The Long Slump

…Under the best of conditions, we will endure a Long Slump. If we respond incorrectly, as we have been, the Long Slump will last even longer, and the parallel with the Depression will take on a tragic new dimension…

– Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz 

The day you realize you're a writer

"Where did it start, this bizarrely complex meshing of my sense of self-worth with my ability to express myself in writing? I don’t remember any classic “aha” moment, but I do know that as far back as my earliest school years, I hit on a pleasure unlike any I’d known when I wrote papers or “creative” pieces for my teachers. Hunched over my school binder, I had my first sensations of words coalescing into sentences I liked." -- Sven Birkerts

Goodbye, Jobs

I remember when Steve Jobs took all his Apple $$ and poured it into a little thing called Pixar. "Rich man's folly," I grumbled. Years later, he generated a boatload of buzz over something with the ridiculous name of iPod. "Stupid glorified MP3 player," I harrumped. Then the iPhone: "Christ, people, it's a goddamn CELL PHONE!" Finally, the iPad - "Dude, everyone's tried to launch a tablet. All have failed. You're different how?" A life well-lived, and cut short too soon. RIP, Jobs. (typed on my MacBook Pro ...)

Sunday morning haiku

Grey, dawn a ways off
Hens bounce up, down for breakfast
"BOK!" they insist. "BOK!"

Happy Labor Day

When I was a kid, my grandma put my hand on her head, under her hair, and I felt the lumps and scars. "The fookin' goons cracked my skull lotsa times," she said. And that's how I learned how my grandma stood with her sisters and helped organize the ILGWU. When that old "look for the union label" commercial came on, she would stand and sing along, hand over heart like she was singing the National Anthem.

Happy Labor Day, grandma. And a shout-out of solidarity to all those who labor.

SOUTH

Just finished reading "South: the story of Shackleton's 1914-1917 Expedition" on Kindle.


An amazing read, and a humbling one. A matter-of-fact description of the kind of heroism, loyalty and determination that we moderns, with our addiction to pointless luxury and gawking inactivity, can not even imagine, let alone hope to emulate. When did hardship become a horror to escape rather than a challenge to accept and overcome?

Genetic differences account for half of intelligence differences

Genetic differences between people account for up to half of the variation in intelligence, according to a study of more than 3,000 individuals.

Intelligence Tests Highlight Importance of Genetic Differences