Happy New Year

 

Happy New Year

One of the curiosities about New Year's Resolutions is the unspoken belief that new and better ideas are always coming to the fore. I hope that is true, but my advice is always a hash of old suggestions:

“You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you do not do too many things wrong,” --Buffett

Seek fulfillment. Emphasize safety.

The great Old and New Testament sin is pride; the great sin of the doomed Greek was anger engendered by pride. These geniuses were not kidding.

Do not go out of the house in your pajamas.

Spend less than you earn.

There are better ways to do military-type lifts that pressure bones and joints but no good reason to do them at all.

Find a good podcast.

Keep boundaries. Always reassess them.

One thing at a time. Multitasking is terribly inefficient.

Do not be on time, be early.

Never use the phone at social events, dinner, or in elevators.

Keep up-to-date phone numbers and addresses of friends. Use them. Keep up with old friends with a line or e-mail; do not let them slip away.

Get seven hours of sleep a day.

Use audiobooks.

The time before and after exercise is essential. Warm up and cool down.

People will not remember presents, but they will remember how you made them feel.

Ours is a period of downgrading. Start a mild upgrade with more effort on appearance. It may catch on.

Do not phone from the bathroom.

A first date should always be coffee or lunch.

Do not read anything other than menus while eating a meal with others.

Regularly pay off your debt, even bit by bit.

Sign all petitions and always vote "no."

Build a good wardrobe, one good piece at a time.

Do not put ice in wine. If the wine is not cool enough, go to a better place.

Angry people are usually entertaining but avoid them after 6 o'clock.

Read a formal literary effort, a book, essay, or play, a little bit every day.

Wake up. Early. The day will be nice and long and full of opportunities.

Go to bed at a reasonable time. Anything that happens late at night is because the perpetrators think no one is watching.

Do not name your children after large cities in Texas. Or European cheeses.

If you are going to drink alcohol, drink only good alcohol. Never drink something because it is there.
Never drink alcohol because you "don't want to waste it."
Never forget, alcohol is a neurotoxin.

Generalizations are verboten in our time. Nonetheless, the Irish have an inordinate appreciation of alcohol. Watch it.

Memorize one insightful quote or poetry line every week.

Do not run at night wearing black.

Have your teeth cleaned every six months.

Make a budget. The discipline alone is helpful. 

Set aside a percentage for two groups of savings. Use one account to go to when necessary for a big purchase or a surprise problem. Use the other one for retirement. Never touch the second one.

People tend to like what they do when they are good at it. So, be good at your job and your diversions.

Always get the cost of goods or services upfront. This is especially true of lawyers.

When traveling:

Never travel without a phone that works.
Always, always get the harbormaster's number when you leave a ship.

Never travel alone to an area where you do not know the language or the alphabet.

Always travel with enough money.

Avoid areas where you might depend upon the goodwill of people with old political grudges towards some group you remotely resemble.

Again, always, always get the harbormaster's number when you leave a ship.
 

Buy one tailor-made piece of clothing to see the difference from retail.
 

Floss.
 

"To trace something unknown back to something known is alleviating, soothing, gratifying, and gives moreover a feeling of power. Danger, disquiet, anxiety attend the unknown - the first instinct is to eliminate these distressing states. First principle: any explanation is better than none." (Friedrich Nietzsche) 

Remember this when attacking another's beliefs. You are attacking more than his intellectual position, you are attacking his area of comfort and command.

Save 10% of your income for retirement.

And some book suggestions and comments:

   Feral Detective by the usually reliable Jonathan. Obscure motives of leadened characters. I couldn't finish it. 

   Dragon Tattoo series. The first three, by Larsson, are terrific. And this was his first fiction. The others were distracting enough.

   Curiosity Shop. This is one of Dickens' rare controversial books: is it 10 of 10 or only 8? True, it is a bit more heavy-handed than his usual, but...he did almost invent the form.

   We Have Always Lived in a Castle, Shirley Jackson: Very good from the author of The Lottery.

   Bell Jar, Plath. I know coming-of-age crises in young women is current and important, but I did not finish it.

   Sea of Tranquility, Mandel. From the Station Eleven lady. Very complex, high-level, and aggressive topic--multiple universes. Much more than I expected.

