Random Thoughts

Routine can be the spice of life. Workplace turf wars resemble a squabble over the best seat on a bus. If you want the important stories, don't look on the front page of the newspaper. The president's popularity would increase if he started chain-smoking. We might learn which we value the most if we had to pay for contact with - or isolation from - others. It must be terribly demoralizing to teach foreign languages in an American high school. Most college classes could be shortened with no loss of substance. Raymond Chandler's mysteries are so enjoyable to read that their arcane plots are secondary. Every place looks better in the morning. Many of us were first exposed to classical music via Bugs Bunny cartoons. Anyone who scoffs at cruise control has never driven across Texas. The smaller the audience, the less need for PowerPoint. Time in bed is rarely wasted. At some point in your life, you should own a sports car. Benevolence and discretion deserve far more discussion. Those who seek learning the most need it the least. Some philosophies have huge maintenance costs. There is something very liberating about a full tank of gas and an open road.

Quote of the Day

Survival of the fittest implies multiplication of the fittest.

- Herbert Spencer

First Paragraph

Sometimes it is a banality - something a little sad and laughable - that makes you aware of a deep cultural change. On some level you already knew it, so that when the awareness comes, there is more recognition than surprise. Yes, of course, things have changed.

- From White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era by Shelby Steele

There Can Be a Fine Line

There can be a fine line between:

• Meeting and meandering
• Core and margin
• Direct and rude
• Indirect and fog
• Detachment and indifference
• Query and challenge
• Work and play
• Thought and drift

HiSense Tablet for $99

FutureLawyer has the details. I'm very tempted but why not pay more and get a Kindle Fire?

Delay

Don't act until all of the information is in. Insist on perfection. Order a study. Order more studies. Reorganize. Have a rigid plan and stick to it regardless of changing circumstances. Name a multitude of committees. Be sure their duties overlap. Do nothing unless you're in the right mood. Reorganize. Assume clarity. Complicate instructions. Take vacations at important junctures. Encourage turnover. Crunch the numbers. Challenge the numbers. Crunch them again. Challenge them again. Reorganize. Bring in the consultants. Triple the accountants. Unleash the lawyers. Change the deadlines. Change the mission. Shred documents. Start over. Reorganize.

Quote of the Day

Act, and you shall have dinner; wait, and you shall be dinner.

- Klingon proverb

The Most Expensive Car on Earth

It's a 1936 Bugatti.

You know you want one.

"This Time is Different"

I have a friend who has started a new course of healthful eating. She told me, “This time is different. I’ve struggled with my weight my whole life, I’ve been on a thousand diets, but this time I’m changing my eating habits for good.”

Read the rest of Gretchen Rubin's post here.

The Unfolding IRS Scandal

TaxProf Blog has an update of links on the IRS scandal.

Pan-Jihadists

Strictly between us, I can count what I know about Chechens on one leg. A couple of years ago, while I was in Copenhagen picking up an award from the Danish Free Press Society, a one-legged Chechen prematurely self-detonated in the Hotel Jørgensen while assembling a bomb. His device, using the same highly volatile TATP as in the London Tube bombings, was intended for my friends at Jyllands-Posten, publishers of the famous Mohammed cartoons, to whom I chanced to be giving an interview. All things considered, I'm glad the poor fellow pre-activated in his hotel room rather than delivering his package in the midst of my photo shoot. His name was Lors Doukaiev, and he had traveled from his home in Liège, Belgium, in order to protest the Mohammed cartoons by exploding a bomb on September 11. Got that? A citizen of Belgium is blowing up a newspaper in Denmark on the anniversary of a terrorist attack on America.

Read the rest of Mark Steyn here.

And Speaking of Flashbacks

From 1971: What's My Line? Mystery guest: Frank Zappa.

We Don't Want No Woe

Business Insider has 31 charts to restore your faith in humanity.

Kids as Political Tools

Ann Althouse is not enchanted with the recent video zapping the mayor of Chicago. An excerpt:

I've watched the video, and my reaction is: Adults taught him a speech. He's being used as a political puppet. I've seen far too much of the use of children in politics — click my "using children in politics" tag — and I don't like it. I think it's especially bad to teach a child to yell angrily at another person and to exhibit hostility, and it's bad for us to express enthusiasm about a child who's good at giving the scripted performance. This is not how children should be taught. Ironically, the topic under discussion is education. 

Flashback Time: Travel Decals

I recall an old gray Dodge with travel decals on the wind windows and a hole in the backseat's floor. James Lileks looks at this lost art.

Harassment Prevention Lessons

At HR Morning: What four new cases can tell us about sexual harassment.

Quote of the Day

In truth, there is no such thing as a growth industry. There are only companies organized and operated to create and capitalize on growth opportunities. Industries that assume themselves to be riding some automatic growth escalator invariably descend into stagnation.

- Theodore Levitt

IRS's Lerner Takes The Fifth

The Wall Street Journal Law Blog on whether Lois Lerner forfeited her Fifth Amendment protection by making a statement.

