devil's Home on Leave by Derek Raymond
  • Happy Birthday, Turk! by Jakob Arjourni

Communication

 A Militia major is driving along when he sees a militiaman standing with a penguin.

"Take him to the zoo," he orders.

Some time later the same major is driving along when he sees the militiaman still with the penguin.

"What have you been doing?" he asks. "I said take him to the zoo."

"We've been to the zoo, Comrade Major," says the militiaman, "and the circus. And now we're going to the pictures."

- From Death and The Penguin by Andrey Kurkov

First Paragraph

The published compendium of the many adventures that I undertook in the company of Mr. Sherlock Holmes contains only a few of those occasions on which we entered a variety of service that no loyal subject of this realm may refuse. I refer to cases in which the calls to action were delivered by various government ministries or agents, but in which our true employer was none other than that Great Personage whose name has come to define an age herself, or her son, who has already displayed some of his mother's capacity for imprinting his name and character upon his era. To be plain, I refer to the Crown, and when I do, it must surely become more apparent why the greater portion of my accounts of such cases has come to rest - perhaps never to be removed or revealed - in the tin dispatch box that I long ago entrusted to the vaults of Cox's Bank in Charing Cross.

- From The Italian Secretary by Caleb Carr 

Thursday, April 21, 2022

Nolan


 

Creativity

There was an impasse. I wondered how the author would resolve it because the two main characters  were heading toward a serious confrontation. Readers would dread the conflict between their two heroes.

And then the answer arrived in the form of a platypus.

Brilliant.


Very Interesting


 

First Paragraph

Tribalism: that's the term often used to characterize the extreme political polarization manifested every day in the United States and many other countries. In fact, to characterize tribalism as merely political would be an understatement. It is something much more comprehensive, reaching much deeper into our lives, as the phrase "culture wars" suggests. We see tribalism on the Left and tribalism on the Right - but not in the middle, because it's the nature of tribalism to create an unbridgeable, uninhabitable chasm between Us and Them. The tribalistic mentality sees things in black and white, good and evil - as a no-holds-barred, zero-sum conflict between Us and Them, for the highest stakes. Tribalism transforms disagreement into mutual hatred, mild condescension into utter contempt. 

- From Our Moral Fate: Evolution and the Escape from Tribalism by Allen Buchanan

On My List


 The first Tony Hillerman novel I read was "Dark Winds."

The entire series is excellent.

Wednesday, April 20, 2022

Universities in Crisis Mode

 


Spooky

 


Parties Get to Pick Their Nominees

 Seth Masket: Keep primary elections confined to party members.

"Values"

The Constitution is intended to make and maintain a free people, so it consists mostly of powers and procedures of institutions rather than goals that would tell a free people what it must do. That might seem to allow a people free to live by its "values." I put the word in quotation marks to indicate disdain for a term that Publius, the shared pseudonym of the authors of The Federalist, never used and would have rejected. "Values" is a recent verbal noun indicating that your goals are yours or your group's and exist by virtue of your valuing. They are particular to you and changeable when you change - for no reason you can cite. Having no reason behind them, values make no claim on the attention or agreement of others; one must either bow to them or get out of the way. 

- From The Wisdom of "The Federalist" by Harvey Mansfield

Reprise

 


Tuesday, April 19, 2022

Back From Coaching


 

[Photo by Drew Beamer at Unsplash]

A Reason Why People Watch Joe Rogan

 


The Greatest Harm Done


But it is not the minds of heretics that are deteriorated most, by the ban placed on all inquiry which does not end in the orthodox conclusions. The greatest harm done is to those who are not heretics, and whose whole mental development is cramped, and their reason cowed, by the fear of heresy. 

- John Stuart Mill, On Liberty 

Wokespeak and Grantspeak

Tablet: Michael Lind on "The End of Progressive Intellectual Life." 

