Notes From My Journal
560 articles filed under Notes From My Journal.
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Notes From My Journal
It’s Not a Passion, but It’s Close
I’m in Costa Rica for a few days, working on one of what I call my “legacy” projects – non-profit entities that will continue to exist long after I’m gone. In this case, it’s a foundation that aims to raise…
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Notes From My Journal
My Favorite Weddings
Getting married is a seriously happy and happily serious social ritual. The serious stuff is expressed in the observations and advice of the officiant, as well as the promises made by the bride and groom. The…
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Notes From My Journal
Three Social-Justice Trends Boosting Crime in Major Cities
In big cities across the USA, crime is soaring. Robberies are up. Assaults are up. Carjackings are up. And murders are up. There are, no doubt, several reasons for this. Here are three: * Cashless Bail: A…
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Notes From My Journal
Five Reasons Old People (and Everyone Else) Should Work Out Harder
My surgeon gave me the go-ahead on Tuesday to resume full-fledged exercising. That means lifting heavy, hard sprinting, and submission wrestling. I’m eager to get back into it. And for good reasons. Most…
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Notes From My Journal
Feeling Low…
I’ve been feeling low. My numbers (on my mood scale) have dropped from the 7.5 to 8.5 range to 6.5 to 7.5. That’s the difference between “Ready-to-go!” and “Why-should-I-bother?” Because I track my moods so…
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Notes From My Journal
The Father-Son Talk
I was twelve years old. My father and I were on the train, traveling from our home on Long Island to the city, where he was teaching a course in speed reading that I was taking. It was about eight a.m. Which…
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Notes From My Journal
Old Friends
I’ve been in Myrtle Beach since Tuesday evening, a few days late to a yearly get together with some old friends. Golfing is the game that gives the week its official purpose. And when this annual reunion…
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Notes From My Journal
Why You Should Have a Piano
When I was growing up, a big house with a Cadillac in the driveway was the ultimate status symbol. Inside the house, it was a living room that no one ever sat in, with a grand piano in the corner. We Fords…
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Notes From My Journal
Hurricane!
It’s been a long time since a strong hurricane passed through this part of Florida. The last one that hit us hard was Irma, a Category 4 storm, in 2017. Ian came and went Tuesday and Wednesday with only a…
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Notes From My Journal
Missing Out
I’m gradually getting back into my various projects, but there was one thing I had to cancel that I regret. I was supposed to be spending this week in El Salvador, presenting, with Suzanne Snider, our book…
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Notes From My Journal
All Fixed Up and Ready to Go!
Friday, September 16: My surgery was scheduled for 12:30 pm. At 9:15 am, K came back from her exercise class to say that there had been a scheduling mix-up. I was supposed to report for my surgery in 15…
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Notes From My Journal
A Quick Update
I’m Back! I signed off on Tuesday saying that I might be ending the blog. “Check back with me on Friday,” I said. And here it is Friday… and I’m back! A Quick Update After I wrote that post, they did another…
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Notes From My Journal
It’s Ironic. And Surprising. And Scary
I finished the edits to Friday’s issue on Thursday afternoon. If you read it, you will remember that the main bit was about aging – how my perspective on getting older has changed throughout my life. I said…
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Notes From My Journal
Feeling My Age… Finally!
I’ll be in Myrtle Beach for a week in October, a yearly get-together with some life-long friends, playing golf, watching football, talking shit, and reminiscing. We’ll rehash old stories about the halcyon days…
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Notes From My Journal
I’m Bigger. Much Bigger. But He’s Much Better… in More Ways Than One!
I want to introduce you to someone special. He’s someone I love and admire. But first, let’s talk about moi – i.e., my physical fitness routine. I train for fitness twice a week. I do two hours with a trainer…
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Notes From My Journal
Doing Our “Fair Share” for All Those Illegal Immigrants
You’ve heard about the governors of Arizona and Texas bussing illegal immigrants to New York City and Washington, DC. According to Politico, they’ve sent 4,000 of them to the Big Apple since May. As the mayor…
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Notes From My Journal
How to Write a Best-Selling Novel
As someone who’s made a fair part of my living writing, I gobble up advice from successful writers whenever I can find them. I consume advice about writing fiction and nonfiction, poetry and drama, essays, and…
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Notes From My Journal
Can This Old Dog Learn This New Trick?
