JSX

Avoiding the large airport hassle.

This looks promising.

Promising

 

Round Up the Usual Suspects

 New York Post: Political corruption in the Obama CIA.

On My List

 

Strange But Good

 

Yes or No

 Patrick Rhone with a career story containing a warning of the person who is likely to say no.

Follow Your Dreams?

 Go to A Large Regular.

Click on the link "Modern Education."

Discover a page that should be posted on university bulletin boards.

Turning Points

 

With which of the following would you rather interact?

1. A human bank teller or an ATM?
2. A human grocery store cashier or automated self-check-out lanes?
3. A human customer service representative or a chatbot?
4. A human cab or Uber driver or a driverless car?
5. A human clothing store sales rep or a kiosk?
6. A human airline check-in representative or an automatic one?
7. A human barber or an automatic one?

And will we have all of those choices in five years?

[Photo by Julian at Unsplash]

The Sixties

 

Lest We Forget

 Communism is as crude an attempt to explain society and the individual as if a surgeon were to perform his delicate operations with a meat ax. All that is subtle in human psychology and in the structure of society (which is even more complex), all of this is reduced to crude economic processes. This whole created being - man - is reduced to matter. It is characteristic that Communism is so devoid of arguments that it has none to advance against its opponents in our Communist countries. It lacks arguments and hence there is the club, the prison, the concentration camp, and insane asylums with forced confinement.

- Alexander Solzhenitsyn, July 9, 1975, speech at an AFL-CIO luncheon in New York City

The Lia Thomas Case

The University of Pennsylvania has reached an agreement with the US Department of Education regarding the University's permitting men to compete against female swimmers.

A big win for women's rights.

Old Friends

Coffee with some old friends this morning. The oldest is in his late eighties and still going strong. Since he has had a fascinating life, we encouraged him to dictate his memoirs.

Asked for his earliest memory, he recalled standing near his father outside their house in rural California when a neighbor across a ravine began shooting at them.

It was a great morning.

Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg

 

Great Ads: A Series

 

Heads Up, HR

 Check out this case update. 

Employers should be carefully examining the use of HR-related software to determine which job candidates are rejected for interviews.

This could lead to a massive wave of litigation against employers. 

I've seen too many instances where an across-the-board criterion raises potential discrimination problems.

Aside from that, they often don't make sense. 

Screening takes time and attention. The thought that you can rush through it with a nifty software program is scary.

It may also become very expensive.

Second Life

You can rent and buy virtual property on Second Life.

Large companies advertise there. Sweden opened an embassy.

How much will this resemble the future?

[Photo by Dmitry Ganin at Unsplash]

First Paragraph

 The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallowed sub-category. He's got esprit up to here. Right now, he is preparing to carry out his third mission of the night. His uniform is black as activated charcoal, filtering the very light out of the air. A bullet will bounce off its arachnofiber weave like a wren hitting a patio door, but excess perspiration wafts through it like a breeze through a freshly napalmed forest. Where his body has bony extremities, the suit has sintered armorgel: feels like gritty jello, protects like a stack of telephone books.

- From Snowcrash: A Novel by Neal Stephenson

If I Were to Pick a Perfect Scene in a Film

 

The Bib Overalls Are On Order

 Serious living at Cultural Offering.

Hmm

 

Great Ads: A Series

 

What Writers Know

Check out "The Not-So-Odd Habits of Writers."

It contains seven ground rules of my own.

[Photo by Thomas Griggs at Unsplash]

In the Mail

 

Find Something Beautiful Today

[Photo by Tom Podmore at Unsplash]

Great Ads: A Series

 

From The Man Who Never Sleeps

 

Another great story from the hottest pen in Oxford.

Check out Nicholas Bate and his latest novel, Pierre Lambert, Detective.

[Photo by Ben Seymour at Unsplash]

Hot Times at the US Supreme Court

 Jonathan Turley weighs in on the heated judicial climate.

From 2015: Before Jaguar Ads Got Weird

 

To Be Clear

 "The Great Clarification." An excerpt:

There was a time when an assumption that everyone was operating from the same dictionary was common. Adults assumed that schools, universities, and even companies were roughly the same as the ones they’d known throughout their lives. They thought that the political parties were on separate sides of a mainstream and that they weren’t in separate galaxies.

