Find Something Beautiful Today

 

[Photo by Shelby Cohron at Unsplash]

Places to Write: Some Unusual

 

Writing Routines has the workspaces of nine famous writers.

The Art of Manliness has the libraries, studies, and writing rooms of 15 famous men.

Literary Hub: Where 20 famous books were written.

Books to Read and Re-Read

 

These are on my re-read list. I re-read some of them every year.

• Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
• The Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian
• Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
• The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
• The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
• The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning
• The Tourist Season by Carl Hiaasen
• Life With a Star by Jiri Weil
• A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
• The Slough House series by Mick Herron
• The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
• Bleak House by Charles Dickens
• Animal Farm by George Orwell
• The First Circle by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
• The Last Hurrah by Edwin O'Connor

Time to Re-Watch

 

First Paragraph

 At the foot of the hill, Tsingtau's Government House stood alone on a slight mound, its gabled upper-floor windows and elegant corner tower looking out across the rest of the town. Substantial German houses with red-tiled roofs peppered the slope leading down to the Pacific beach and pier; beyond them the even grander buildings of the commercial district fronted the bay and its harbors. Away to the right, the native township of Taipautau offered little in the way of variety - the houses were smaller, perhaps a bit closer together, but more European than classically Chinese. In less than two decades, the Germans had come, organized, and recast this tiny piece of Asia in their own image. Give them half a chance, Jack McColl mused, and they would do the same for the rest of the world.

-From Jack of Spies by David Downing

Break the Routine

I'm in the process of following this advice from Nicholas Bate, The Man Who Never Sleeps.

Hmm

 

A.I. Deserves Reverse Decision-Making

 

Let's plan a disaster and see what comes up.

[Photo by Levi Meir Clancy at Unsplash+]

Always Timely

 

Worth Re-Watching

 

First Paragraph

 I stopped the car, got out and took off my sunglasses. Everything was exactly as Zgut had said it would be. The inn was two stories high, a yellowish-green color, with a mournful-looking sign hanging over the front porch that read, "THE DEAD MOUNTAINEER'S INN." Deep spongy snowdrifts on either side of the porch bristled with different-colored skies - I counted seven of them, one with a boot still on it. Knobby dull icicles thick as your arm dangled off the roof. A pale face peered out of the rightmost window on the first floor, and now the front door opened and a bald, stocky man wearing a red fur vest over a dazzling nylon shirt appeared on the porch. He approached with slow, heavy steps and then stopped in front of me. He had a coarse, ruddy face and the neck of a heavy-weight champion. He did not look at me. His melancholy gaze was focused somewhere to the side, expressing a sad dignity. No doubt this was Alek Snevar himself, owner of the inn, the valley surrounding it, and Bottleneck Pass.

- From The Dead Mountaineer's Inn by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky

An Education Revolution?

 

This is Not Really That Unusual

 

In Prep

I'm working on a Substack article exploring the foresight of Orwell, Huxley, Bradbury, Dostoyevsky, Dick, de Tocqueville, and others.

When I was young, I thought Orwell had the best crystal ball, but now I think Huxley and Bradbury were closer to the mark.

And yet there may be another who is even closer.

Do high school students still read Brave New World?

[Photo by Markus Spiske at Unsplash]

Last Night

Last night we had a huge dust storm followed by a heavy thunderstorm.

More may arrive today.

Very welcome.

Flashback to When Everyone Watched "Smiley's People"

Phoenix Thunderstorms

Getting ready to hunker down.

Welcome rain arriving.

A Dangerous Model

 Journal of Democracy: 

"The Road to Digital Unfreedom: President Xi's Surveillance State" by Xiao Qiang.

On My List

 

In the Theater of the Workplace

 

My Substack on some workplace parts that keep getting cast.

[Photo by Getty Images for Unsplash+]

Cultural Rescue

 The Sunday Times: Nigel Farage calls for mass deportations in Britain.

Less is More

 

Cochise Hall, the dorm I lived in at the University of Arizona during the Sixties, was built in 1921, had large rooms, sleeping porches, no air conditioning, no carpeting, no phones in the rooms, communal bathrooms, and radiators for heat. Televisions were prohibited in the rooms, but there was one in the lobby. 

The cost was $130 per semester.

[Photo by Chris Yoder]

Serious Cast. Excellent Film.

 

Find Something Beautiful Today

 

[Photo by Steve Adams at Unsplash]

Those Were the Days, My Friend

 A Layman's Blog has the photo.

