The Speed of Thought

Thomas Friedman explores the new world of instantaneous information transfer in The World is Flat. He expands many views expressed in his columns and demonstrates how truly revolutionary the 'information age' age has become. It has seen a wholesale tumbling of economic maxims based upon 'real' goods.

Spring Reads

Two recent books are well worth your attention. The NEW YORKER'S Malcolm Gladwell follows his Tipping Point with Blink. There is some complex psychology going on here. Perception is much studied and not much understood. Gladwell provides much scientific data about how we perceive things (and people) that will fascinate any reader. One will find much to support old ideas and much to tear them down. Also give a look to Harry Frankfurt's On Bullshit. In a way, it it is a pity that the title has garnered more attention than the content because the book is full of piercing insight, despite the fact that the author is a Princeton professor. Both are best-sellers and both are worthwhile.

A Real Sextet?

In all the earnest debate about how to "sex up" classical music, one thing is never mentioned - sex itself. And yet what more potent force could there be for getting new people into classical concert halls?
Naked ambition: string quartet Bond
The market, not sharing the squeamishness of the debaters, has seized on this obvious fact with relish. Suddenly, we're surrounded by glamorous young violinists, cellists, singers and - believe it or not - bassoonists.
If you don't believe it, look at www.beautyinmusic.com, where you'll find pictured a generous acreage of musically-gifted pulchritude, listed by instrument. Among the violinists there's Linda Brava, rather better known for her centrefold appearance in Playboy than for playing in the orchestra of the National Opera of Finland.

Desert Hideaway

April 26 marks the the opening of Steve Wynn's new, tasteful little bungalow in the Nevada Flats. Please take a look at www.wynnlasvegas.com. After electronically touring the property, you might want to contact Emirates Air. In my opinion, the only way to fly to Wynn's latest is by Emirates First Class (Each passenger is treated to an individual cabin replete with gold encrusted walnut). So who cares if they don't fly to Vegas? They do go to Dubai, and come to think of it, one might not be able to tell the difference.

Alexis, mais oui!

It has been two hundred years since de Toqueville toured the then young United States and left his memorable diary. This year the ATLANTIC MONTHLY asked a countryman of de Toqueville to pay a visit and give a report. Here is Bernard-Henri Levy's account. It has some surprising observations. Given what we are told of the French view of America, the views are especially refreshing and sparkling with intuition. Give him a read. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200505/levy

Camille Paglia

Does Camille Paglia contradict herself? She certainly does contain multitudes. How better to describe a homosexual atheist who has so much good to say about Roman Catholicism? A feminist who outraged feminists by claiming that, if raped, she would “dust herself off” and get on with things? A strange and controversial critic of art and culture with the almost comic brashness to call her most beloved poems the “world’s best”?
Well, a few adjectives spring to mind, but none are quite fair to the odd—albeit inconsistent—pleasure to be taken in reading her new book.http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/23/apr05/beck.htm

Good Idea

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being."- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Homos Economicus?

SINCE the days of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, advocates of free trade and the division of labour have lauded the advantages of those economic principles. Until now, though, no one has suggested that they might be responsible for the very existence of humanity. But that is the thesis propounded by Jason Shogren, of the University of Wyoming, and his colleagues. For Dr Shogren is suggesting that trade and specialisation are the reasons Homo sapiens displaced previous members of the genus, such as Homo neanderthalensis (Neanderthal man), and emerged triumphant as the only species of humanity. See, this week's ECONOMIST.

Modern Painting

"It used to be so simple: a painting was the mediated result of an artist’s application of wet paint on a flat surface. No more. Having absorbed high culture and low, painting has turned itself out in mixed-media assemblages that include both organic and synthetic materials and occasionally involve photography and digital printing. It has borrowed from commercial illustration and architectural, tattoo, and textile design, and exhibited itself as sculpture or in various combinations of all the above, in both abstraction and representation. At this point, even those distinctions seem quaint." ARTnews 04/05

Eudora Welty

It's the birthday of writer Eudora Welty, born in Jackson, Mississippi (1909). Her mother was a schoolteacher, and Welty learned to love books before she was even able to read them. She said, "It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up of themselves like grass."
She tried working in advertising but said, "It was too much like sticking pins into people to make them buy things they didn't need or really want." So she became a writer.
Though she wrote several novels, including The Optimist's Daughter (1972), she's best known for her short stories in collections such as The Wide Net (1943) and The Golden Apples (1949). She wrote and rewrote, revising her stories by cutting them apart with scissors at the dining-room table and reassembling them with straight pins.
Her story "Why I Live At the PO" begins, "I was getting along fine with Mama, Pap-Daddy and Uncle Rondo until my sister Stella-Rondo just separated from her husband and came back home again. Mr. Whitaker! Of course I went with Mr. Whitaker first, when he first appeared here in China Grove, taking \'Pose Yourself\' photos, and Stella-Rondo broke us up. Told him I was one-sided. Bigger on one side than the other, which is a deliberate, calculated falsehood: I'm the same. Stella-Rondo is exactly twelve months to the day younger than I am and for that reason she's spoiled." A critic once asked Welty to explain where she got the idea for a marble cake in one of her stories. She replied, "It's a recipe that's been in my family for some time."
Her story "Why I Live At the PO" begins, "I was getting along fine with Mama, Pap-Daddy and Uncle Rondo until my sister Stella-Rondo just separated from her husband and came back home again. Mr. Whitaker! Of course I went with Mr. Whitaker first, when he first appeared here in China Grove, taking 'Pose Yourself' photos, and Stella-Rondo broke us up. Told him I was one-sided. Bigger on one side than the other, which is a deliberate, calculated falsehood: I'm the same. Stella-Rondo is exactly twelve months to the day younger than I am and for that reason she's spoiled."
A critic once asked Welty to explain where she got the idea for a marble cake in one of her stories. She replied, "It's a recipe that's been in my family for some time."

