Weingarten High Music, 1982-1983
I spent my junior year at a college in Germany. Because the word "Hochschule" translates literally, but incorrectly, into English as "high school," a friend teased me often about going to "Weingarten...
View ArticleThoughts on the Strauss-Kahn Case
Although I've tried to restrain myself from watching the news in the past few months, the many weeks spent at my parents' house as my father was dying, and then after his death, led to the shattering...
View ArticleNo One Has 217 Friends
It's done. After steadily increasing unease at the time I was wasting on Facebook, I "deactivated" my account. From what I understand, it's more difficult still to permanently delete one's account. I...
View ArticleBetting on Traffic Lights
The recent death of my father has brought me into full contact with the world of investing. He had a lot of investments in the stock and bond markets, and I've been the one in my family so far to look...
View ArticleThe Avatar Next Door
Imagine if Christianity had emerged from the Arian-Athansian dispute of the 4th century with a different winner. Imagine, that is, Jesus was a man and a prophet to Christians and the world -- but no...
View ArticleTwo Things I'll Never Say
You'll never hear me say, or see me write, either of these: "I'm sorry for your loss" to someone whose friend or relative has just died, or "Thank you for your service" to someone in the military....
View ArticleHow to Save Euroland (Choose One)
Solution 1: German and other northern European taxpayers bail out Greece, then Ireland, Spain, Portugal, and Italy, perhaps through the mechanism of Eurobonds that will internationalize the bad debt...
View ArticleA Breakdown: Three Questionable Criminal Acts
Amanda KnoxMy interest in most things Italian and in true crime has led me to contemplate the acquittals of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito in comparison to two famous murder defendants in the U.S....
View ArticleMy Immigration Quandary
I may be one of the few Alabamians tugged both ways in the debate over my state's new immigration law. The driving influence behind the law is not economic, but cultural. It's a xenophobia born of too...
View ArticleError qui non resistitur approbatur
Any aspiring professor who could be shown the total mass of written work to be graded in succeeding decades would tremble. Some might turn away and never return. The piles of a single semester's...
View ArticleLenior et melior fis, accedente senecta
Not too long ago, I reconceived my life so that it no longer had only two ages (young and old), but four. There was to be a prelude, which was my childhood and adolescence. Then Act 1, the first half...
View ArticleI've seen the future, and it's ugly
An article in today's New York Times makes plain that Greece should have defaulted on its government debt long ago. Three things kept this from happening. (1) Jean-Claude Trichet, head of the European...
View ArticleNimium ne crede colori
I'm no more skilled at avoiding the deception of good looks than anyone else. Yet even as I've beheld thousands of people who appear physically attractive to me, I've come to feel sorry for them if...
View ArticleLaudat venales qui vult extrudere merces
A good number of years ago I was part of a group making a hiring decision. The choice came down to a few applicants we interviewed in person. One we could scratch because his written application had...
View ArticleSinite parvulos et nolite eos prohibere ad me venire
The revelations about Penn State's football program have stunned me as much as anyone. I can't understand how the chief witness, a 28-year-old member of the coaching staff, could have observed the rape...
View ArticleIs Europe Burning?
Much of Europe is on fire and can do nothing about it -- long ago they used all their water for swimming pools. Germany has lots because it saved its water for just such a contingency. It's proud of...
View ArticleMess
The world is a mess. Always has been. Always will be.I can't claim this as an original insight. I read it long ago and have enjoyed recalling it whenever politics, economics, the weather, scandals, and...
View ArticleTen Memorable Books Read in 2011
The Black Swan, by Nassim TalebWillpower, by Roy F. Baumeister and John TierneyHow to Live, by Sarah BakewellDefying Hitler, by Sebastian HaffnerOn Desire, by William B. IrvineStrangers to Ourselves,...
View ArticleAh, Democracy
For Super Tuesday, a collection of thoughts on democracy and voting:To govern according to the sense and agreement of the interests of the people is a great and glorious object of governance. This...
View ArticleOne Year On: An Accounting of a Novice's Dive into Stocks
On May 27, 2011, I purchased shares of an individual stock for the first time. Previously all my investing had been through mutual funds.I chose Apple. Several months prior to my decision to buy...
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