Instant memories and let me tell you that was an especially warm experience in Phoenix, Arizona.

Achieving a Serious Education

 

Calvinball on the US Supreme Court

 Jonathan Turley looks at the judicial philosophy of an increasingly unpersuasive Justice Jackson.

Hmm

 

First Paragraph

In 2019, Penguin Random House planned to publish the debut novel of young adult (YA) author Amelie Wen Zhao. A few months before the publication date, there was an uproar on Twitter. People who had never read Blood Heir proclaimed that it was racist because it was set in a fantastical world where oppression was not based on skin color. According to Zhao's critics, it was "cultural appropriation" and "antiblack" to depict slavery that was not African American slavery. The uproar was so loud that Zhao canceled the publication of Blood Heir. In a statement posted to Twitter, she apologized for the "pain" and "harm" her unpublished novel had caused the "readers" who never read it.

- From That Book is Dangerous! How Moral Panic, Social Media, and the Culture Wars Are Remaking Publishing by Adam Szetela

[Photo by Anthony Roberts at Unsplash]

Back By Popular Demand

 

Serious Noir

The eighty-five cent dinner tasted like a discarded mail bag and was served to me by a waiter who looked like he would slug me for a quarter, cut my throat for six bits, and bury me at sea in a barrel of concrete for a dollar and a half, plus sales tax.

- Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

The Cracker Barrel Fiasco

Mariah Faith Continelli at The New Unhinged provides an outstanding analysis of how Cracker Barrel screwed up:

"Modernize your tactics, not your brand."

Coffee and Re-Thinking

 It was shortly after 2:00 AM that the idea arrived. I jotted it down in the journal I keep nearby and the went back to sleep.

Fortunately, unlike so many middle-of-the- night thoughts, it still looked good in the morning.

By midmorning, it looked even better.

And that was after coffee.

And now it has produced two other perspectives that are of value.

I'm flipping the ideas around and drinking more coffee.

There's nothing surprising about any of the above, but for the fact that this involves a subject I have been studying for months.

A Welcome Interruption

I was typing away last night when a thunderstorm rolled into Phoenix and I shut down my computer.

Beautiful.

Another Upbeat Film I'll Avoid

 

Great Ads and Sketchy Explanations

My Substack essay on advertising will be a trip down Memory Lane for many of you.

[Photo by Nikoloz Gachechiladze at Unsplash]

Crank It Up

 

The Oxford Beatle

Nicholas Bate, a.k.a. The Oxford Beatle, zeroes in on what you need to know about The Group.

[Photo by Fedor at Unsplash]

Sign of Revival?

Is Black Swan Europa coming back?

If so, that will be very good news.

Dark Horse Candidate in NYC

 

Places with Personality

 

• Arthur Bryant's Barbeque
• Butterworth's
• Doan's Bakery
• El Charro Cafe
• Gadby's Tavern
• Napoleon House
• Simpson's in The Strand
• The Buena Vista

[Photo by AbsolutVision at Unsplash]

The Decline of NPR

 

Just Arrived

 

Overweight Biographies

Commentary magazine: Joseph Epstein examines the modern problem of massive biographies.

Yes, sometimes less is more. 

Lord Charnwood's biography of Abraham Lincoln, which is still considered to be the best of the Lincoln biographies, is a very reasonable 337 pages.

Guess the Ideological Drift

 

The executive leadership of what was the Young Men's Christian Association. Hmm. Something's missing. Maybe more.

It's now just called "The Y."

And here's the executive leadership of the Young Women's Christian Association. Its name is the same.

Back By Popular Demand

 

Style

A question recently came up as to whether or not I'm an "upbeat" management consultant.

My answer was, and is: "No, I am a realistic consultant. Some situations are neither happy nor easy. That doesn't mean they can't be addressed. It means they should be addressed."

[Update: And then I smiled.]

Stunning Cast

 

The Robot in the Mirror

On Substack, I explore what was lost when the secretarial pools disappeared.

[Photo by wu yi at Unsplash]

Gucci, Kubrick, Martin, and The Frick

 

Bate's Seven

Being a towering castle of sloth, I am amazed at how often I forget this.

[Photo by Natalia Blauth at Unsplash+]

Find Something Beautiful Today

 

[Photo by Matt Bango for Unsplash+]

Journalism Falling

It is hard to overstate the extent to which the credibility of the news media has fallen in recent years.

Rather than a program called Meet the Press, it would be far more interesting to have one called Confront the Press in which an array of citizens got to question reporters.

