Pointed out to me by Jen Bird, one of my favoritest people in the whole wide world… Slate is doing a series this week examining higher education, and as one part of that they asked a bunch of notable people about their most influential reading from college. The list is, in general, a pretty good [...]
For those who missed it, I suggest taking a look at the entry “Conserve what?” on the blog of Michael Green. It’s a sharp take on this article from Monday’s New York Times. (I do kind of wish that Professor Green would use a blog system that allowed linking to a specific post — or [...]
This is just silly (courtesy of Today’s Papers): From the WSJ: “Fed Chief Alan Greenspan grew up rooting for the Dodgers, not the Yankees as reported last week in some editions.”
[update 10/26/2005, 12:43] I have been informed that what’s below makes no sense. I hope to correct that later today, but it might not be until sometime after later today. I recently finished Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel “Everything is Illuminated” (thereby becoming the last person on Earth, I think, to actually read it all the [...]
The artice “Meet the Life Hackers”, in yesterday’s New York Times Magazine, has been on my mind all day. Briefly, the article (which you should go read, if you haven’t already) is about the pace of work, and the relative lack of uninterrupted time in a given work day. It’s about the difficulty that workers [...]
Just finished Tom Wolfe’s most recent book, “I Am Charlotte Simmons”. At heart, all of Wolfe’s books are about the same thing: powerful men falling from grace — Sherman of “Bonfire of the Vanities” or Charlie Croker of “A Man In Full”. In each case they find redemption; maybe partial, but redemption none the less. [...]
From Thomas Friedman’s op-ed in today’s New York Times: An administration whose tax policy has been dominated by the toweringly selfish Grover Norquist – who has been quoted as saying: “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown [...]
Reading Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything. I read it for the first time a couple of years ago, around the time that it came out, but decided that this was a good opportunity to go back and read it again. And maybe pay a little bit more attention, because I didn’t read [...]
I’ve been re-reading The Big U, Neal Stephenson’s first novel. It’s a rather dark comedy about the downfall of “American Megaversity.” For those who consider themselves intellectuals, or who like novels, or who are just curious about my brain, I strongly recommend it. For those who have never read his work, Stephenson has written some [...]