The Jungle of My Mind My readers have often heard me harp about my distaste for the tropics. I lived six of my first seven years in the tropics of Venezuela and Costa Rica and it has left an indelible mark. There are few places I would rather not find myself stranded in than a dense dark jungle. I think its a combination of the humidity-driven discomfort and the truly creepy crawly things that thrive…
One Stolen Accordion There is a social media site that I now connect with that throws me bits and pieces about local goings on. It’s called Nextdoor and it has spread in it’s twelve-year existence to encompassing 116,000 local areas, serving over ten million members. That is still a relatively small fraction of the population, but if we assume it is more popular in non-urban settings, that is quite a lot of users. The U.S.…
The Boys in the Boat All things pass. But sometimes they return, even if for brief moments. That may be the best definition of eternity any of us can ever achieve. This morning I was at JFK staying at the TWA Hotel, which I wrote about. I was reminded of John F. Kennedy and Howard Hughes. That was their glimmer of eternity as they sparked memories in one Baby Boomer’s brain and found their way…
Wild Animals I am surrounded by wild animals. First among them are Charlotte and Evelyn. Those are my two granddaughters, who are spending the week with us here on the hilltop. They are reasonably well-mannered wild animals, but wild animals nonetheless. What makes them wild is that they are visceral, unpredictable and do not follow any particular convention with which I am familiar. They don’t bite or present any particular danger to me, but neither…
The Earth as Property I have written about the awareness that has come to me recently about the increasing importance of ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) issues in managing corporations and, for that matter, all manner of investments. That awareness came prior to my formulating the syllabus for this semester’s course in Law, Policy & Ethics, so I added two full class sessions to focus on the policy and ethical issues of ESG in today’s…
Things Fall Apart Back when Cornell was choosing a book for all incoming freshmen (and the entire rest of the Cornell community) to read each year, they selected Chinua Achebe’s 1958 African classic about pre-Colonial Nigeria called Things Fall Apart. The novel tells a story of Okonkwo, a local village wrestling champion as he deals with the advent of white colonialism and Christianity into Africa and how that affects his family, village social fabric and…
Repeating Twenty-five years ago I was attending a function at Cornell University when I met a pleasant young woman by the name of Nancy. She introduced herself as the wife of my cousin Pete. My mother had three brothers and two sisters while she grew up in the town of Lansing in the Finger Lakes area of New York State. One sister died in childhood during a raging flood. One brother and the other sister…
Ode to a Patty Melt My stomach has changed in ways that are still a mystery to me. For many years I could and did eat anything in whatever quantity I wanted and it all showed up where you would expect it would. I spent my entire adult life going from one failed diet or program to another. I was in Weight Watchers twice I think. I was in a St. Luke’s trial that was…
Expert is as Expert Does Last night was a glorious last night in Rome for us after a little more than a week of enjoying the wonders of Italy. There were several things that made it so special, not the least of which was the venue itself. We had been invited by my Italian partner, Damiano, to join him at a restaurant owned by a childhood Palermo friend of his. That restaurant is on the…
The Young Man Within I am rewatching The Crown, that wonderful Netflix series about the life and times of Queen Elizabeth II. The current episode starts with Winston Churchill speaking with his assistant, a young blonde woman who acts as his secretary. She is apparently infatuated with Churchill and at the suggestion by him that she spend more time with a young man her own age, she has taken to reading Churchill’s biography to acquaint…