[Photo by Waldemar at Unsplash]

First Paragraph

 It was good fun commanding a division in the Iraq desert. It is good fun commanding a division anywhere. It is one of the four best commands in the Service - a platoon, a battalion, a division, and an army. A platoon, because it is your first command, because you are young, and because, if you are any good, you know the men in it far better than their mothers do and love them as much. A battalion, because it is a unit with a life of its own; whether it is good or bad depends on you alone; you have at last a real command. A division, because it is the smallest formation that is a complete orchestra of war and the largest in which every man can know you. An army, because the creation of its spirit and its leadership in battle give you the greatest unity of emotional and intellectual experience that can befall a man.

- From Defeat into Victory: Battling Japan in Burma and India, 1943-1945 by Field Marshal Viscount Slim

[Note: William "Bill" Slim is commonly regarded as one of the greatest commanders in World War II.]

Crank It Up

 

Sydney Sweeney versus Harrison Bergeron

 

Commentary magazine: Christine Rosen on the reaction to the Sydney Sweeney ads.

[Photo by Will Esayenko at Unsplash]

The Savannah Bananas

 

"I haven't learned from the baseball industry. I learned from Saturday Night Live. I learned from the Grateful Dead. I learned from Cirque de Soleil. I learned from WWE. I learned from Taylor Swift. I Learned from Mr. Beast. I learned from Jeff Bezos and Amazon. I learned from Apple."

- Jesse Cole, owner of The Savannah Bananas

In the Pipeline

Another book to consider: Quartered Safe Out Here by George MacDonald Fraser.

Sometimes, Slow is Fast

My Substack column has 13 key decision-making questions.

Silent Decisions

The past two to three decades have illustrated that it is dangerous to assume that major decisions affecting the public will be submitted for scrutiny and debate.

Remember the elementary school classes on Industrial Arts and Home Economics?

Many schools dropped those subjects, particularly the shop classes.

If you don't recall any extensive discussions of the pros and cons of doing so, it is probably due to the fact that there weren't any.

So too with the teaching of cursive. All of a sudden, gone! And now we have college students who cannot read and write cursive.

Part of the Great Turn-Around - and it's coming - will be an expansion of transparency.

If something has not been publicly announced, there's a reason why and it usually is not a good one.

Hmm

 

Accountability Time for the BLS

 Kurt Harden at Cultural Offering notes some mega-disturbing blunders by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Which is more disturbing? Intentional or unintentional?

The Righteous Among Us

Stephen Landry has a post to be read and re-read.

And such notes always raise the question: "What would I have done?"

When AI Goes Nuts

 James B. Meigs explores AI weirdness in Commentary magazine.

Stalin Tells a Story

 

My Substack essay examines the volatility of dictatorial management.

[Photo by Random Institute at Unsplash]

Crank It Up

 

Great Ads: A Series

 

Illegal Immigration in Britain

Glenn Reynolds reports that public opinion is shifting toward stemming the flood.

[Photo by Sabrina Mazzeo at Unsplash]

Author of "Chinese Shadows"

Quillette in 2020: Remembering Simon Leys, astute observer of Chinese totalitarianism.

"Coming Out of the Ice"

 

The book was extraordinary. It should be back in print. Track it down at your used bookstore.

Steven Pinker

 Stephen Landry passed along some very good news this morning.

I'm glad the need for Totalitarian Studies is spreading.

Playing Monopoly

 A Large Regular has a powerful picture of how many people play the Monopoly game of life.

Salute to Film Composers

 

First Paragraph

 After days of delay, weeks of obsessive preparation, months of watching the failed attempts of others and two years of seeing the depths to which human beings could sink, the moment had finally come. It was time to escape.

- From The Escape Artist by Jonathan Freedland

Great Things Await

 Get thee to Stephen Landry's Blog.

Sign of Wisdom

A Layman's Blog has a sixty-year-old refrigerator.

Get Ready for the Swamp

 

Find Something Beautiful Today

[Photo by Bruce Warrington at Unsplash]

We Once Took Henry Mancini for Granted

 

My Current Reading Stack

 

• Rome: Strategy of Empire by James Lacey
• Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler
• The Age of AI and Our Human Future by Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, and Daniel Huttenlocher
• Genius Makers by Cade Metz
• AI Superpowers by Kau-Fu Lee
• Empire of AI by Karen Hao
• Jerusalem: The Biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore
• King of Kings by Scott Anderson

Movie Ushers, Gas Station Attendants, and Other Jobs That Went Away

My Substack essay is here.