   Never Let Me Go, Ishiguro. Very good. Surprising element of the fantastic.

   Human Acts, Han Kang. A vicious account of South Korea's counter-revolution. More personal than Rape of Nanjing, but not with the impact. Still, insomnia-giving.

   Bunker Hill, Philbrick. A good account of a tremendous event in history.

   Zero K, Delillo, The Strike Series, Galbreith, and The Gone World, Sweterlitsch were my three favorites this year (recognizing I love Dickens) Zero K is a modern, spare everyman story that is very cleverly constructed as it describes the life of a non-combatant in a very confrontational world. The Strike series is by JK Rowling under a pen name. This woman just doesn't know her place. After immortalizing herself with Potter, she decides to try detective stories. She has some biases--she hates aristocracy and thinks identity a shallow assessment tool--but they are just great. The second, Silkworm, is a bit rough but this woman can write. The third, Gone World, is an obscure mukti-universe story by an obscure Pittsburgh author. I loved it, but in truth, this is a dense, confusing book and is not for everyone.

Paul's Letter to the Galatians says that Christ on earth means that all men are adopted sons of God, heirs to His infinite creation.
So every man, regardless of station or circumstance, wealth or heritage, birthright or appearance, sickness or health is equal in the eyes of God. There have been a lot of notions--from nihilism to castes, from divine right to class conflict, from Freud to Malthus--that have come down the pike since the beginning of recorded time but has there ever been a more radical, more hopeful, more optimistic idea than that? And could there be a better thought to start the new year? 

And how could the vicious alternatives compete with it?

Happy New Year.

Hogmanay

On this day:

1066
Granada massacre: A Muslim mob storms the royal palace in Granada, crucifies Jewish vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela, and massacres most of the Jewish population of the city.

So, maybe there's a problem older than the modern Israeli state?
1853
Gadsden Purchase: The United States buys land from Mexico to facilitate railroad building in the Southwest.
1903
A fire at the Iroquois Theater in Chicago, Illinois, kills at least 605.
1906
The All India Muslim League is founded in Dacca, East Bengal, British India Empire, which later laid down the foundations of Pakistan.
1924
Edwin Hubble announces the existence of other galaxies.

***

“It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.” --Einstein

***

According to Politico, There is a massive, growing opportunity for Democrats to tap into rising anxiety, fear and anger about the havoc AI could wreak in people’s lives, they say, on issues from energy affordability to large-scale job losses, and channel it toward a populist movement — and not doing it, or not doing it strongly enough, will hurt the party.
Often, reporting makes it so.

***

Stingless bees from the Amazon have become the first insects to be granted legal rights anywhere in the world, in a breakthrough that supporters hope will be a catalyst for similar moves to protect bees elsewhere.

***

Biden said the Russian invasion of Ukraine was an 'excursion.'
The Trump administration voted against a United Nations resolution condemning Russian aggression against Ukraine and calling for the withdrawal of Russian forces.
Which of these positions makes the most sense?

***

Hogmanay

Hogmanay is the Scottish New Year, a blend of ancient traditions and possibly a more modern response to the strict Cromwellian restrictions of the Middle Ages. It has several characteristics. Bonfires are a part, perhaps from Viking or Clan days. "Redding" the house is another. It is a ritualistic cleaning, a 'readying' for the new year. The fireplace is swept and some read the ashes, like auguries. After midnight, neighbors visit, bringing small gifts, usually food, and receiving them, usually whiskey. 

Importance was placed on the first to enter in the new year, the "first foot." (Tall handsome men were good, redheaded women bad.) The house and the livestock are blessed with water from a local stream--which sounds really old--and then the woman of the house would go from room to room with a smoldering juniper branch, seemingly counteracting all the "redding" with smoke. Robert Burn's version of the traditional Scottish Auld Lang Syne, which translates to “times gone by,” is sung.

Happy New Year

Witnesses told CBS News reporter Kati Weis that a truck crashed into a crowd on Bourbon Street at high speed in the early hours of New Year's Day. Then the driver got out and started firing a weapon, with police returning fire.
The City of New Orleans said in a statement posted online that 30 people were transported to area hospitals with injuries and 10 people were confirmed dead.

