June 2021
20 articles published this month.
-
Notes From My Journal
The Good, the Bad, and the Uncertain
I’m not sure why I’m sending you this. What follows are notes I took about recent news events that caught my attention. Maybe, after you read them, you’ll understand why I sent them. In case you want to know…
Read full post -
From My Work-in-Progress Basket
The Invasion of the Digital Dollar
There is indeed something that large governments like about Bitcoin. It exists on a blockchain, which means that each and every financial transaction that is made (including minor purchases) is recorded and…
Read full post -
Worth Considering
The Real “Border Problem
On Friday, more than six months after President Biden put her in charge of the “border problem,” Kamala Harris visited the US-Mexico border. (The White House announced her trip the day after Trump announced…
Read full post -
Postscript
Biden's Treasury Pick Struggles With Capital Gains Tax Basics
I don’t know what is scarier: the Biden tax proposals themselves… or the obvious fact that this woman doesn’t seem to have the faintest idea how capital gains taxation works! (It is embarrassing to watch her…
Read full post -
Notes From My Journal
A Fresh Look at Aristotle’s Poetics
One of the best courses I took in college was Classical Literary Criticism, in which we read, among other things, Aristotle’s Poetics. You might think that a literary theory developed more than 2,000 years ago…
Read full post -
Worth Watching
The 12th Man (2018)
The 12th Man (2018) Available on Prime Video Directed by Harald Zwart Starring Thomas Gullestad, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, and Mads Sjogard Pettersen Set during the Nazi occupation of Norway during WWII, a team of…
Read full post -
Postscript
Prosecutor's Hidden Evidence Freed Two Wrongly Convicted Men
This guy sent two innocent people to jail for 15 years. In 2000, Richard “Rick” Jackson, then a Dallas County assistant district attorney, got convictions for two men on trial for murder: Dennis Allen and…
Read full post -
From My Work-in-Progress Basket
My Beef with “Creatives
In my business – the idea-publishing industry – some workers are valued more than others. These are the so-called “Creatives”: writers, marketers, advertising copywriters, and sometimes publishers. The reason…
Read full post -
Postscript
Chicago Mayor Declares Racism a Public Health Crisis
Crazy: Lori Lightfoot Says Racism Is a Public Health Crisis On Monday, I told you how Chicago’s mayor, Lori Lightfoot, blames the city’s crumbling economy, high unemployment, and huge spike of violent crime on…
Read full post -
From My Work-in-Progress Basket
White Privilege and Black Power in the Windy City
What’s Happening to Chicago? Inflation is up. Employment is down. Storefronts are shuttered. Offices are empty. The streets are strewn with debris. And homeless people – drug addicts and the mentally…
Read full post -
Postscript
Chicago Violence Surges Over Memorial Day Weekend
This is what happened in Chicago over the Memorial Day weekend: And if you haven’t seen enough, here are two more clips that will give you a taste for Chicago 2021:
Read full post -
Notes From My Journal
Dancing at Emma’s Wedding
At Emma’s wedding last month, I couldn’t dance because my knee was f-ed up. And I like to dance. I’m not a good dancer, but I have the ability to imagine myself to be one after two or three tequilas. I took…
Read full post -
Worth Considering
Never Too Old to Dance
At the age of 60, Martha Gellhorn, best known as the third wife of Ernest Hemingway (although she was already an accomplished writer with a brilliant career when she met him) decided she’d learn to dance…
Read full post -
Notes From My Journal
Why Most Educated People Misunderstand Economics
Some of the best-educated people I’ve met know almost nothing about economics. Some of them think they do because they are literate and read Paul Krugman. In fact they don’t understand even the basics: Why…
Read full post -
Notes From My Journal
Amazon Buys MGM: So What?
The public narrative is this: On May 26, Amazon announced it had cut a deal to buy Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) for $8.45 billion. MGM has a catalog of 4,000 films and 17,000 TV shows, which have collectively won…
Read full post -
Notes From My Journal
The Beauty of a Good Conversation
The Beauty of a Good Conversation “Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.” – Oscar Wilde Earnest and well-meaning interlocutors are the worst. They talk about everything that…
Read full post -
From My Work-in-Progress Basket
Wuhan Lab Theory No Longer a Conspiracy According to Biden and the NYT
When I was covering the upcoming national elections in September, I predicted that most of the scary stories about COVID that were ubiquitous back then would dissipate if Biden was elected. The reason: It was…
Read full post -
Notes From My Journal
Art Thief Nabbed!
German police nabbed Abdul Majed Remmo, the fifth and final suspect in the 2019 burglary of Dresden, Germany’s Green Vault Museum. The 22-year-old is the twin brother of Mohammed Remmo, who was arrested last…
Read full post -
Notes From My Journal
What to Do?
What to Do? Another Difficult Conversation After the Memorial Day barbecue, the conversation got around to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There were eight of us in the conversation, two Jews and six…
Read full post -
Notes From My Journal
The World Has Gone Bonkers!
I was in Albany recently for a family wedding. I’d never been to Albany before. It is a small city with a population of about 100,000. The city center is comprised mostly of stately 19th century buildings, a…
Read full post