Alan Dershowitz weighs in.

Upon His Judgment I Rely

Let's face it: Kurt Harden at Cultural Offering has great taste in music, as may be seen here and here.

Featuring The Lizard King

From The Guardian: A 1968 article about The Doors.

Please - Please - Please

Making notes on upcoming workshop. Glenn Gould's Bach: The Goldberg Variations CD is softly playing in the background.

I'm hoping some of the genius rubs off.

The London Attack

Terrorism in London.

A Briton's response: "You are going to lose."

Intellectual Diversity on Campus

Most of my college years were in the Sixties. One of my pleasant memories of those days is of the frequent chances to hear diverse viewpoints. I recall attending speeches by Robert Kennedy, Barry Goldwater, Hubert Humphrey, Allen Ginsberg, William Kunstler, Ernest van den Haag, Dick Gregory, Max Rafferty, Charles Percy, Morris Udall, Bergen Evans, and Mark Hatfield; just to name a few.

I seriously doubt if many universities provide that level of diverse viewpoints today. One troubling indicator: This year's number of conservative commencement speakers at Ivy League schools.

[Photograph: Courtesy of Christopher Yoder.]

Berlin 1936

I posted another version of this video a while back. Rather chilling, especially when you consider the changes that were coming over the next nine years.

"It's going to get a lot worse."

Sox First looks at Europe's lost generation. An excerpt:

As detailed here, French youth unemployment has risen for 13 months in a row to a record 26.5 per cent; Spain (at 57.2 per cent of under-25s unemployed) is catching up fast to Greece's stunning 59.1 per cet; but perhaps the most concerning for the broader economies is the fact that Italy's youth unemployment has now topped that of Portugal at 38.4 per cent.

The Royal Correspondent

I know there are some people out there who follow reports of royalty the same way others follow baseball, Hollywood or horses.

Here's an unusual site that features "Daily news from the world of European royalty."

Papers

My day started with papers.

Newspapers, papers on projects, note cards with reminders, a pad of notes - whoops, here's a new class that needs to be developed! While still in bed I went over an account of totalitarian propaganda techniques. My home office desk has papers seemingly but not randomly scattered about and next to it is a table with files, more papers, and books related to a recent project. One stack is held down by a book on completeness by Philip B. Crosby and another on the discourses of Epictetus. Peter Snow's "To War with Wellington," a used copy which recently arrived from England, is on still another. I can see "The Trails of Pete Kitchen" on a small file cabinet and, next to a Civil War saber, is a stack where Stephen Bungay's "The Art of Action" cries out to be finished.

My wife's ungodly schedule requires her to rise early. Possessing no cat burglar skills, she thrashes about. Once she is moving, my sleep is unsteady and I'm always up before she leaves.

So I can deal with papers.

Moving Away from SEAL Teams?

The decision not to seize the men militarily underscores the White House aim to move away from hunting terrorists as enemy combatants and holding them at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The preference is toward a process in which most are apprehended and tried by the countries where they are living or arrested by the U.S. with the host country's cooperation and tried in the U.S. criminal justice system. 

Read the rest of the Associated Press story here.

Caffeine: The Magazine

FutureLawyer has discovered a magazine for coffee lovers. So has Nicholas Bate, a serious coffee lover and author of Ristretto Espresso 09. 

This is further proof that there is a magazine for any subject nowadays. Some examples:

• Chili Pepper Magazine
• Cigar Aficionado
• Old House Journal
• Cheese Connoisseur
• Cocoaroma Magazine

Quote of the Day

You'll find us rough, sir, but you'll find us ready.

- From David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Kevin Williamson, Theater Hero

So I minded my own business by utilizing my famously feline agility to deftly snatch the phone out of her hand and toss it across the room, where it would do no more damage. She slapped me and stormed away to seek managerial succor. Eventually, I was visited by a black-suited agent of order, who asked whether he might have a word.

Read the rest of the story here.

Personnel Costs

Tim Berry shows how to calculate the hourly cost of an employee.

Fashion Update: Going Goth

Spiegel looks at A Very Gothic Weekend.

Text This!

Anita Bruzzese at 45 Things asks, "Is technology making you rude?"

[My question: Or does it just facilitate the rudeness of those who were rude to begin with?]

We Could Call It "Hal"

Stanley Bing wonders if he could be replaced by a robot. An excerpt:

Could a robot work long hours under intense pressure on a project only to see it evaporate when senior management turns its gaze to other enthusiasms? Well ... I guess so. Robots don't get frustrated or angry. They don't have drinks with dinner and fall asleep on the couch, either. They don't even need to go home! So ... fine. Chalk one up for the robots.

Triggers

This post by Kurt Harden at Cultural Offering hits a subject that all of us have experienced. I'm teaching a couple of workshops near the end of this week and am already thinking about which ties to wear.

Why?

Because it makes a difference.