Great Ads: A Series

 

Travel Essentials: Planning, Compliments, and Courtesy

Back in the pre-9/11 days when I had projects in different cities several days a week and a harried business traveler could board a plane at the last minute, I got to the point of planning trips so carefully that I could tell by the very "feel" of my luggage whether or not I'd left something out.

In addition to the essentials, I always packed a tape recorder and business tapes, business magazines, an appointment book, the obligatory Elmore Leonard or Robert B. Parker novel for morale, and a couple of granola bars or a bag of M&Ms in case I got stranded somewhere.

Another item addressed was my morale. I decided early on to fend off boredom by becoming a careful observer. Although Sherlock Holmes level was never achieved, it was educational to look at people and not just through them, to notice routines and disruptions, and to get a sense of the morale of the workers in the airport, the car rental agencies, and the hotels.

It was apparent that making an extra effort to give compliments and courtesy to others was a way of easing through the hassles. In most cases, those gestures were appreciated, sometimes deeply so.

Recent Internet videos of bizarre behavior in modern airports reflect a low level of conduct I never encountered in those years of travel. 

Either the videos reflect the Internet's tendency to collect multiple bad examples or things have truly gotten weird out there.

If it's the latter, private planes have never looked so good.

[Photo by Suganth at Unsplash]

Clothing Essential

 

A Soundtrack I Couldn't Refuse

 

Great Ads: A Series

 

NYC Election

 The cool thing is real socialism has never been tried before and we can all be excited for the chance to finally see it in action.

- Mary Katherine Ham, with tongue firmly in cheek

Mamdani and the Would-Be Revolutionaries

 Reihan Salam in The Free Press: "Making Sense of Mamdani." An excerpt:

"If you want to find someone in a revolutionary mood, look to the recent college grad with hundreds of dollars in student loans and no solid job prospects, the 35-year-old creative professional who is spending a third of her low six-figure income on rent, or the 40-year-old Ivy-educated adjunct professor living with roommates who never, ever, do the dishes."

Moral Credentialing and Moral Licensing

 Moral credentialing is a phenomenon where people become more likely to act in inegalitarian ways, and (critically) become convinced that their actions are nonbiased, after affirming their commitment to egalitarianism or engaging in behaviors they interpret as egalitarian.

~

At times, however, conspicuously aligning ourselves with social justice causes can not only blind us to the immorality of our actions, it can even lead us to feel entitled to do things we recognize as immoral, and to view these behaviors as acceptable for us to engage in, at that moment, under those circumstances. This is called "moral licensing."

- Musa Al-Gharbi in We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite

"The Mortal Storm"

 Kenneth L. Marcus on anti-Semitism and the Brandeis Center's lawsuit against Harvard University.

Yes

 

As New Yorkers Ponder a Permanent Escape to the Beach

Althouse is commenting on the Bezos wedding in Venice, thus freeing the rest of us to ponder what the possible election of a whack-job mayor in New York City will do to the real estate market in Florida.

[Photo by Juan Burgos at Unsplash]

Shakespeare, Dickens, and Company

This may be one of the most important essays I've written.

Please spread the word.

[Photo by Taha at Unsplash]

Great Ads: A Series

 

Wes Anderson Does a Pen Ad

 

[HT: Jonathan Wade]

"Iran Brought This on Itself"

On January 28, 2024, Iran killed three American soldiers on a base in Jordan, injuring more than 40. On October 19, 2023, an Iranian militia in Yemen engaged the USS Carney destroyer in what the Wall Street Journal described as “the most intense combat a U.S. Navy warship had seen in the better part of a century, shooting down more than a dozen drones and four fast-flying cruise missiles.”

That “10-hour engagement” came, of course, just 12 days after Iran’s militia in Gaza invaded Israel, murdering 1,200—of which 41 were Americans. 

Read all of Seth Mandel's essay in Commentary magazine.

The Meandering Writer

 I get one broad idea and then it goes through shape-shifting stages as I restructure it via multiple drafts, tossing once "brilliant" ideas and replacing them with, so I hope, better ones, recalling observations from related areas that may just be barely related.