Excerpt: 

"It is not surprising that the written output of this billionaire-funded bureaucratic apparatus tends to read like an NGO word salad with crunchy croutons in the form of acronyms that stud post-intellectual progressive discourse: DEI, CRT, AAPI, BIPOC, LGBTQ+. Wokespeak is Grantspeak."

Monday, April 18, 2022

Kick Back

 


Prelude

Today's identity politics took hold of liberalism in 1972. The McGovernites parceled out delegates to that year's Democratic National Convention on the basis of race (explicitly), class (implicitly), and gender (explicitly). AFL-CIO sachem Al Barkan responded to McGovern's presidential nomination by declaring: "We aren't going to let those Harvard-Berkeley Camelots take over the party." But they did.

- Fred Siegel, The Crisis of Liberalism: Prelude to Trump 

The Nightmare of Free Speech

Law professor Jonathan Turley explores Twitter's panic at the approach of Elon Musk.

Smoke-Free


I don't care what's in the policy manuals or posted on the bulletin boards. 

I want to know what's being said in the staff meetings, the breakrooms, and the hallways.


[Photo by Mimi Thian at Unsplash]

Sinking Daily

"The situation in our universities, I am confident, will soon right itself once the great silent majority of professors cry 'enough,' and challenge what they know to be voguish blather."

So wrote Arthur Schlesinger Jr. in 1998. Alas, he seems to have been mistaken. Since he penned those words, the "voguish blather" has made greater and greater inroads into the study of the humanities and social sciences - and in doing so has increasingly weakened the fabric of American civil society, the shared culture that has made America great.

- Bruce Bawer, The Victims' Revolution: The Rise of Identity Studies and the Closing of the Liberal Mind (2012)

Crooks

 


Saturday, April 16, 2022

Miklos Rozsa, Composer

 


Would "Rocky" Be Made Today?

 


Filters and Versions

 


The message went from headquarters to the regions and their departments and then to the divisions and on down the chain until, at various locations, supervisors were turning to their teams and saying, "Listen up."

You can imagine how much editing and "clarification" took place along the way.

And how much can be altered if a supervisor cocks an eyebrow while delivering the message.

Viewpoint Diversity at Harvard

Quillette: Rob Montz on Harvard, professor Roland Fryer Jr. and deviating from the script.

By the Numbers

 Wally Bock on some mistakes that did in Schlitz beer.

Friday, April 15, 2022

Lewis

 


Please Circulate to the Corporate and University Diversity Departments



Commentary magazine: Wilfred Reilly on "The New Definition of Racism."

Hmm


 

Gentleman of the Leaf

National Review in 2013: Jonah Goldberg is down at the cigar shop. An excerpt:

Politically, there are all types. As far as I can tell, the most ideologically conservative regular (me included) is a federal employee. The gender mix is thoroughly lopsided, of course. Women do occasionally come into the shop, but when they do, all eyes go up as if a unicorn had sauntered into a library. Dennis Prager, another gentleman of the leaf, has written that cigar shops may be the last place in America where men can congregate and talk as men. It’s not discrimination, mind you, it’s just that cigar smoke tends to have the same effect on the fairer sex that it has on mosquitoes.

Projects, Relationships, and Trust


Your ability to complete projects with a high degree of skill and within deadlines is undeniably important.

And yet.

The ubiquitous They want to know that you can be trusted, you care about them, you respect them, and that you will listen carefully and respond accordingly if they encounter any problems or have any questions.

Take away any of those and the line about skill and deadlines might not be important.

Fascinating

 


First Paragraph

 Americans think a great deal about colleges and universities, but they do not examine them very closely. Every spring, most of the nation's high school seniors choose a place for what well might be the most important four years of their lives. They and their parents pore over catalogs, read guidebooks, visit campuses, talk with school counselors, and share advice and impressions with relatives, friends, and neighbors, many of whom knew these institutions decades ago. For most high school seniors, the prospect of attending college, whatever its apprehensions, inspires real enthusiasm. A new world - freer, more interesting, more respectful of their emerging individuality and adulthood - awaits them.