Hot Chocolate + Orange Mug = Smile

A white mug won't cut it for hot chocolate.

Take a few minutes, read this post by James Lawther on hot chocolate tasting better in an orange mug, and think of service improvements in your own work.

If Only

I can never resist studying the photos whenever Eclecticity finds a clean, well-lighted place to blog.

Traffic: When Less Regulation Works

At The Dish: A fascinating video of what happens when the traffic lights and signs are taken down and the cars, bikes, and pedestrians deal with one another.

Patience, Prudence, Caring, and the Zone

It can take you many years to establish a great reputation - such treasure is not created overnight - but that same reputation can be destroyed in seconds.

We may wish those numbers were reversed and yet that is not the way life operates.

An account of the early life of Winston Churchill described him as a young man in a hurry. Churchill's dedication to his advancement was no small thing but he did not become prime minister until he was 65 and even that was a close call. [I'm appallingly behind with my own career schedule and may be an overnight success at 80.]

Consider the impact on the world, however, if Churchill had decided to pack it in after the Gallipoli disaster and write books. We'd probably be speaking German right now. Many of us wouldn't be around at all.  

Patience and prudence should be blended with caring. By that, I mean the wisdom to know what to care about, what not to care about, and the depth of each. Many of us spend way too much time fretting about things which, in retrospect, seem minor. A large portion of those worries involves matters over which we have little or no control. I have written earlier about the importance of having a zone of indifference. It is vital to care, but unless you develop such a zone, the world will drive you to despair.

The zone of indifference should be linked to similar zones of patience and prudence. Each filter enables you to function far more effectively and protects against the evils of impatience and indiscretion.

"But not to excess" should be on the prescription label of all of our virtues.

Quote of the Day

In the days of developing the minivan, we never once got a letter from a housewife asking us to invent one. To the skeptics, that proved there wasn't a market out there.

- Hal Sperlich

Top 100 Leadership Blogs

Leblin (Leadership Blog Index) has released its list of the top 100 leadership blogs for 2013.

Congratulations to all!

When Tech Gets Too Clever

Photoshopping Katy Perry.

Wasn't Trotsky in that photograph?

[HT: Instapundit]

Speech, Headscarves, and Abercrombie & Fitch

Michael P. Maslanka looks at a case where religion, speech, and employment law make an interesting broth. An excerpt:

“The court leaves to another day the more difficult question of whether a living model, whose stated job responsibility is to advertise Abercrombie's brand, constitutes commercial speech,” wrote Judge Edward J. Davila.

Tornado Devastation

Reports at the The Weather Channel.

Truly terrible and sad.

Three Guesses Might Not Be Enough

At Fortune: The only Fortune 500 company that has grown faster than Apple.

Art Break: Kramskoi

Art Contrarian looks at the work of Ivan Kramskoi. [The painting above is "Christ in the Desert."]

The Continuing IRS Scandal

There's a great collection of story links at TaxProf Blog. 

He has followed it with an update of additional links.

Claire Berlinski: On Thatcher and More

Peter Robinson interviews Claire Berlinski about Margaret Thatcher and much more:

• Part One
• Part Two
• Part Three
• Part Four
• Part Five

[I recently finished Berlinski's book on Thatcher and highly recommend it.]

Grade Inflation

B or even C performance can receive a grade of A when the scorer:

• Doesn't know what A performance is.
• Doesn't want to learn about A performance.
• Doesn't believe grades are that important.
• Has low expectations.
• Is eager to avoid conflict.
• Is trying to encourage the individual and believes a lower grade would be demoralizing.
• Likes the individual and is inclined to approve of any work that is produced.

Quote of the Day

The world is more malleable than you think and it's waiting for you to hammer it into shape.

- Bono

"Our Story in Two Minutes"

Check out this video at Law Latte. Quite impressive. There will be a quiz.

"I know this beach like the back of my hand"

From The Smithsonian (in 2012): The story of the prime minister who disappeared. An excerpt:

On the gusty afternoon of December 17, 1967, a group of five adults arrived at Cheviot Beach, near Portsea, Victoria, and strolled along the Bass Strait beneath the warm Australian sun. Harold Holt was eager for a swim, and after stepping behind a rock outcrop in the sand dunes, he emerged wearing a pair of blue swim trunks. Marjorie Gillespie and her daughter, Vyner, both in bikinis, turned to the water and noticed that the surf, at high tide, was higher than they’d ever seen it.

Outside

I spent the day outside yesterday.  The weatherman called for storms, so it was a beautiful day.  Flats of flowers were procured and planted, flower boxes were filled along with the odd assortment of flower pots we've collected over the years.  I purchased a power washer (doesn't everyone need a power washer?) and new mower blades, tore out a tired old rhododendron, trimmed some bushes.  I weeded and mowed and tinkered and puttered and did almost everything I could do to stay outside.

Read the rest of Kurt Harden's post at Cultural Offering, a truly essential blog.

Find Something Beautiful Today