[Photo by Nathan Dumlao at Unsplash]

Crank It Up

 

Stay Edgy

Nicholas Bate is on his game with advice on what to do in a world of robots and AI.

[Photo by Maximalfocus at Unsplash]

Cooler Than Cool

 Chris Lynch reviews the book about Elmore Leonard.

Just added that to my Buy list.

One Big Happy Family

 

First Paragraph

 The Chinese teenager with the square-rimmed glasses seemed an unlikely hero to make humanity's last stand. Dressed in a black suit, white shirt, and black tie, Ke Jie slumped in his seat, rubbing his temples and puzzling over the problem in front of him. Normally filled with a confidence that bordered on cockiness, the nineteen-year-old squirmed in his leather chair. Change the venue and he could be just another prep-school kid agonizing over an insurmountable geometry proof.

- From: AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order by Kai-Fu Lee

Back By Popular Demand

 

A Few Unusual Books About an Unusual World

 

[Photo by Nile Pereira at Unsplash]

1908 - The Iron Heel by Jack London

1920 - We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

1932- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

1936 - We The Living by Ayn Rand

1938 - Anthem by Ayn Rand

1942 - It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis

1943 - The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

1945 - Animal Farm by George Orwell

1948 - Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

1954 - Lord of the Flies by William Golding

1957 - Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

1957 - On the Beach by Neville Shute

1959 - A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller

1961 - Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut

1962 - The Drowned World by J. G. Ballard

1962 - The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

1968 - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?  by Philip K. Dick

1977 - Lucifer's Hammer by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven

1980 - Ridley Walker by Russell Hoban

1985 - The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

1992 - The Children of Men by P.D. James

1993 - The Giver by Lois Lowry

2006 - The Road by Cormac McCarthy

2007 - Blind Faith by Ben Elton

2012 - The Dog Stars by Peter Heller

2014 - Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

2015 - Submission by Michel Houellebecq

2016 - The Mandibles by Lionel Shriver

2021 - Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson

2024 - Mania by Lionel Shriver

(Updated to correct A Canticle for Leibowitz.]

The Endless Bummer

Sippican Cottage provides the best analysis of the Fifties and the Sixties I've ever read.

And I was there for a lot of it.

Check it out.

The Upcoming Civil War in France

Remix: A Moroccan lights his cigarette from the flame of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. ["The man, known to police and the courts, has 21 prior convictions for contempt, rebellion, and racial insults. His current residency card was valid until October 2025."]

France and Algeria spar over deportations.

French Interior Minister threatens to resign.

What is French for "Get your act together!"?

I Remember When These Were in the United States

 

Serious innovation.

First Paragraph

 In late 2017, a quiet revolution occurred. Alpha Zero, an artificial intelligence (AI) program developed by Google DeepMind, defeated Stockfish - until then the most powerful chess program in the world. AlphaZero's victory was decisive: it won twenty-eight games, drew seventy-two, and lost none. The following year, it confirmed its mastery: in one thousand games against Stockfish, it won 155, lost six, and drew the remainder.

- From The Age of AI and Our Human Future by Henry Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, and Daniel Huttenlocher

Let's Gain a Human Edge on Artificial Intelligence

The alarm bell is ringing. It's time to expand our advantage over Artificial Intelligence.

My Substack details are here.

[Photo by Nicholas Sancenito at Unsplash]

Lest We Forget

 

Harrison Bergeron

 A Layman's Blog points to one of the most important short stories ever written.

Hit the Books

 The Best Colleges list of the best libraries in the world.

A Basic A.I. List

 Some terms you'll run across:

"Artificial General Intelligence" (also known as AGI) simply means a machine that can think like a human brain.

"Superintelligence" is an ability that can surpass the human brain.

Some AI companies to watch:

Anthropic: Its product, which supposedly is more human-sensitive than Chat GPT (details needed on that aspect) is Claude. Its CEO is Dario Amodei. The major investor is Amazon.

DeepMind: This produces Google's AI product: Gemini. Its CEO is Sir Demis Hassabis.

DeepSeek: The Chinese AI firm and so it has enormous resources and the backing of the Chinese Communist Party and government.

MSL (Meta Superintelligence Labs): Meta is Mark Zuckerberg's outfit. It is currently run by Alexandr Wang, the founder of Scale AI.

Open AI: Sam Altman's firm. Produces ChatGPT and InstructGPT. Its major investor is Microsoft.

Safe Superintelligence: Ilya Sutskever's AI firm. "SSI" is its name and mission.

xAI: Elon Musk's AI firm. Grok is its product.