***

The energy industry employs more than 8 million Americans and accounts for more than $1.3 trillion in annual economic activity.

***

The fiscal year 2024 data show that the Biden administration has overseen a record $926 billion in improper and unknown federal payments since 2021

***

Happy New Year

One of the curiosities about New Year's Resolutions is the unspoken belief that new and better ideas are always coming to the fore. I hope that is true but my advice is always a hash of old suggestions:

Seek fulfillment. Emphasize safety.

The great Old and New Testament sin is pride, the great sin of the doomed Greek was anger engendered by pride. These geniuses were not kidding.

Do not go out of the house in your pajamas.

Spend less than you earn.

There are better ways to do military-type lifts that pressure bones and joints but no good reason to do them at all.

Find a good podcast.

Keep boundaries. Always reassess them.

One thing at a time. Multitasking is terribly inefficient.

Do not be on time, be early.

Never use the phone at social events, dinner, or in elevators.

Keep up-to-date phone numbers and addresses of friends. Use them. Keep up with old friends with a line or e-mail; do not let them slip away.

Get seven hours of sleep a day.

Use audiobooks.

The time before and after exercise is essential. Warm up and cool down.

People will not remember presents but they will remember how you made them feel.

Ours is a period of downgrading. Start a mild upgrade with more effort on appearance. It may catch on.

Do not phone from the bathroom.

A first date should always be coffee or lunch.

Do not read anything other than menus while eating a meal with others.

Regularly pay off your debt, even bit by bit.

Sign all petitions and always vote "no."

Build a good wardrobe, one good piece at a time.

Do not put ice in wine. If the wine is not cool enough, go to a better place.

Angry people are usually entertaining but avoid them after 6 o'clock.

Read a formal literary effort, a book, essay, or play, a little bit every day.

Wake up. Early. The day will be nice and long and full of opportunities.

Go to bed at a reasonable time. Anything that happens late at night is because the perpetrators think no one is watching.

Do not name your children after large cities in Texas. Or European cheeses.

If you are going to drink alcohol, drink only good alcohol. Never drink something because it is there.
Never drink alcohol because you "don't want to waste it."
Never forget, alcohol is a neurotoxin.

Generalizations are verboten in our time. Nonetheless, the Irish have an inordinate appreciation of alcohol. Watch it.

Memorize one insightful quote or poetry line every week.

Do not run at night wearing black.

Have your teeth cleaned every six months.

Make a budget. The discipline alone is helpful. 

Set aside a percentage for two groups of savings. Use one account to go to when necessary for a big purchase or a surprise problem. Use the other one for retirement. Never touch the second one.

People tend to like what they do when they are good at it. So, be good at your job and your diversions.

Always get the cost of goods or services upfront. This is especially true of lawyers.

When traveling:

Never travel without a phone that works.
Always, always get the harbormaster's number when you leave a ship.

Never travel alone to an area where you do not know the language or the alphabet.

Always travel with enough money.

Avoid areas where you might depend upon the goodwill of people with old political grudges towards some group you remotely resemble.

Again, always, always get the harbormaster's number when you leave a ship.
 

Buy one tailor-made piece of clothing to see the difference from retail.
 

Floss.
 

"To trace something unknown back to something known is alleviating, soothing, gratifying, and gives moreover a feeling of power. Danger, disquiet, anxiety attend the unknown - the first instinct is to eliminate these distressing states. First principle: any explanation is better than none." (Friedrich Nietzsche) 

Remember this when attacking another's beliefs. You are attacking more than his intellectual position, you are attacking his area of comfort and command.

Save 10% of your income for retirement.

And some book suggestions from a very limited reading year:

   A Coffin for Demetrios by Eric Ambler. The man who developed the mystery. This is his first big success. A bit congested.

   Drawing Life by Gelernter. With some of the population ambivalent--or overtly supporting--the murder of the insurance CEO, it might be time to revisit the Unabomber, a brilliant but horrible guy who captured the imagination of many academics and writers. This book is a nice antidote.

  Martin's Game of Thrones series is very good. It will be too violent/sadistic for some but very imaginative with consistent characters and intricate plots. Mainly it is fun.

  I reread some of Emerson's essays and he is fascinating. His new American voice from the 19th Century was picked up by Whitman.