- From The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America's Campuses by Alan Charles Kors and Harvey A. Silvergate (1998)

Thursday, April 14, 2022

Oops

Jesse Singal on The New York Times article about Substack.

SEL and Leverage

 Civics Alliance: John Sailer on the latest incarnation of Social and Emotional Learning.

"Twitter's Chickens"

Matt Taibbi on the uproar surrounding Elon Musk and Twitter.

"Averting Our Eyes"

"Had a white male entered a New York subway car in a construction vest and gas mask, carrying a hatchet, a 9-millimeter handgun, extended ammo magazines, gasoline, fireworks, and two smoke grenades; had he then shot off at least 33 rounds, hitting ten people, the Biden administration and the media would have immediately raised an alarm about white nationalist violence. The shooter’s race would have led every story about such an attempted massacre; pundits would have immediately speculated about hate crime and domestic terrorism."

Read the rest of Heather Mac Donald in City Journal.

Hear Me Roar?

Common Sense: Zoe Strimpel on "How Feminism Got Hijacked." 

First Paragraph

Joe McGrady was looking at a whiskey. It was so new the ice hadn't begun to melt, even in this heat. A cacophony surrounded him. Sailors were ordering beers ten at a go, reaching past each other to light the girls' cigarettes. Someone dropped a nickel in the Wurlitzer, and then there was Jimmy Dorsey and his orchestra. The men compensated for the new noise. They raised their voices. They were shouting at the girls now, and they outnumbered them. The night was just getting started, and so far they weren't drinking anything harder than beer. They wouldn't get to fistfights for another few hours. By the time they did, it would be some other cop's problem. So he picked up his drink, and sniffed it. Forty-five cents per liquid ounce. Worth every penny, even if a three-finger pour took more than an hour to earn. 

- From Five Decembers by James Kestrel

Wednesday, April 13, 2022

Know the Lines


There are certain types of answers that ought not to be provided by an individual. When a government bureaucrat sets a price, for instance, the result is often inferior to the answer that would come from a reasonably informed collective that is reasonably free of manipulation or runaway internal resonances. But when a collective designs a product, you get design by committee, which is a derogatory expression for a reason.

- Jaron Lanier, You Are Not a Gadget


[Photo by Christian Erra at Unsplash]

Packets

I divide large projects into packets and later, when they are ready, put them together.

By breaking them into small portions, I make them less intimidating and produce frequent feelings of achievement.

This, I tell myself, can be done in a couple of hours, and so on.

I don't know if it's wizardry, but the approach works, and it is highly effective at reducing procrastination.

Abigail Shrier

 


Tuesday, April 12, 2022

Maverick

 


In the Pipeline

 


Good Routine


Michael Shellenberger revealed his daily routine:

- enjoy good coffee 
- hard cardio/weights first thing a.m. 
- no media for 1 hour before & after sleeping 
- walk to think 
- no alcohol/processed sugar or other drugs 
- sleep 8 hours 
- have a goal 
- have faith

Blog on Racism Shuts Down

 


Smart in Spots

 I'm no genius. I'm smart in spots  - but I stay around those spots.

- Thomas Watson, IBM

Monday, April 11, 2022

Clarity

Martin Gurri: "A Vision of a Better World."

[HT: A Layman's Blog]

Find Your Style


[Photo by Engin Akyurt at Unsplash]

Safe Spaces

 


Solutions With Expiration Dates



Beware of a solution that continues after a problem has been solved.

It may become a new problem. 

Listen

 


"Aspens" by Edward Thomas.

Nashville and More

Steve Layman takes a vacation down yonder and I am very envious.

Power and Promise

No movie was ever made out of "the development process." Films have always been made because someone with power bet on someone with promise.

- David Mamet, Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch

Sunday, April 10, 2022

Saturday, April 09, 2022

Bond, James Bond, Music

 


Fascinating Story of an Organization Man

 Wally Bock gives the leadership lessons of quartermaster (and so much more) Montgomery Meigs.