As The Establishment Locks Arms

Matt Taibbi's "Open Letter to the Columbia Journalism Review on the Atrocious New York Times." An excerpt:

"That attitude only works if the facts are on your side. On this story, they aren't, and not close."

And We All Know What Was Happening in France

 In England, there was scarcely an amount of order and protection to justify much national boasting. Daring burglaries by armed men and highway robberies, took place in the capital itself every night; families were publicly cautioned not to go out of town without removing their furniture to upholsters' warehouses for security; the highwayman in the dark was a City tradesman in the light, and, being recognized and challenged  by his fellow-tradesman whom he stopped in his character of "the Captain," gallantly shot him through the head and rode away; the mail was mislaid by seven robbers, and the guard shot three dead, and then got shot himself by the other four, "in consequence of the failure of his ammunition:" after which the mail was robbed in peace; that magnificent potentate, the Lord Mayor of London, was made to stand and deliver on Turnham Green, by one highwayman, who despoiled the illustrious creature in sight of all his retinue; prisoners in London gaols fought battles with their turnkeys, and the majesty of the law fired blunderbusses in among them, loaded with rounds of shot and ball; thieves snipped off diamond crosses from the necks of noble lords at Court drawing-rooms; musketeers went into St. Giles's, to search for contraband goods, and the mob fired on the musketeers, and nobody thought any of these occurrences much out of the common way.

- From A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Featuring Dick Dale, Surf Guitar God

 

The A.I. Explanation Gap

 

Much of the discussion about Artificial Intelligence goes like this:

A. We are about to be quickly immersed in a mind-boggling collection of information and analysis.

B. As a result, there will be _____, ______, ______, and even more ________, as jobs are ______. Your own job, for example, will _____ or ______.

C. At the end of that stage, we'll be living in a bold and exciting era as people rejoice at the expansion of their leisure time.

[Photo by Cash Macanaya for Unsplash+]

First Paragraph

 "Matrimony was ordained, thirdly," said Jane Studdock to herself, "for the mutual society, help, and comfort that the one ought to have of the other." She had not been to church since her schooldays until she went there six months ago to be married, and the words of the service had stuck in her mind.

- From That Hideous Strength: A Modern Fairy-Tale for Grown-Ups by C. S. Lewis

Still Timely

 When people say they are trying to kill you, believe them.

- Elie Wiesel

Find Something Beautiful Today

 

[Photo by Florida-Guidebook.com at Unsplash]

Enthusiastic Recluses

We aren't engaging in person anymore. Many don't even want to. Waymos are everywhere in Austin. When I ask people who use them why they do so, the first thing they say, almost every single time, is, "It's great! I don't have to talk to anyone!" They're so happy about it. Am I out of touch for finding that depressing? 

- Bridget Phetasy, "Enjoy your slop!" in The Spectator, August 2025

Sounds Fascinating

 

EasyEnglish

Nicholas Bate has information on a communication approach that is very practical.

I'd like it to be expanded beyond English. 

The ability to speak broken French, Spanish, Japanese, and Chinese would be marvelous.

I don't need to be fluent.

One danger over time: If the variation became the standard.

Bravo! The Return of the Presidential Fitness Test

 A wave of memories from my high school Physical Education classes just hit me.

This Executive Order is long overdue.

Speaking Like Churchill

 

Mega-Scandal

Matt Taibbi: No doubt left: Russiagate was a cover-up.

Jonathan Turley on the greatest political trick in history.

An excerpt: "It appears that everyone was in on the trick: the U.S. government, the media, even foreign governments. The only chumps were the American people. Now they are about to see how it was done."

The Danger of Utopians

 

My Substack column makes the case for Totalitarian Studies.

[Photo by J Z at Unsplash]

Back By Popular Demand [Vacation Planning File]

 

Petite Chasse

Mitigating Chaos has evidence that a French composer in the 1700s made music with a smile.

Cooler Than Cool

 A Large Regular has just added to my reading list.

Any book with info on the writing of City Primeval is hard to resist.

Mission - Projects - Relationships

 

Mission ~ Projects ~ Relationships

All are vital, but unless carefully watched the one in the middle will consume most of your time and rob the others of needed attention.

Neglect Mission and Relationships and watch the Projects dry up.

Don't forget that. Make appropriate adjustments.

Start today.

[Photo by Getty Images for Unsplash +]

Yes, I'm Very Much in a Hurry

 

That's why I'm slowing down.

[Photo by Maksym Tymchyk at Unsplash]