  Brown's Red Rising was imaginative and relentless. Cliffhanger after cliffhanger. Not a great sci-fi/fantasy but pretty good.

  A Study in Scarlett is Doyle's first Holmes story. Very interesting. Half is set in the American West.

  Shaw's Saint Joan was arch and disappointing. Mostly a legal and jurisdictional argument.  One can see why the extraordinary story was ignored by Shakespeare. Read Twain's story instead.

  Patriotic Gore by Edmund Wilson. A fascinating book written by an elegant critic so disillusioned with war--all war--that he openly opposed American involvement in WWII and refused to pay his taxes. This book is long, involved, and academic. Because he believes all conflict is evil, his topic, The Civil War, is handled with a disarming evenhandedness through the analysis of many participants and observers, some obscure, some well known but with an obverse take. This book was published in 1962 and created a firestorm. One critic wrote its aim was to “criticize our myths and, even, to enrich them.” Long. My favorite this year.

 

Paul's Letter to the Galatians says that Christ on earth means that all men are adopted sons of God, heirs to His infinite creation.
So every man, regardless of station or circumstance, wealth or heritage, birthright or appearance, sickness or health is equal in the eyes of God. There have been a lot of notions--from nihilism to castes, from divine right to class conflict, from Freud to Malthus--that have come down the pike since the beginning of recorded time but has there ever been a more radical, more hopeful, more optimistic idea than that? And could there be a better thought to start the new year? 

And how could the vicious alternatives compete with it?

Happy New Year.

Some Reflections on 2024

An interagency trade policy committee is seeking to erode investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) protections under U.S. trade agreements with Colombia, Mexico, and Canada as it leaves town.
Robert Lighthizer, Donald Trump’s first-term trade representative, negotiated limitations on the international tribunals in the revised U.S. trade pact with Mexico and Canada. He and his allies on the left say businesses would build more factories in the U.S. if there were fewer legal protections for overseas investments. But this opens the door to leftwing governments that want to nationalize U.S. investments and harm U.S. shareholders. 

Purposefully making the outside world more unjust to exaggerate your domestic advantage.

***

According to the Economist, it is China’s turn to worry about offshoring. Its manufacturers are leaving.

***

“The more intelligent a person is, the more he discovers kindness in others, for nothing enriches the world more than kindness. It makes mysterious things clear, difficult things easy, and dull things cheerful.”--Tolstoy

***

Some Reflections on 2024

The only thing more astonishing than Kamala Harris' nomination is that people voted for her.

Worldwide per capita income is up 500% since 1950. With such an astonishing growth of wealth, why is its disparity so important to some?

It is said that Russia's expansionist invasion of Ukraine is an aberration in history but it's the post-WWII peace period that is the aberration.

The new baseball contracts are quantum leaps in value, demand, and distortion. Strangely, it has not raised social justice warriors' cry for equity.

The costs of health care and education in the U.S. continue apace despite the fact there has been no success and the country continues to lag other comparably developed nations. Why has no one questioned our methods in the face of such bad results?

Mendacity in politics and journalism has reached an unimagined height. It is now brazen. It looks at the border and declares it closed. It changes the crime rate by redefining crime. The party that has been disguising the very leadership of the nation now accuses its opponents of undemocratic behavior.

Individuals who see themselves as visionaries, moral advocates, and the righteous will subvert law and commonsense to achieve their aims.

No one believes Joe Biden is conceiving and developing the massive government programs and policies his administration has presented over the last years. America has a shadow government, unelected and organized, that develops policies that proceed, gradually and inevitably, toward an agreed-upon end.

Democracies are inherently unstable. Given enough time, they will vilify even their best and brightest, undermining their history, and call into question their present.

Human qualities: Faith. Hope. Charity. The greatest is charity, and the commonest is hope. But, in motivation, the strongest is fear.

Paul Skenes had a remarkable year. He has remarkable stuff.

Pro-Hamas demonstrators are following a long tradition of importing outside problems to the U.S. and making them domestic. They're like the anarchists of the late 1800s who, once here, could not find a target that reminded them of home. And, as they are never arrested, we don't get a chance to know them, their numbers, or their sponsors.

