Newsletter
Jane Goodall turns 90 today. I always greatly admired and loved Dr. Goodall. She had the life in the wild I wanted to live when I was young. I was able to meet her once in a bookstore in Marin county, which is slightly amusing considering life in the hills
Newsletter
Nothing pays like failure in the misadventures of America's National Security State. The Democrats proudly announced a “record” pay out of $26 million last night as three of our licensed to kill presidents stumbled across the wire. Most telling about this election year is the greatest accomplishment of
Newsletter
A number of diverse thinkers in the middle of the 20th century looked at specialization, the channeling of information into discrete categories, categories widely defined to include thought, professions, or institutions, as an increasing societal problem. Specialization presented increasing difficulties in determining how information, science, technology, might best be utilized
Newsletter
But the world spins on regardless Which is lucky for you and me 'Cause of all the places in a year’s ride from here This is the only place to be The FT has a good article I would have included in “Oppenheimer, Szilard & Electricity”. “Our stressed-out
Newsletter
I caught the end of the Oscars. Funny, growing up it seemed such a monumental event. In 1960, almost half of America watched the then Academy Awards, Sunday night only 5% watched the Oscars. The show was once a cultural event, such that you can ever say American culture. Certainly,
Newsletter
The phoenix from the flame I have learned, I will rise You'll see me return Being what I am There is no other Troy For me to burn Friday was one of those brutal days in Chicago, 40 degrees, wind, and pissing rain, weather for a good thick
Newsletter
Ran across a great interview with Hannah Arendt from 1964. Amazing how relevant her remarks remain, when most of what is said today is worthless tomorrow. In one part of the interview, she gets to the nut of politics, which is who makes the decisions and how that process is
Newsletter
“What a world, what a world,” Victoria Nuland was supposedly heard muttering as she left the State Department upon offering her resignation. Boy, we got a new/old sanctions sherpa and then the lead US architect of Ukraine/Russian idiocy out the door in a matter of weeks. I guess
Newsletter
Raise your hand if you ever heard of Daleep Singh? Not many, a few deplorables in the back. Mr. Singh was head of devising the White House Ruski sanctions, then left to go back to Wall Street, and now, incredibly, returns. The FT writes, “In 2022 he was one of
Newsletter
I wrote a little while ago we live in hyper-, extra-, and post-constitutional times – comes today's Supreme Court ruling. I didn't realize, showing the little attention I pay to this all, that a Colorado state judge had convicted Trump of insurgency back in November – Lord. When
Newsletter
Continued from (II) Life in the 21st Century is a reader-supported publication. Please become a paid subscriber. Specialists and Generalists The greatest change electric networked information technologies beget is a loosening of specialist control, requiring more whole, systemic views. As McLuhan notes this change goes deep, much deeper, into the
Newsletter
Continued from (I) Today, the screen is connected across the planet receiving and sending instantaneous information and perspectives from which, tactility, the receiver is completely removed. “Our highly literate societies are at a loss as they encounter the new structures of opinion and feeling that result from instant and global