I’ve been told more than once that I have a rather undiplomatic communication style when talking about business problems and solutions. I’m quick to arrive at a conclusion. I push my opinion strongly. And I’m…
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Notes From My Journal
It’s Beautiful. But Is It Safe?
I’m spending the week in Baltimore, where my primary client is headquartered. I’m here for meetings about the receding economy, the effect it’s had on our industry, and the challenges it poses to our business…
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Notes From My Journal
A Short History of the Devolution of Air Travel
Air travel today is considerably worse than it was before the pandemic, when I was on a plane at least once every six weeks. I did that for 30 years. And a third of it was international travel – i.e., flights…
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Notes From My Journal
What I Believe: About What Matters Most to the Human Animal
If you want to know the truth about government and big company activities, instead of believing what you read in the government- and big company-influenced press, you must “follow the money.” That’s what they…
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Notes From My Journal
Grandparenting; The Good. The Bad. The Incompetent
I was always told that it is more fun to be a grandparent than a parent. And that is true for a very well understood reason. As a grandparent, one has the luxury of interacting with one’s progeny without the…
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Notes From My Journal
In Search of Meaning, Redux
Part II: Worse, Then Good After an evening of anxiety and self-flagellation, I decided that K had the right perspective. My stolen bag and its contents could be replaced. Easily. And the loss of income, though…
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Notes From My Journal
In Search of Meaning… Redux
Part I: A Bad Start to a Summer Cruise A friend said I was victimized. I don’t see it that way. The outbound flight that was to take us directly to Athens to begin our three-week European vacation was delayed…
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Notes From My Journal
More About Rome…
On Tuesday, I said that what I like best about Rome is its people, the Romans. And that’s true. But even without them, Rome would still be my favorite city in the world because of its churches. Not the…
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Notes From My Journal
What I Believe: About Tour Guides
In Greece, we had several very good tour guides, including a young Frenchman that had graduated from the Sorbonne in psychology. He went on to work as an art historian for the Louvre, spoke five languages, was…
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Notes From My Journal
Faking It, Making It: The Changing World of Knock-offs
Cuban cigars are expensive. A Cohiba robusto will set you back more than $25. You can buy them for much less. And lots of people do. Trouble is, they are fake. People like me who have been smoking Cohibas for…
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Notes From My Journal
The Complex Problem of Gun-Related Violence
The bipartisan bill currently in the Senate is a breakthrough in gun control legislation. It has several gun safety measures, including “red flag” laws and enhanced background checks. But although any…
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Notes From My Journal
I Can’t Take It Anymore!
Like just about everyone else on the planet, The Godfather is on my top-ten best-movies-of-all-time list. So, when PP recommended The Offer, a docudrama series about the making of Francis Ford Coppola’s…
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Notes From My Journal
Armando Morales's Undervalued Abstract Paintings
Untitled, 1967, Armando Morales Oil and collage on canvas 40.25 x 32 inches I’m excited about our most recent acquisition. It’s the oil painting you see above, by Armando Morales. Along with Francisco Zúñiga…
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Notes From My Journal
My Next Big Book Project and the Problem I’m Having With My Experts
Suzanne and I are working on a sequel to Central American Modernism.It’s going to be even bigger than its predecessor because it covers more ground. The first one was on the modern period – roughly from the…
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Notes From My Journal
What I Believe: About Fine Art
When I think of fine art – the sort of art that the Met or the Prado or the Louvre would display – I think of paintings, watercolors, gouaches, etchings, and drawings. I think of sculpture, large and small, in…
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Notes From My Journal
Back to Work
The borderline hysteria that the COVID pandemic provoked has finally exhausted itself. Americans – old and young, healthy or not, Trump lovers and Trump haters – have traded in their enervating views on the…
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Notes From My Journal
Actors That Make the Difference
Actors That Make the Difference Gene Hackman and Al Pacino are great actors. Both have been amazingly good in so many roles over the years. But Hackman has something that Pacino doesn’t have. Some ability –…
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Notes From My Journal
What I Believe: About War (from Tolstoy, via Bill Bonner)
When I was 17, I registered as a conscientious objector. There were two options: (1) I won’t go under any circumstances, or (2) I’ll go, but I won’t carry a gun. I took the second option. I was drafted and had…
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Notes From My Journal
Holding Fast to the Stories We Want to Believe
I got into an interesting discussion about a comment I made in reviewing King Richard. I said: “Before I saw the film, all I knew of Richard Williams was the character the media portrayed him to be: fanatical…
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Notes From My Journal
What I Believe: About Honesty and Dishonesty
I’ve done no research to back this up. But I’d bet that the tendency for humankind to lie developed on the same timeline as our ability to speak. An essential component of civility – if not civilization itself…
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Notes From My Journal
What can one person do in a single lifetime?