Science, like democracy, is very poorly understood by the public.

The election of Trump and Biden should carve in stone the basic American idea that government is dangerous and needs constitutional structure and limits. Both men needed supervision in office by people the voters did not choose.

America is not a melting pot of culture. This basic, difficult concept is more important now than ever.

The current culture is obsessed with acceptance and will drive the peripheral to the center. For example, gender dysphoria in women is 1/5th as common as dwarfism, yet these unfortunate outliers have become quotidian.

Hierarchies are never expunged, they are always replaced by another hierarchy. 

Anyone who knows anyone with a genetic defect or severe illness knows the truth: equality is a philosophical concept--spiritual or political--not a quality of life.

The debate over the behavior of the head of Harvard is clear. She is in the wrong. But she is isolated from both judgment and responsibility, as all elites are. That is to say, she is immune to self-criticism.

More than 5,000 minors underwent sex-change surgeries between 2019 and 2023 and nearly 14,000 had sex-change treatments, according to research into insurance billing codes conducted by the advocacy organization Do No Harm.

Capitalism is not a philosophy, it is the awkward outgrowth of the commercial behavior of a free people. Thus the attack on capitalism requires a subversion of the liberty that made it possible.

Coal use is up globally again. Some people are taking the CO2 problem of the world less seriously than others.

I have reached a peculiar milestone in my life: I no longer care about Crosby's game. I want him to be happy.

The border problem is astonishing as it is clearly dangerous, a signal of significant failure, and is certain to cause a severe crisis that will have to be managed with great sadness and pain. Perhaps a modern metaphor. Like Social Security. Like the deficit. Delaying today what you can put off for others to do.

Has anyone told the developing nations the sacrifices they will have to make with the forced substitution of expensive, unavailable energy sources for cheap, available ones?
 

A disparity is the result of a hierarchy. It is rarely personal.

Both the Republicans and the Democrats have stated publically that the Constitution should be ignored in certain circumstances. This is who they are, their uniting credo.

Wanting what someone else has earned is envy. Anger over the success of others is jealousy, what Middle Ages philosophers called 'sadness.'

 

Hogmanay

What would a cannibal on death row pick as his last meal?

***

According to data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the migration route between Tunisia, Libya, Italy and Malta is one of the most dangerous passages in the world with over 24,300 people disappearing or dying since 2014.

***

Hogmanay

Hogmanay is the Scottish New Year, a mixture of ancient traditions and, possibly, a more modern reaction to the strict Cromwellian restrictions of the Middle Ages. It has several characteristics. Bonfires are a part, perhaps from Viking or Clan days. "Redding" the house is another. It is a ritualistic cleaning, a 'readying' for the new year. The fireplace is swept and some read the ashes, like auguries. After midnight, neighbors visit, bringing small gifts, usually food, and receiving them, usually whiskey. 

Importance was placed on the first to enter in the new year, the "first foot." (Tall handsome men were good, redheaded women bad.) The house and the livestock are blessed with water from a local stream--which sounds really old--and then the woman of the house would go from room to room with a smoldering juniper branch, seemingly counteracting all the "redding" with smoke. Robert Burn's version of the traditional Scottish Auld Lang Syne, which translates to “times gone by,” is sung.

Happy New Year

 I'm eager for New Year reading and podcast suggestions anyone has.

7.5 earthquake in Japan. 

 Happy New Year

One of the curiosities about New Year's Resolutions is the unspoken belief that new and better ideas are always coming to the fore. I hope that is true but my advice is always a hash of old suggestions:

Seek fulfillment. Emphasize safety.

The great Old and New Testament sin is pride, the great sin of the doomed Greek was anger. These geniuses were not kidding.

Do not go out of the house in your pajamas.

Spend less than you earn.

There are better ways to do military-type lifts that pressure bones and joints but no good reason to do them at all.

Keep boundaries. Always reassess them.

One thing at a time. Multitasking has been shown to be terribly inefficient.

Do not be on time, be early.

Never use the phone at social events, dinner, or in elevators.

Keep up-to-date phone numbers and addresses of friends. Use them. Keep up with old friends with a line or e-mail; do not allow them to slip away.

Get seven hours of sleep a day.

