Terry Teachout watches a stellar performance of "The Merchant of Venice" in Central Park.
It would be interesting to compare Al Pacino's portrayal of Shylock in the play with his of the same role in the film.
Friday, July 02, 2010
The Value of The Pursuit
As one who has many failures to his credit, I found this essay by Cultural Offering to be especially compelling. An excerpt:
But I never saw him begrudge failure. It was an inextricable part of the pursuit. When something didn't work out, he worked harder. When he didn't get a bid, I can remember that shrug he would give. And then it was behind him. When his children failed, he encourage us to try harder but he didn't handle sulking very well. Be in the game, in the arena, in the pursuit. Enough failures will produce a success if you learn from them. Happiness wasn't something handed out, it was hard-earned.
What Does It Take to Get Fired?
Some workplaces are horror shows.
You read about them in court opinions and wonder if management had an ounce of common sense. Sexual harassment, threats, violence, and intimidation are ignored, explained away or given the mildest of punishments. Some perverse amusement could be gleaned from learning just what it would take to get fired in such places.
But let's set aside those disasters. What does it take to get fired in your workplace? I see places where lying, gross incompetence, and shabby treatment of customers are regarded as regrettable, but not a termination offense. Management fails to recognize how such conduct saps the strength and morale of those who want to do a good job.
They miss the cumulative effect of what they dismiss as small things and yet performance is mainly the product of small things. Put enough negative small things together and you've got a major disability.
You read about them in court opinions and wonder if management had an ounce of common sense. Sexual harassment, threats, violence, and intimidation are ignored, explained away or given the mildest of punishments. Some perverse amusement could be gleaned from learning just what it would take to get fired in such places.
But let's set aside those disasters. What does it take to get fired in your workplace? I see places where lying, gross incompetence, and shabby treatment of customers are regarded as regrettable, but not a termination offense. Management fails to recognize how such conduct saps the strength and morale of those who want to do a good job.
They miss the cumulative effect of what they dismiss as small things and yet performance is mainly the product of small things. Put enough negative small things together and you've got a major disability.
Quote of the Day
Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up.
- G.K. Chesterton
- G.K. Chesterton
Thursday, July 01, 2010
The U.S., Europe, Taxes, and Hard Work
In 2004, the year he won the Nobel Prize, Edward Prescott, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, published a paper titled “Why Do Americans Work So Much More than Europeans?” The data were stunning. Prescott found that the average output per adult between 1993 and 1996 in the United States was 75 percent greater than in Italy, 49 percent greater than in the United Kingdom, and 35 percent greater than in France and Germany. “Most of the differences in output,” he wrote, were “accounted for by differences in hours worked per person and not by differences in productivity.”
In other words, Americans don’t work any more efficiently than Germans; we just work a lot more. Not only do we work longer hours each week and take fewer vacations; we also work more years of our lives, and a higher proportion of our adults are working. In 2007, for example, American men, on average, retired at age 64.6, while Frenchmen retired at just 58.7 and Austrians at 58.9. That same year, 72 percent of Americans, aged 15 to 64, were in the workforce, compared with 59 percent of Italians and 64 percent of French.
Read the rest of James K. Glassman's column in Commentary.
I Promise: One of the Strangest Things You'll See All Day
As a public service, Verging on Pertinence has posted video clips of a wide variety of performers singing "Knocking on Heaven's Door."
Appropriate notice is given to the one by the Leningrad Cowboys and the Red Army Chorus.*
Well-done but bizarre. It reminds me of the scene in "The In-Laws" where the South American dictator's military chorus sings "Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight?"
+"And then, comrades, Lenin's body began to spin."
Appropriate notice is given to the one by the Leningrad Cowboys and the Red Army Chorus.*
Well-done but bizarre. It reminds me of the scene in "The In-Laws" where the South American dictator's military chorus sings "Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight?"
+"And then, comrades, Lenin's body began to spin."
Being Sammy Glick
An astute commentator once observed, "In The White House, you're either fighting Sammy Glick or you are Sammy Glick."
He was referring to the ruthless and memorable character in Budd Schulberg's novel, "What Makes Sammy Run?"
Most who read that line, I imagine, immediately place themselves in the "Fighting Sammy Glick" camp. Given the human capacity for self-deception, however, it is reasonable to assume that many of those noble office warriors are, in reality, Sammy Glick.
Some of the biggest weasels I've ever met regarded themselves as compassionate humanitarians. Lyndon Johnson who, as a young man, was a Sammy Glick prototype, later lamented a preference for opponents who would tell him directly that they were going to screw him over on an issue versus those who tried to cloak their activities in sanctimonious terms.
If humility is to be genuine, it must be accompanied by candor.
He was referring to the ruthless and memorable character in Budd Schulberg's novel, "What Makes Sammy Run?"
Most who read that line, I imagine, immediately place themselves in the "Fighting Sammy Glick" camp. Given the human capacity for self-deception, however, it is reasonable to assume that many of those noble office warriors are, in reality, Sammy Glick.
Some of the biggest weasels I've ever met regarded themselves as compassionate humanitarians. Lyndon Johnson who, as a young man, was a Sammy Glick prototype, later lamented a preference for opponents who would tell him directly that they were going to screw him over on an issue versus those who tried to cloak their activities in sanctimonious terms.
If humility is to be genuine, it must be accompanied by candor.
Quote of the Day
When everything is done through the bureaucracy, nothing to which the bureaucracy is really adverse can be done at all.
- John Stuart Mill
- John Stuart Mill
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)