I'm preparing a Substack essay that began in a very different territory than the one it's likely to end up in.

That's fine and necessary.

At least for me.

Bold History

 Edward Gibbon (1734-1794) wrote a book that inadvertently raises the question of whether English prose style can be, or even should be, an end in itself. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire encapsulates - in a very large capsule - his idea that history is "little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind."

- Clive James, Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories from History and the Arts

Remember

 

Back By Popular Demand

 

Hasn't Seen "Jaws"

 Ann Althouse confesses that she has never seen "Jaws."

A major cultural oversight.

I read the book and saw the film and think the film was better than the book.

Find Something Beautiful Today

[Photo by Elias Maurer at Unsplash]

Fight the Wolves!

I've posted some strategies that everyone needs.

[Photo by Chris Ensminger at Unsplash]

London Calling

 

American Life

 Cultural Offering gives me hope for the country.

A life well lived.

An Important Perspective

From May 2023: Mark Helprin and the Survival of the American Nation.

[Photo by Kimson Doan at Unsplash]

Somehow This Was Missed

 

From Organic Community to Synthetic Connection

Sam Pressler and Soren Duggan on "how our online lives shape our lives in community."

[Photo by Carol Highsmith's America at Unsplash]

Deep Sinking at Harvard

 It is 60 years since William F. Buckley said he would "rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the Boston telephone directory than by the 2,000 people on the faculty of Harvard University." Yet even the godfather of American conservatism would be surprised by how much more attractive the folks in the phone directory appear today.

- Douglas Murray, "The Derangement of Harvard" in the July 2025 issue of The Spectator

True

 A Large Regular is one of my daily blog visits, often more than once, because it is possible to find an array of perspectives and you don't miss the gaps.

Sometimes Novels Provide the Clearest Picture

 

A few novels with a clear picture of how the world really works.

[Photo by Steven Wright at Unsplash]

"Barry"

 

How About Phoenix to San Diego?

 The option of an autotrain between DC and Orlando looks appealing.

Off the Grid

 

Back soon.

Superman (For Alon, the Hostages, and their families)

 

Beyond Ridiculous

 It may take AT&T, Carmax, Deloitte, Google, and Nike announcing that they will remove all funding from the WNBA until it achieves better officiating at its games.

Poetry

 

Some Don'ts

 

Don't say yes when you know you should say no.

Don't use caring as an excuse to deceive.

Don't think that you can complete 100 pounds of work in a 70-pound day.

Don't regard charisma as a long-term substitute for competence.

The Electric Bill

 

I Can Use This Right Now

 

Poetry Slam

 Robert Frost: "Acquainted with the Night."

William Butler Yeats: "The Two Trees."

Rudyard Kipling: "Dane-geld."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: "A Psalm of Life."

Always a Safe Choice

 

A True Story to Remember

 

Lurking Beneath the Surface of Organizations

My Substack column stresses courage and curiosity.

[Photo by Leo Talabardon at Unsplash]

I Will Be Easing into This Morning

 This week brings writing as well as a couple of workshops that I'll be conducting out of town.

They are short classes, not the monster variety which I'll be teaching later this month.

I also have a desk that needs a leaf blower, but that's another story.

Bear with me.

[Father's Day brought several books my way. Each looks great. More on those later.]

First Paragraph

 Edwin St. John St. Andrew, eighteen years old, hauling the weight of his double-sainted name across the Atlantic by steamship, eyes narrowed against the wind on the upper deck: he holds the railing with gloved hands, impatient for a glimpse of the unknown, trying to discern something - anything! - beyond sea and sky, but all he sees are shades of endless gray. He's on his way to a different world. He's more or less at the halfway point between England and Canada. I have been sent into exile, he tells himself, and he knows he's being melodramatic, but nonetheless there's a ring of truth to it.

- From Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Happy Father's Day

"When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."

- Mark Twain

John Lahr, writing in Esquire in June 2016, remembers "Fishing with My Father." An excerpt:

"Men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after," Henry Thoreau supposedly said. Sometime in the middle of my first morning, with the putt-putt of the motor echoing off the rocky shoreline, I understood what he meant. 

