Monday, March 21, 2022, Delray Beach, Florida


Notes From My Journal

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The parents were immigrants from Korea… 

They barely spoke English. But by the time I knew them, they had a small business. A sandwich shop across the street from Agora’s first headquarters, in a predominantly African American neighborhood in East Baltimore.

The shop was open from 6:00 in the morning to 7:00 in the evening. It was where our employees bought breakfasts, lunches, and sometimes packaged dinners when they were working late. The parents were there every day. Six days a week. From opening to closing. Their kids were there all day on Saturdays and on weekdays. When the eldest child went to college, she worked only Saturdays and her sisters picked up the slack. After she graduated, she worked full-time while the next child went off to college. And when that child graduated, she went on to pursue her career.

All three children went on to become doctors or lawyers. And when they were making the big bucks, they bought their parents a nice house where they could live out their retirement in comfort and happiness, with lots of time for the grandkids.

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Notes From My Journal

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What I Believe: About Family Culture

Good parents want to  see their children exceed them. They want to see them attain heights they never reached. This is natural. It’s DNA. And it’s the impulse that creates what is often derisively referred to as “family values.” Parents sacrificing for their children and children reciprocating by caring for their parents when they are old is the core ethic of family-based cultures. It is also the reason some cultures have more success. It’s why Asians and Jews, to name two ethnic/cultural groups, outperform other groups in every category: education, longevity of family relationships, income, savings, and net worth. It is also why, where family culture is weak, those same measures of social success plummet. And it is why institutional attempts at “affirmative action” that ignore family culture generally make matters worse.

 

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News & Views

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COVID Outbreak in China 

Tens of millions of residents across China are under lockdown as the country grapples with its worst reported COVID-19 outbreak since the beginning of the pandemic. Officials recorded almost 3,400 new cases Sunday, double the previous day, with the virus spreading in 18 provinces. Some have argued the country’s zero-tolerance approach and reliance on viral vector vaccines has left it vulnerable to the more transmissible omicron variant.

Meanwhile, cases in the US have fallen to around 36,000 per day – still 10 times higher than the spike in China. And researchers are saying that the omicron BA.2 subvariant is unlikely to spur a new surge in infections.

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Business & Marketing

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Responding to Change 

The information publishing industry, like all industries, has been changing since the internet revolution took hold for real at the turn of the century. It went through a major change from 2000 to 2020, and another one from 2010 to 2020. In the last two years, it’s been changing again, and is affecting the content of the information we provide in fundamental ways.

In an interview I did recently with John Newtson from the Financial Marketing Summit, I explain what I believe are the key changes and how businesses like ours must respond to them.

You can watch the interview here.

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Recommended Places

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Athens, Greece

Kathy and I traveled first to Europe for several weeks after completing my two-year, Peace Corps stint in Africa. One of our favorite cities was Athens. We’ve been back only once since then, and it was terrific. It’s a city we will travel to again.

What I Like About Athens 

All 10 of the following must-see tourist sites:

* Acropolis

* Acropolis Museum

* Parthenon

* Ancient Agora and Temple of Hephaestus

* Theatre of Dionysus

* Tower of the Winds in the Roman Agora

* views from Mount Lycabettus

* Panathenaic Stadium

* Church of Panagia Kapnikarea

* Philopappos Hill

Plus…

* Plaka (a very cool neighborhood)

* drinks at a rooftop bar at the end of the day

* Kerameikos (if you like cemeteries)

* National Archaeological Museum (if you like ancient architecture)

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Fun and/or Interesting

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Interesting: Russia deploys at least 1,500 warheads on hundreds of missiles based on air, land, and sea platforms that can strike the entire US. Russia also is developing “novel” capabilities that can strike the US, like hypersonic missiles and a nuclear-powered cruise missile and torpedo.

 Equally interesting: The United States maintains a nuclear triad that can strike all of Russia, providing a strong deterrent to a Russian attack.

 Unsettling: The difference is that while Russia has modernized its nuclear forces about 90% of the way through, the US still relies on platforms built during the Cold War.

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Arts & Letters

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Suzanne and I recently bought a treasure trove of Central American works for my collection from the Museum of Latin American Art in Los Angeles. Here’s one I particularly like, a large piece called El Cadejo Negro by the great Panamanian modernist Guillermo Trujillo.

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Worth Quoting

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“Sometimes people ask me why I began perestroika. Were the causes basically domestic or foreign? The domestic reasons were undoubtedly the main ones, but the danger of nuclear war was so serious that it was a no less significant factor.” – Mikhail Gorbachev

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A Word to the Wise

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A cadre (KAH-dree) – from the Latin for “four” – is a small group of people that have some kind of unifying relationship. Example from an article in The Guardian: “Just another member of the insular elitist cadre of closed-minded short people. All fun and games until he needs something from the top shelf.”

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Readers Write

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Re my Mar. 9 essay “Becoming a Writer… in Spite of Myself”:

“Thank you for such an honest and candid essay about achieving a childhood dream. It is refreshing to hear a personal anecdote that rings true!” – BP

Re my Mar. 7 essay on Group Decision-Making:

“Thanks Mark. The Decision-Making article defines you perfectly. It also defines an executive I’ve been working with at my biz. Some of your articles I keep. This is one of them.” – MF

Re my Goal-Setting System:

Several readers wrote in to ask if I still use the same system. If you remember, I begin with yearly goals, which I convert to monthly goals and then to weekly objectives and daily task lists.

The short answer: I do… but with some refinements. I’ll explain in an essay I’m working on for next week.

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