I’m not sure why, but I have always thought about routine menial labor. Gardening has some aspects of that, for instance if you are raking a large leaf-strewn lawn or spreading large amounts of mulch around the property, but the common aspect of what I am talking about is repetitive work that almost sends you into a trance by virtue of its numbing sameness. Strangely enough, I have always felt that this sort of activity…
Why are some people risk takers and others not so much? Why am I even thinking about risk in the middle of the night, might be an even better question? But risk is a funny two-edged sword that we all confront on a daily basis whether we realize it or not. Risk tolerance varies dramatically between people due to a fascinating interplay of biological, psychological, and environmental factors. Biological influences play a significant role. Some…
Inherited wealth has been a defining feature of human societies throughout history, shaping social structures, economic systems, and political power dynamics across civilizations. In early agricultural societies, the concept of inherited wealth emerged alongside private property ownership. Ancient Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Greek civilizations developed sophisticated inheritance laws, with wealth typically passed down patrilineally. Roman law established detailed inheritance frameworks that influenced Western legal traditions for centuries, including concepts like wills, trusts, and legitimate heirs. The…
As I have mentioned in various past stories, I subscribe and read faithfully the National Geographic magazine. I find its array of stories extremely consistent with my interests. Those interests are about the world around us and especially about the history of our world and our species. My generation was taught Western Civilization in school and while that ethnocentrically ignored a great deal of world history (especially Eastern Civilization), it did tend to start with…
It is said that we have now moved from the information economy into the attention economy. The concept of the attention economy emerged gradually through several waves of thinking. It was first articulated in 1971, when it was said that “in an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its…
There are 116,873 hotels & motels in the US as of 2025, an increase of 4.0% from 2024. Additionally, the U.S. has over 55,900 lodging properties, including over 33,000 small business properties, with about 40% of US hotels being independent rather than chain-affiliated. The United States also leads the world in Airbnb listings, boasting around 2.25 million active properties. This makes the U.S. by far the largest market for Airbnb globally. For context, France follows…
I love all those expressions about the randomness of life. There’s “Feast or Famine”, “When it rains it pours”, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans”, “Man plans, God laughs”, “The only constant is change”, or “Life is like a box of chocolates – you never know what you’re gonna get”. Sometimes these passages have a positive and optimistic spin and sometimes not so much. Sometimes you have to “Roll with the…
There is one thing that Donald Trump is not and that is subtle. We often talk about politicians being so vague that they speak on and on without saying anything, and that is no accident. Being obtuse in a political skill that has its roots in survival instinct. Who doesn’t remember comedian and politician, Senator Al Franken of Minnesota being trolled and forced to resign his senate seat during the early days of the Me…
I’m sure you remember when you were a kid that someone in your family would make a comment about eating your dinner as served to you on your dinner plate. There were the usual, “What about the starving kids in Europe?” comments that were popular after WWII for a few years. That would get complemented in the sixties by the wise-ass kids at the table asking with tongue-in-cheek, “Yeah, but what’s about the youth-in-Asia (euthanasia)?”…
I’m in New York City this morning having arrived here at the Cornell Club about 12 hours ago. I was out of the air condition cab and had to walk about 10 feet to the air-conditioned lobby of the club and I must say I was surprised at how how hot and humid it was for that few seconds that I was outside. It was a good reminder of just how muggy it can get…