Style

 

The American Action Orientation

 Julian Marias, the disciple of Ortega y Gasset, who spent much time here in the 1950s and 1960s, observed that although Americans get more mail than any other people in the world, they receive far fewer personal letters. An American friend of mine, Howard Higman, a professor of sociology, makes the point well. A letter from an American is like an itinerary, he says, a letter from an Englishman is like a diary.

- From "My America!" an essay in Bite the Hand That Feeds You by Henry Fairlie

Israeli Products

You can buy Israeli products on this site.

I am tempted to try the Israeli Special Forces coffee, but the honey also looks promising.

[HT: Jonathan Wade]

Flag Day/250th Anniversary of the US Army

 

{Photo by Andrew Neel at Unsplash]

On My List

 

Back By Popular Demand

 

Just Arrived!

 The Lost Decade: Returning to the Fight for Better Schools in America by Steven F. Wilson

Current Reading Stack

 

• Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart by Nicholas Carr
• Another Sort of Learning by James V. Schall
• Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's Open AI by Karen Hao
• The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Power, and the Future of the West by Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska
• Pierre Lambert, Detective by Nicholas Bate
• The Coming Wave: AI, Power, and Our Future by Mustafa Suleyman
• Who Owns the Future? by Jaron Lanier
• The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant
• Lazarus Man by Richard Price
• The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs. Disraeli by Richard Aldous
• Unleashed by Boris Johnson
• On Settler Colonialism by Adam Kirsch
• Bleak House by Charles Dickens
• We Have Never Been Woke by Musa Al-Gharbi
• Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe by Niall Ferguson
• Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law by Neil Gorsuch

[Photo by Laura Ohlman at Unsplash]

When Perspectives Change

 

"Surfin' Safari - 1962

"Surfin' U.S.A. - 1963

"Jaws" - 1974 (novel) and 1975 (film)

[Photo by Knut Robinson at Unsplash]

Time to Recognize an Iranian Regime in Exile

 Instapundit has breaking stories on Israel's pre-emptive strike on the Iranian nuclear program.

The Price of Anti-Social Media

My latest Substack column covers more than a call for a return to dueling.

[Photo by Aaron Burden at Unsplash]

Screwtape and the Enemy Schools

 Take sometime today and read Erik Twist's contribution to First Things.

Brian Wilson, RIP

 

Going to Those Who Know

 When the Allied air forces planners were examining ways to keep the Germans from moving supplies to the Normandy area, they initially focused on destroying French roads and railways, but the problem was that even with a direct hit, those could be quickly repaired. 

[The British air commander, Arthur Tedder] asked some British railway engineers, "What attack would hurt them most? Their answer: repair facilities. "If you destroy those, the network will soon be paralyzed."

[Source: The Light of Battle: Eisenhower, D-Day, and the Birth of the American Superpower by Michel Paradis]

One of the Most Interesting Museums in the World

 I've got a meeting this morning at the Musical Instrument Museum.

Looking forward to the meeting and the location.

Succession Planning

 

Tom Cruise on Release of the Latest Mission Impossible Film

 

Just In

 

Career Advice Video

 

Final Draft

 Going over the final draft of a novel I've been writing. Searching for errors. Considering any possible weak spots.

Call it a "How to make it better" obsession.

Or a quest.

Multiple drafts provide answers and often they are of the "Get rid of this" variety.

The first book I wrote was way back in 1976.  Typewriter days.

Yesterday, I remembered editorial comments on that lengthy process and an idea arrived.

A nice idea, modest and nothing dramatic, but a very good fit.

Especially for a final draft.

From "Portlandia"

 

1919: Post WWI Devastation

 

What is a Work College?

A work college is where all of the students are required to work throughout their educational experience.

 Unique to work colleges is the requirement that all resident students participate in a comprehensive-work-learning service program for all four years of enrollment. Therefore, all resident students have jobs. Most students work at on campus jobs, while some students hold off-campus positions. Students are given responsibility, relied upon, and gain valuable work experience, while reducing the cost of education.

The Weird Old Days

 

Crisis Prevention

 My Substack column on five crises to expect.

Which ones are on your list?

