A Big Girl’s Blouse I am thoroughly enjoying the shenanigans in the House of Commons. I can barely recall a U.S. news day with as much Parliamentary proceedings making the news as today. Then again, three lost votes (the first three votes) for a new Prime Minister sets Boris Johnson in the record books as the most controversial PM in the history of England. No one has ever lost a first, much less a…
A Bridge Over Troubled Waters In the Spring of 1972, I had successfully negotiated my freshman year at Cornell. That year had been eventful in that I had transferred from the Engineering School to the College of Arts and Sciences. I had pulled that off on my own since my mother’s approach to child rearing was that you were on your own at seventeen once in college. No one challenged me on the move…
Stiffening The world is stiffening and becoming less flexible. One of my favorite old New Yorker Cartoons shows a Viking pushing up against a tree with the caption, “Even the Vikings had to stretch.” Obviously, what was intended was to take the ruthless and blindly ambitious Viking way of life (thought to be all about pillaging lesser and more sedate communities within their reach) and suggesting that no one can be continuously aggressive without…
When it’s Time This morning I have a mild headache brought on, most likely, by a stiff neck. Maybe it was from sleeping too long (I had a catch-up eight hours last night) or maybe it’s from driving a total of six hours yesterday with one full hour being in a blinding downpour. Then again, I played golf on Saturday for the first time in two years, and while the lower back stiffness has…
Indian Giving One of my favorite possessions is a stone and copper outdoor statue of a reclining Socrates. This is a life-sized Socrates, who’s draped toga is a rough field stone that is shaped just so, to look like a reclined flowing robe. Nature crafted it thus and caught the eye of the artist. The artist attached a head, arms and feet made of copper and adding the element of realism to the subtle…
Just Another Monday Morning Labor Day 2019 has little labor in store for me. I am up early, as usual, only a bit earlier since I was exceedingly tired last night and hit the hay by 9:30pm since I had Nyquiled myself into a stupor. It takes a lot of tired to cause me to be unable to write and I had a sufficient dose to do the trick. I still can’t tell if I’m…
Every Picture Tells a Story There are two ways in which we acquire art. The less obvious way is that when I have bought a house (primary or secondary or, even tertiary) I am usually quite rabid about getting the place set up to be immediately useable. To me, usable means with art on the walls. That approach requires me to be a devotee of art.com, where I shop for and buy relatively inexpensive artwork…
Looking Shrewd One of the things I have learned in doing business in the Middle East is that shrewdness is a highly prized attribute. I have worked for and with Israelis. I have worked with and for Saudis. I have worked for (decidedly not with) a big-time Uzbek. I heard it said by one of these groups and maybe all of them that the greatest praise you can give a man is to tell him…
Summer’s End No matter who you are, in the United States we all know summer starts on Memorial Day and ends on Labor Day. And the July 4th holiday is more or less mid-summer. That’s how we roll in the good old US of A. It doesn’t matter that colleges end in early May, and public schools end in late June. Most colleges start in late August, but at least most public schools start…
Cogito, Ergo Sum This morning my head is swirling with thoughts after watching a Broadway rendition of Hadestown. The show is a revival of a Greek mythological story, like so many other great tales. The details of the myth and the story are somewhat irrelevant, but suffice to say that it does what it is supposed to do, which is to ignite thought. I imagine that the Golden Age of Greece certainly raised the…