Autobiography We went to go see Kenneth Branagh’s new film, Belfast. It chronicles the youth of a Protestant boy growing up during the strife of the religiously war-torn Irish city. The message is quite stark and clear, growing up amidst religious strife is no fun. The young boy is presumably Branagh at about age nine. His father and mother are Belfast natives who live on a street near where they were raised in working-class Belfast.…
Aging Gracefully Dylan Thomas told us to not go gently into that good night, that old age should burn and rave at close of day, and we should rage, rage against the dying of the light. I think of that poem often and remind everyone that Thomas lasted all of thirty-nine years. The stories of his death comport well with his thoughts of raving and raging at the end. He literally drank his way into…
Strictly Business I have been reading about the travails of Jes Staley as he exits his job as CEO of Barclays Bank in London. He has left his post because the UK regulators have done a comprehensive investigation into the way in which he characterized his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the indicted and now deceased alleged perpetrator of many sex crimes including and especially involving many young women whose lives have been altered or ruined…
Normal Is As Normal Does Yesterday, Kim and I decided at noon to go to see a movie at 1:50 in the afternoon. That’s the sort of thing we might have done two years ago on a Saturday while living in Manhattan. But yesterday was Thursday and we are still living under a COVID cloud. So, to begin with, we are retired and do not have jobs that keep us occupied Monday through Friday. We…
The Simple Life My friend Gary is always telling me that I live a more active life than he could stand. Kim has often wondered why I do all that I do. While that may have been true at one point, I’m not so sure that’s the case any more. I still work at things and I still write a lot, but I really am a man of leisure these days and I am getting…
Self-Defense I am watching the Kyle Rittenhouse trial and have just witnessed his testimony on cross-examination. The court has just taken a ten minute break because this eighteen-year-old defendant who shot three people in Kenosha last August, broken down crying as he tried to describe the events that involved his shootings. His defense is clearly oriented towards describing this young man, who was seventeen at the time of the incident, as young and innocent and…
Treat Arbitrage Kim and I spend a lot of time commenting to each other about Betty. Try as we might, we are not fully able to understand what floats Betty’s boat other than the immediate gratification of as much food as she can possibly eat. Indeed, there seem to be no limits to how much she thinks she can eat and is apparently stuck in that mindset of deprivation which probably defined most of her…
The Himalayan Plains Wedged between the Hindu Kush to the West, Tibet to the North and the mysterious Bhutan to the East lies the fifteen hundred miles of solid mountain range, the highest in the world, known as the Himalayas. The Himalayas are so vast that they encroach on a number of countries, but the bulk of the range and the alluvial plains that flow southward from them constitute the country of Nepal. This area…
Guns or Butter There is a classic economics model and a graphical curve that represents the trade-off between the economic production of guns or butter. The phrase has come to represent the societal standards of how fiscal expenditures should emphasize defense spending versus social programs. The term originates from around the time of WWI when the U.S. faced an uncomfortable shortage of gunpowder, specifically because it did not control the production of necessary nitrates, which…
The Reverse Commute On Wednesdays I drive down towards downtown San Diego, which is where the University of San Diego is located. I was a commuter in New York City for years, but have never been in that groove (a.k.a. rut) here in San Diego. I teach from 7pm to 9:50pm on Wednesday nights and will do so through May of next year (actually 7pm to 8:50pm in the Spring). That has me leaving home…