Examining the Children's Books: Don't Say "Snowman"

 Andrew Sullivan on the risks of imposing critical gender theory on young children.

Don't Give Away


 

Nicholas Bate, an Englishman, gives brief advice and hits a home run.


[Photo by Josh Hemsley at Unsplash]

Watch Out For

  • Programs that fulfilled their mission years ago but which are still operating. 
  • Terminology which has different meanings in different locations. 
  • Goals that are meant to achieve one thing but which inadvertently produce another.

Break

 


In the Pipeline



Friday, April 08, 2022

Striving for Simplicity

Simplicity is the end result of long, hard work, not the starting point. 

- Frederick Maitland

First Paragraph

A colleague recently told me about a person who had managed to get a face-to-face meeting with Elon Musk, the entrepreneur famous for founding Tesla and SpaceX. Getting a meeting is not an easy feat. This is a man who once told his alma mater (the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania) not to call him more than once a year, and that even then, the answer is probably no. Musk's net worth is $20.2 billion, so each minute of his time is worth thousands of dollars, even calculated conservatively.

- From Edge: Turning Adversity into Advantage by Laura Huang 

Thursday, April 07, 2022

Reprise

 


Nitwittery Update

A church has a "fast from Whiteness."

On My List

 


Controversy in DNA Tracing Land

Quillette: Elizabeth Weiss reviews Jennifer Raff's "Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas."

Alert FutureLawyer

 


Imbalance in Academia

 Another development which has created a lopsided environment is that academia tilts to the Left. According to the Federal Election Commission data, there are 79 Democrats in the teaching profession for every 21 Republicans. At the high school level there are 87 Democrats for every 13 Republicans. And in elementary schools there are 85 Democrats for every 15 Republicans.

- From Undoctrinate: How Politicized Classrooms Harm Kids and Ruin Our Schools - and What You Can Do About It by Bonnie Kerrigan Snyder

Listen Closely Enough


 
If you listen closely enough, your opponents will tell you how to defeat them.


[Photo by Jakob Owens at Unsplash]

Literature Lost

The Atlas Society: A 1998 interview called "The Enlightenment Mind of John M. Ellis."

I recommend his recent book: "The Breakdown of Higher Education."

Wednesday, April 06, 2022

Using Alien Technology

 


From "Architects Against Humanity"

 


Media Trust

Axios: Media trust hits a new low.

More and more news articles seem like opinion pieces.

The major media organizations have yet to crawl out of their deception regarding the Hunter Biden story.

Layers of Leadership

"The CEO didn't come in today."

"Okay."

"The managers and supervisors didn't come in today." 

"What?" 

"And the employees aren't coming in tomorrow."

"Hold on. That can't be true. How is this place going to function?"

"Just kidding. But you know the operations policy that rolled out last week?"

"Yeah. Impressive presentation."

"Have you heard how it is perceived further down the organization?"

"No." 

"My guess is we should find out."

Fixing the High Schools


I was talking with my son the other day about the problems in universities and he noted that many of those would not be fixed until the caliber of the high schools improved.

He has a point. The issue becomes even more important when you contrast the quality of a modern high school education with what was studied - and learned - in the American high schools of the Thirties and Forties.

Check out those old textbooks. You'll be surprised.

Re-Watching


 One great series.

Tuesday, April 05, 2022

Find Your Style


[Photo by Alex Padurariu at Unsplash]

Get Tao


From Rolling Stone in 2010: Walter Kirn on "The Tao of Robert Downey, Jr."

Cloudy at the Top


I cannot tell you how many times in just the past few years I've seen significant programs that were launched or embraced without sufficient analysis. 

The spirit of the times may favor speed, but one would expect an occasional tough question or two before the checkbook is brought out. 