Scenarios to Save Lives

 

First Paragraph

 William Gladstone was at home in Flintshire, North Wales, when the news came early that morning. Benjamin Disraeli was dead. It was hardly unexpected, but Gladstone immediately recognised the implications for himself and the country. 'It is a telling, touching event,' he confided to his diary. 'There is no more extraordinary man surviving him in England, perhaps none in Europe. I must not say much, in the presence as it were of his Urn.'

- From The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs. Disraeli by Richard Aldous

The Illusion of Thinking

 The Apple paper that is the current buzz.

The critics are assembling.

Find Something Beautiful Today

[Photo by Renan Brun at Unsplash]

In the Background

 

A Writer to Know

 

Ouch

 Carter has never been what one would call svelte. Asked if a jacket could be cut to make him look slimmer, his man at Anderson & Sheppard offered the Jeeves-ian riposte "We're only tailors, sir."

- From the June 2025 Commentary magazine review by Rick Martin of When the Going Was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines by Graydon Carter

When Debates Were Civilized and Informative

 

Who Says that Wills and Estates Law Isn't Interesting?

The New York Post on the mysterious will of the Zappos founder showing up five years after his death.

What Happened to the Schools

 

Commentary magazine: "How Wokeness Destroyed an Education Miracle" by Robert Pondiscio.

D Day

 

Take-Off

 

Life of a Techie

 

In the Background

 

Out This Morning

 

But don't miss my Substack essay on "The Possibility of Weasels."

[Photo by Dawid Zawila at Unsplash]

AI and National Defense

 "Artificial intelligence is no longer merely a commercial or academic pursuit. It is now a matter of national survival, and a decisive factor in the geopolitical competition of this century."

- Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska in The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West

Management Consultant Show

 

On My List

 

"In clearing so large a place for himself, he left a vacuum no one since has been able to fill. This is the absence so many feel today - adversaries and apostates as well as advocates and admirers. A founder of our world, he speaks to us from a different one, beyond our reach but hovering near, if only we can discover in ourselves the imagination and generosity, the kindness and warmth, that Bill Buckley demonstrated time and again in his long and singular life."

- Sam Tanenhaus

The Coming European Wars

The Free Press: "How the Muslim Brotherhood Is Capturing Europe" by Simone Rodan-Benzaquen.

A classified report from the French Ministry of Interior reveals the plan.

Speaking of John Adams

 

Let's Have Beautiful and Practical

 From a letter that John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail on May 12, 1780:

I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Painting and Poetry Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine.

Ah, if only the world were so nice!

The fact is, as the people of Ukraine and Israel can tell us, the world is not that nice. There are barbarians out there who would like nothing more than to take over a nation of artists.

I have no doubt that John Adams knew that. He was a very intelligent leader of a successful and bloody revolution.

The secret then and now, of course, is not to avoid dreams, but to know when you are dreaming.

Welcome to 1930

 

Remembering The Stacks

 

A library should not lose its magic.

[Photo by Minh at Unsplash]

How's Your Workday?

 

For Clarification

We are at a point where we do not need daily news as much as daily dictionaries.

As noted in "The Great Clarification."

[Photo by Jake Blucker at Unsplash]

A Glass of Wine

"If we look at a glass of wine closely enough we see the entire universe.... If our small minds, for some convenience, divide this glass of wine, this universe, into parts - physics, biology, geology, astronomy, psychology, and so on - remember that nature does not know it!"

- Richard Feynman

Segovia Story

 Michael Chapdelaine's account of the Andres Segovia incident.

Count Me In

 

Find Something Beautiful Today

 

[Photo by Arthur Yeti at Unsplash]

Knives Out: The New One

 

Fighting Censorship

 The Hill: Jonathan Turley on Marco Rubio's war on the global censors.

Our Times

Rod Dreher has a very interesting Substack column on David Brooks, Patrick Deneen, artificial intelligence, and churches.

Uniting Food and Community

Amber Waves Farm.

Great idea!

Becoming Increasingly Relevant

 

Becoming a "Verified Human"

 Time magazine: "The Orb Will See You Now."

First Paragraph

"The central claims of the first edition of this book can be stated simply. Machines are becoming increasingly capable and are taking on more and more of the tasks that once were the exclusive province of human professionals. While new tasks will no doubt arise in years to come, machines are likely in time to take on many of these as well. In the medium term, during the 2020s, this will not mean unemployment for professionals. But there will be widespread redeployment and a need for extensive retraining. In the long run, however, we find it hard to avoid the conclusion that there will be a steady decline in the need for traditional flesh-and-blood professionals working as they do today."

