This blog was started as a protest against the abuses of social media.  This article discusses modern social media in the context of traditional addiction.

When I first started reading this I thought, here we go, another business article worshiping another billionaire investor who made it big on a tilted table.  Then I read this quote from the investor being profiled:

“Politicians tend to follow the polls instead of their hearts or brains. They listen more to political consultants than to voters. Our short-term-maximizing politicians fail to tackle longer-term so­cietal challenges such as climate change or unaffordable entitlement programs and the resultant on- and off-balance-sheet liabilities.”

Here we go.   Translation: Wall Street is going to fix global warming, but it will cost you your Social Security and Medicare.  And don’t pay any attention to that Democracy stuff, either.

It is a long article, but worth the effort.  The author takes aim at the big business schools but does give a larger view of the problem.  From the American Affairs Journal:

The Financialization of the American Elite

America seems to be re-evaluating its history of African slavery.  It seems to have started with some movies, perhaps in the way westerns were popular when I was a boy.  I am perhaps thinking of later westerns of the 1960s and 1970s.  I can’t say much about the ones before that, although I am sure I sat through a John Wayne movie or two on TV as a boy.

This shift to a re-examination of slavery is probably generational and is happening because most of the original participants are no longer with us.  What surprises me is the push back by conservatives.  They seem to be admitting that much of America is a myth and that they are afraid of some sort of chaos if that myth is recognized for what it is (a myth).  It seems like an argument I have heard whispered by certain religious leaders.  One can’t help but think that then only chaos will be theirs personally as they lose power of the people who have bought into their fictions.

The Fragile Patriotism of the American Conservative

The New York Times’s new 1619 project argues fiercely for a new understanding of what it means to believe in America—and it is cracking the very foundations of conservatism.

I am a fan of Oliver Sacks and really enjoyed his article on his Face Blindness.  A good read by someone with the same neurological problem.  The author is very insightful and talks about how this one small thing set the course for much of her life.

My Life With Face Blindness

When your brain won’t let you recognize people, how do you navigate the world?

From the New Yorker:

The Nihilistic Euphoria of the Fish Tube

Dropping The Boy off at college.  Over 110F here.  But it is a dry heat.   Decided to stay a few  more days since the Biltmore is so cheap this time of year.  Did I mention it is 110F? Last night we saw two hotel workers poking around the gardens with black light flashlights.  They were looking for scorpions which are florescent and glow green in a black light.  Of course they were killing them.  Makes me want a pet scorpion.

Most expensive game console ever.