And here's the cherry on top of the problem: the passivity is more likely to arise as one moves up the organizational pyramid. The people further down the ladder are more inclined to lean back and say, "Run that by me again" or "I think that's crazy."

The actual wording of the last quote is often less refined but the skepticism is on target.

Perspective

Perspective is a key element of a dignity culture: people don't view disagreements, unintentional slights, or even direct insults as threats to their dignity that must always be met with a response.

- Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt in The Coddling of the American Mind

Hmm

 


Monday, April 04, 2022

So True

 A Large Regular has some great advice from the Plymouth Police Department.

No Hope for Journalism? Matt Taibbi Is Not Optimistic

 


First Paragraph

Abraham Lincoln authored undeniably great speeches. Yet, especially in his presidential addresses, he often downplayed words, stressing instead the need for action. Mere words could not bring forth the "new birth of freedom" - only battlefield victories could do that. As Aristotle told us long ago, the special virtue required of those in political office is prudence or practical wisdom; making the right decision amid the press of events is crucial. Lincoln had that capacity for political judgment. But Aristotle also asserted that politics is inextricably linked to the human faculty of speech. Especially in democratic regmes, political figures rely heavily on the spoken and written word; through persuasion they inspire the action of citizens. Lincoln was attentive to this necessary sequence of logos and praxis, the way in whicb our saying leads to our doing. At each step of his political career, the actions of Lincoln were preceded and supported by extraordinary speech - speech that by the compelling quality of its grammar, logic, and rhetoric moved the nation.

- From His Greatest Speeches: How Lincoln Moved the Nation by Diana Schaub 

Unforgettable Scenes


Great literature has many powerful scenes that stay with us for years. 

My top choice is from Moby-Dick, when Ishmael, trapped on a whaling ship surrounded by a vast ocean, realizes that its captain is insane.


[Photo by Matt Hardy at Unsplash]

The Laptop and The Big Guy

 Jonathan Turley on the story the media tried to ignore.

Saturday, April 02, 2022

Learning from Gene

Wally Book on lessons from Gene Autry.

Years ago, I met a person who worked with Autry. She said he was as nice in person as he was on the screen.

Gene Autry's Cowboy Code.

Going Deep on Context


We understand the importance of considering the context of an event and not just the event itself. 

What we may not know is how far back (or how far ahead) to consider the context. The context that is closer to the event may be less important than what happened to one of the key players 20, 30 or more years ago.

Considering that is a much more difficult, and perhaps even impossible, form of time travel but let's be frank: it is seldom tried.


[Photo by Mr Cup/Fabien Barral at Unsplash]

"The Problem with Jon Stewart"

Andrew Sullivan tells what happened during a cringe-inducing debate.

Friday, April 01, 2022

More Zimmer

 


An Unparalleled Tool

Email is an unparalleled tool for responding rapidly to a large volume of messages - but then again, if it weren't for email, you wouldn't be receiving all those messages in the first place. The technologies we use to try to "get on top of everything" always fail us in the end because they increase the size of the "everything" of which we're trying to get on top.

- Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

Trans People are Not a Monolith

Majority groups are often assumed to have differences of opinion within them. But in smaller communities, especially those small enough to have only limited contact with most people, members are assumed to all share the beliefs of a handful of vocal activists. These activists are treated as representatives of these communities, despite never having been elected, and despite holding views with which the majority of these communities often disagree.

Read the rest of the essay by Zander Keig.

Sometimes, Goliath Loses

Remember the case of Gibson's Bakery and Oberlin College?

The bakery just won again.

Push Back

Niall Gooch: Good riddance to Britain's Brutalist Architecture.

Institutional Capture


We're very inclusive.

Quillette: An insider at Disney gives a dissenter's perspective on what is happening inside The Woke Kingdom.

Well, they had a good run.

Nibble Nibble

Changing the language can be as powerful as changing a law.

Don't let anyone tell you that it is minor. They are editing you.


[Photo by Brett Jordan at Unsplash]

On My List