Taste (Coarse & Good)

An elegant view of a world more tasteful than today's. Has our culture become just too vulgar to be endured?OpinionJournal - Taste

Nonsense is the New Sense

All of us need a good laugh now and then. Alex Beam provides some good ones in this piece from the Boston Globe.Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Living / Arts / Nonsense is the new sense

Bellow: Master of the Universe

Of the many obituaries of Saul Bellow, this one by Ian McEwan seems both insightful and spoken like a co-worker.The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: Master of the Universe

Wordworth's Birthday

Gmail - The Writer's Almanac for Thursday, April 7, 2005:

"I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed�and gazed�but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils."

Inside Higher Ed :: Mind the Gap

Inside Higher Ed :: Mind the Gap: "Nearly 20 years ago, in The Last Intellectuals: American Culture in the Age of Academe, Russell Jacoby charted the disappearance of the �public intellectual� � a phenomenon that occurred in lockstep with the rise of the university. In the first half of the 20th century, Jacoby contended, thinkers such as Lewis Mumford, Lionel Trilling, and Edmund Wilson dominated the landscape, addressing topics of broad concern, writing for an audience of educated laypeople. But as universities replaced urban bohemias as center stage in the life of the mind, these public intellectuals were succeeded by a cadre of professional academics: preoccupied with tenure and peer review, highly specialized, and writing mainly for each other.
Today, however, there are signs that Jacoby's age of academe� may be winding down and a new era emerging. While universities continue to play an important role in intellectual culture, increasingly they are no longer the only game in town. With the rise of the knowledge economy and the spread of decentralizing technology, the academy is ceding authority and attention to businesses, nonprofits, foundations, media outlets, and Internet communities"

A Psychosis in the French Soul

Telegraph Expat A psychosis in the French soul: "His book is that seemingly impossible thing: an attack on French Americophobia written by a Frenchman. For, as he demonstrates in this scholarly yet highly entertaining work, the French allergy to all things American is a national psychosis which today tells us more about the condition of France than it does about the United States."

A great white graduates

The Monterey Aquarium held a young great white shark in captivity long enough to study and understand many of its characteristics. This fascinating article from the Los Angeles tTmes illustrates how little we know of the sea and its inhabitants.A great white graduates

Showman, Poet, Mystic, Philosopher

Of all the obituaries of the Pope, this from Toronto's Globe and Mail seems to capture the man best. David Remnick puts the politics of the Pope in good perspective in this week's New Yorker. The Globe and Mail: Showman, mystic, philosopher

on the other hand...........this view from the New York Times op-ed page takes a different tack:


John Paul II's most lasting legacy to Catholicism will come from the episcopal appointments he made. In order to have been named a bishop, a priest must have been seen to be absolutely opposed to masturbation, premarital sex, birth control (including condoms used to prevent the spread of AIDS), abortion, divorce, homosexual relations, married priests, female priests and any hint of Marxism. It is nearly impossible to find men who subscribe wholeheartedly to this entire catalogue of certitudes; as a result the ranks of the episcopate are filled with mindless sycophants and intellectual incompetents.
He will surely be remembered as one of the few great political figures of our age, a man of physical and moral courage more responsible than any other for bringing down the oppressive, antihuman Communism of Eastern Europe. But he was not a great religious figure. How could he be? He may, in time to come, be credited with destroying his church.

so there take your pick

Did you hear..........?

This is it. This is what you have been waiting for all day. By far the finest collection of Fool's Day hoaxes ever compiled. Take a look. Every day needs a laugh like these will provide. http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/top100.html

The Pope

Pope John Paul is dead. I have viewed him as an enigma, or better, public reaction to him to be enigmatic. His doctrines and doctrinaire views are, in many important instances, contrary to the views of his flock. Yet he enjoys immense popularity within and without the Catholic Church. Perhaps it is possible to admire the person while disagreeing with the views. This is an formula, unlikely for success for a religious leader. It is ironic at best that a shepherd can purport to lead a flock which, in so many cases, is opposed to his pronouncements. Yet his charisma was in his faith. Godspeed to a good man who never waivered. He was a true believer.

The Weekend

This is the big weekend for fans of college basketball. It is the favorite of bookies, who take in more business this weekend than any time save the Super Bowl. Professional Baseball also commences this weekend. So, aside from turning our clocks forward and losing a precious hour of sleep, this shall be a sport-filled weekend. May all of your teams be winners.