On the Job: Heathrow

A documentary on Britain's busiest airport.

Quick Look

The trailer for "A Special Day."

First Paragraph

People wouldn't take what Martin Pemberton said as literal truth, he was much too melodramatic or too tormented to speak plainly. Women were attracted to him for this - they imagined him as something of a poet, though he was if anything a critic, a critic of his life and times. So when he went around muttering that his father was still alive, those of us who heard him, and remembered his father, felt he was speaking of the persistence of evil in general.

- From The Waterworks by E. L. Doctorow

Should Be Periodically Re-Read

Hmm

As a rule, the lives of these people later became difficult. Almost all of them experienced fierce attacks and witch-hunts; at times, long periods of disgrace, and sometimes repression. The fateful irony was that the places where they could express themselves least freely were those that ought by nature to have been the freest - the academic institutions of the social sciences and the institutions of higher learning. There, Stalinist dogmatism was as dominant as before.

- Georgi Arbatov in The System: An Insider's Life in Soviet Politics

Hard Lesson

Some of the greatest of life's mistakes are made when you really know what you want.

[Photo by Chen Hu at Unsplash]

12 Rules for Swedes

Althouse has 38 minutes of Swedes looking askance at Jordan B. Peterson.

Hilarity ensues.

Genealogy Back in the USSR

Beyond my grandparents, I know nothing about my genealogy. Genealogy in general is a privilege of the noble and the rich. I was descended from very common folk, and they usually do not show great interest in their distant ancestors. Besides, to keep track of them in the turmoil of constant change and movement so typical of my country during the last century would have been difficult. And not always safe. Who knows whom you might find among your ancestors? Maybe a counter-revolutionary or a priest, or somebody else who, by Stalinist standards, could spoil your career, maybe even your life - forever?

- Georgi Arbatov in The System: An Insider's Life in Soviet Politics

Quick Look

The trailer for "A Coffee in Berlin."

The Bock Habit

If you lead or manage - and darned few adults don't have those responsibilities nowadays - you should visit Wally Bock's Three Star Leadership blog at least once a week.

Practical. No nonsense. To the point.

Great stuff.

[Photo by Maksym Kaharlytskyi at Unsplash]