For the first 50 years of my life, I don’t think I read a single biography or autobiography. But as I stepped hesitatingly into what I optimistically thought of as Part II of my life, I became interested in…
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Notes From My Journal
Some Say Liberals and Conservatives Have Different Core Values,
Some Say Liberals and Conservatives Have Different Core Values, and That’s What Separates Them. Is That True? I watched a TED Talk last week that promoted an idea that’s become popular in recent years among a…
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Notes From My Journal
How I Fell Into Real Estate Hell
In the late 1970s, I made my first investment in real estate. It was a tidy little one-bedroom in a recently refurbished building on Massachusetts Ave. in Washington, DC. The woman that sold it to us happened…
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Notes From My Journal
Responding to Injuries and Insults: Good at One. Bad at the Other
Responding to Injuries and Insults: Good at One. Bad at the Other. “I once met a man who had forgiven an injury. I hope someday to meet a man who has forgiven an insult.” – Samuel Johnson I’ve been told that…
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Notes From My Journal
Will Smith's Performance Shines In King Richard
I wrote today’s review of King Richard before Will Smith had his sad and embarrassing Academy Award moment. What was worse? The slap? His tears in apologizing to everyone but Chris Rock? Or the standing…
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Notes From My Journal
I got my ass whooped. And it wasn’t fun
I got my ass whooped. And it wasn’t fun. The Pan Am IBJJF is one of the three most important Jiu Jitsu competitions in the world. Each year, thousands of competitors from Brazil, the US, Canada, and the rest…
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Notes From My Journal
Life Cycles of Big, Whacky Ideas
In a recent issue of his blog, Peter Diamandis tells the story of Tony Spear, a NASA jet propulsion expert, who, in 1997, was given the impossible job of engineering the successful landing of a probe on Mars…
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Notes From My Journal
What I Believe: About Taxation
Taxation is a necessary evil. The logic is this: Societies cannot exist without law and order. Law and order cannot exist without government. Government cannot exist without income to support its work. Since…
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Notes From My Journal
Spielberg's West Side Story Converted Me Into A Believer
I was skeptical. Doubly skeptical. I’ve never liked the idea of modernizing Shakespeare. Much less converting one of his plays – a tragedy – into a movie musical. But Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Arthur…
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Notes From My Journal
Causes of The Great Depression Reconsidered
On Mar. 28, I reported that conventional wisdom has it that there were five causes of The Great Depression. Credit-fueled Consumption: Consumers buying things they can’t afford with borrowed money. Financial…
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Notes From My Journal
A Beautiful Concept Called Transactive Memory
I found this on page 67 of Malcolm Gladwell’s The Bomber Mafia: “The psychologist Daniel Wagner has this beautiful concept called transactive memory, which is the observation that we don’t just store…
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Notes From My Journal
This week’s book?
Aha! It was sitting on my desk – a gift from a reader: Soonish, by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith. The gift card read, “From a top scientist and the creator of the hugely popular webcomic ‘Saturday Morning…
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Notes From My Journal
Worried about your stock portfolio? I get it
The market is, for the most part, overvalued. And it’s been fluctuating scarily since Russia invaded Ukraine. My friend and colleague Alex Green wrote an essay in The Oxford Insight recently, which made a…
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