- From The Future of the Professions: How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts by Richard Susskind and Daniel Susskind

Moral Agnostics

"Too many leaders are reluctant to venture into the discussion, to articulate genuine belief - in an idea, a set of values, or a political project - for fear that they will be punished in the contemporary public sphere. A significant subset of our leaders, elected and otherwise, both teach and are taught that belief itself is the enemy and that a lack of belief in anything, except oneself perhaps, is the most certain path to reward. The result is a culture in which those responsible for making our most consequential decisions - in any number of public domains, including government, industry, and academia - are often unsure of what their own beliefs are, or more fundamentally if they have any firm or authentic beliefs at all."

- From The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West by Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska

When You Meet a Great Listener

 Many of you will understand what it was like to meet "The Man Who Listened."

As the Books Pile Up

Between China, American cultural changes, Artificial Intelligence, and my ongoing fascination with such figures as Jesus Christ, Abraham Lincoln, Tiberius Caesar, Ulysses Grant, and the Duke of Wellington, my reading stack is growing at an unprecedented rate.

It's good that I don't watch television.

And that my clients accept a certain level of eccentricity. [One calls me their "Batman" since they only bring me in when there's a crisis.]

One reading tip: I've noticed that when a particular issue is at the back of my mind, my attention is often drawn to some long-neglected book on one of my shelves.

I've grown to pay attention to such signals because when I open the book, I invariably find an item that applies to the current dilemma.

How to Write a Great Sentence

 

Surprisingly Good

 

The Cover-Up

 The Free Press: Bari Weiss talks to the authors of "Original Sin."

A Sad Truth

 "If you put up a poster for a missing dog in any Western city, that poster stays up. In city after city in America, posters of abducted Jewish children were ripped down by people with hatred for Jews."

- Douglas Murray

Classic Country

 

So True

 Nicholas Bate: Use pen and paper rather than keyboard.

Clarity

 "If you get the objectives right, a lieutenant can write the strategy."

- General George C. Marshall

First Paragraph

 "This is how an AI sees it."

- From The Coming Wave: AI, Power, and Our Future by Mustafa Suleyman

How Many Children in the Future Will Picture Their Mom

[Photo by Laura Chouette at Unsplash]

In The Background

 

Stage Tip

 Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie.

- David Mamet

Prediction

 I think Patrick Rhone's bold prediction about schools is correct.

Get ready for a genuineness movement.

Classic Soundtrack

 

Thought Provoking

 

Ahead of His Time

"Computers make excellent and efficient servants, but I have no wish to serve under them."

- Mr. Spock, Star Trek

Gone Too Soon

FutureLawyer Rick Georges is missed for many things. I rarely read about Artificial Intelligence without wishing I could get his opinion.

First Paragraph

 On Friday, November 17, 2023, around noon Pacific time, Sam Altman, CEO of Open AI, Silicon Valley's golden boy, avatar of the generative AI revolution, logged on to a Google Meet to see four of his five board members staring at him.

- From Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI by Karen Hao

"Heist"

 

Substack: Daniel Moran on David Mamet's Caper.

Snares

 

• Questionable grasp on reality
• Rushed decisions
• Fumbling administration
• Impossible or cloudy mission
• Uncontrollable delays
• Perfectionism
• Unreliable resources
• Unrealistic deadlines
• Unrealistic expectations
• Distractions
• Poor execution
• Devious or weak allies
• Solutions bringing new problems

[Photo by Carter Ledford at Unsplash]

First Paragraph

 The first thought Anderton had when he saw the young man was: I'm getting bald. Bald and fat and old. But he didn't say it aloud. Instead, he pushed back his chair, got to his feet, and came resolutely around the side of his desk, his right hand rigidly extended. Smiling with forced amiability, he shook hands with the young man. 

- From The Minority Report by Philip K. Dick

Zimmer Break

 

Over the Hills and Far Away

 

Normandy

 

Memorial Day

[Photo by Aaron Burden at Unsplash]