Because we are flying to Key West on Wednesday, someone suggested that we should watch the movie True Lies because the ending scenes are shot in the Florida Keys. True Lies is a 1994 film directed by James Cameron and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis and Tom Arnold. It’s basically a spy comedy about Iranian terrorists trying to extract retaliation from the United States. While I had seen the movie years ago. I had…
I don’t think there would be too much debate among Americans and Europeans about who constitutes the Axis of Evil in today’s world. The hit parade would clearly consist of Russia and Iran with a bit more debate about China as the U.S. has trashed its longstanding alliances in favor of Trump’s latest tariff and power-grab whims. The lesser evils like North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba or Belarus SW1W not really on par with these bigger…
Will wonders never cease…the Supreme Court actually did something right for almost the first time since the Roberts court came into session. In addition to the three liberal justices, Sotomayor, Kaplan and Ketanji Brown, those in favor of restricting Trump from using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) as justification for using tariffs as a cudgel against other countries, were Roberts, Gorsuch and Coney Barrett. The voting patterns of SCOTUS make the Roberts and…
Back in business school at Cornell, the most notable professor was a guy by the name of Hal Bierman. Hal taught finance. I had the unique experience of taking finance from Hal while his son was also taking finance. That’s a strange experience, but I’m sure it was more strange for both him and his son. Hal was a serious guy who tried hard to be pleasant and avuncular, but who always seemed more serious…
I will start by declaring that I simply do not have an answer to that question, so this is not a trick to lure you into some gotcha web of mine. We watched the Opening Ceremonies of the XXV Winter Olympic Games from Milan/Cortina last night. Kim was doing what she always does, which is simultaneous newsfeed interpretation and assessment. The reason that had particular value in last night’s show was that Donald Trump has…
I have struggled to write about the events that unfolded over the weekend in Minneapolis. The brutal and unwarranted killing of Alex Pretti is all over social media and shows no signs of leaving the news cycle any time soon. In fact, the political fallout from the killing of Pretti has been so severe and bipartisan that it now seems that Trump is finally backing down in a way that he was not prepared to…
The history of American public service reflects the nation’s ambivalence about government itself. On the one hand, we consider public service essential and laudatory at many times, and yet it is also often distrusted. From a few hundred employees in 1789 to millions today, the transformation mirrors America’s evolution from agricultural republic to industrial to information age superpower, with public servants adapting to meet each era’s challenges while maintaining democratic values. The evolution of American…
I read an article yesterday about a speed painter that paints giant canvases of Christ. She has become a favorite of Donald Trump and her name is Vanessa Horabuena. It’s an interesting name because the name essentially means “at a good/fortunate hour”—a propitious moment or good timing—which when used as a surname likely expressed hopes for fortune and good luck for the family line. What is speed painting, you ask (or, at least, I asked)?…
I can’t see more than 100 feet this morning on account of a heavy and foreboding fog that has enveloped our hilltop. It’s a pretty normal January day here in San Diego with the high temperature expected to be about 60 with the morning starting out in the low 50s. There is really nothing to complain about weather wise. That’s not the case for most of the rest of the country, where the temperatures have…
At last! Someone has finally said what the whole rational world has been thinking. We finally have a new hero in Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada. At the Davos World Economic Forum, Carney delivered a succinct and inspiring 30 minute speech that brought the collective audience of politicians, national leaders, corporate chieftains, and members of the global power elite to their feet in a standing ovation. These are the moments that define history…