A Dash of O.Henry

It looked like a good thing: but wait till I tell you. We were down South, in Alabama -- Bill Driscoll and myself -- when this kidnapping idea struck us. It was, as Bill afterward expressed it, "during a moment of temporary mental apparition"; but we didn't find that out till later.

Read the rest of "The Ransom of Red Chief" here.

From SHRM India: Top Indian HR Influencers

It's no surprise to me that Tanmay Vora is in the Top 20 Indian HR Influencers on Social Media. I'm an avid follower of his blog and his Twitter work.

He deserves the recognition as well as congratulations.

Getting Used to Technology

A brief video: "So dad, how do you like the iPad we got you?"

[HT: Rick Miller]

Tradition!

A treat for the weekend: The first song from "Fiddler on the Roof."

First Paragraph

I first met Franz Stangl on the morning of April 2, 1971, in a little room which was ordinarily used as a waiting and rest room for lawyers visiting the Dusseldorf remand prison. The room was the same size as the cells in the prison's modern block, the block in which Stangl was detained. It had the same barred windows, the same dreary view of the paved inside yard, and the same kind of minimal furnishings in blond polished pine. It was impersonal, neutral, with nothing in it to please or edify, but equally nothing to distract the eye or mind: the right place for the particular seventy hours I was to spend with this particular man.

- From Into That Darkness by Gitta Sereny

The Law and the Back of a Buggy

If it felt to them like they were a long way from home, well, they were — the men live in homes they built, without electricity, driving horse-drawn buggies, and mostly eating the food from their own farms. There are no televisions and Internet, of course.

From The Wall Street Journal Law Blog on "The Amish Have Their Day in Court."

Miscellaneous and Fast

Wally Bock gives some weekend imagination igniters.

Sensory Dispensary: Les Paul McCartney.

Johnny Depp wins style icon award.

The trailer for "The Inner Circle."

Oops: NPR on Apple in China.

The trailer for "Jeff, Who Lives at Home."

An obituary for Encyclopedia Britannica.

The trailer for "Being Julia."

Michael J. Totten reviews a book on Hezbollah.

And snakes. Don't forget snakes.

Political Calculations notes three of ten things you don't need on St. Patrick's Day.

Quote of the Day

The only competition worthy of a wise man is with himself.

- Washington Allston

Entertainment Break

Bob Newhart on bus driver training.