The time before and after exercise is very important. Warm up and cool down.

People will not remember presents but they will remember how you made them feel.

Ours is a period of downgrading. Start a mild upgrade with more effort on appearance. Maybe it will catch on.

Do not phone from the bathroom.

First dates should always be coffee or lunch.

Do not read anything other than menus while eating a meal with others.

Sign all petitions and always vote "no."

Build a good wardrobe, one good piece at a time.

Do not put ice in wine. If the wine is not cool enough, go to a better place.

Angry people are usually entertaining but avoid them after 6 o'clock.

Read a formal literary effort, a book, or essay, or play, a little bit every day.

Wake up. Early. The day will be nice and long and full of opportunities.

Go to bed at a reasonable time. Anything that happens late at night is because the perpetrators think no one is watching.

Do not name your children after large cities in Texas. Or European cheeses.

If you are going to drink alcohol, drink only good alcohol. Never drink something because it is there.
Never drink alcohol because you "don't want to waste it."
Never forget, alcohol is a neurotoxin.

Generalizations are verboten in our time. Nonetheless, the Irish have an inordinate appreciation of alcohol. Watch it.

Memorize one insightful quote or poetry line every week.

Have your teeth cleaned every six months.

Make a budget. The discipline alone is helpful. 

Set aside a percentage for two groups of savings. Use one account to go to when necessary for a big purchase or a surprise problem. Use the other one for retirement. Never touch the second one.

People tend to like what they do when they are good at it. So, be good at your job and your diversions.

Always get the cost of goods or services upfront. This is especially true of lawyers.

When traveling:

Never travel without a phone that works.
Always, always get the harbormaster's number when you leave a ship.

Never travel alone to an area where you do not know the language or the alphabet.

Always travel with enough money.

Avoid areas where you might depend upon the goodwill of people with old political grudges towards some group you remotely resemble.

Again, always, always get the harbormaster's number when you leave a ship.
 

Buy one tailor-made piece of clothing so you can see the difference from retail.
 

Floss.
 

"To trace something unknown back to something known is alleviating, soothing, gratifying, and gives moreover a feeling of power. Danger, disquiet, anxiety attend the unknown - the first instinct is to eliminate these distressing states. First principle: any explanation is better than none." (Friedrich Nietzsche) 

Remember this when attacking another's beliefs. You are attacking more than his intellectual position, you are attacking his area of comfort and command.

Save 10% of your income for retirement.

And some book suggestions from a limited reading year.
Hail Mary by Weir. The guy who wrote The Martian. Fun and interesting and bittersweet.
Peter Zeihan's The End of the World is Just the Beginning is one of those Grand Unifying Theory books, like Sapien, that I tend to be very suspicious of. This book, though, is fascinating. It looks at the available public statistical publications by nations and projects them into the future. Filled with ideas for futurist fiction writers. Provocative and fun.
Kaung. The genius-of-the-month. A polymath, multiple degrees, a number of books and still in her mid-twenties. Her fantasy series starts with The Poppy War and is good, although she has a long description that is directly from her preoccupation with The Rape of Nanking. Not for the squeamish. Her Babel is very creative and will be interesting to anyone fascinated with words, which in the story provides literal magic. Most recent is Yellowface, which I haven't read yet. She is interested in colonialism and bigotry. (She's opposed.)
Olga Tokarczuk is a bit of a problem. She just won the Nobel Prize and is dead serious. She writes in Polish and is translated. Flights is a very good, if complex, book on the search for place and being. Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead is a funny story with big aims and a very good main female character. Her recent is The Books of Jacob, War and Peace in size and ambition I have not ginned up the energy for yet. Her Nobel Prize lecture is really worth reading.
Some others: Jailbird by Vonnegut, English Music by Ackroyd, Classic Krakaur had some good essays; hated Patterson's book with Clinton and his more recent Mistress.

Paul's Letter to the Galatians says that Christ on earth means that all men are adopted sons of God, heirs to His infinite creation.
So every man, regardless of station or circumstance, wealth or heritage, birthright or appearance, sickness or health is equal in the eyes of God. There have been a lot of notions--from nihilism to castes, from divine right to class conflict, from Freud to Malthus--that have come down the pike since the beginning of recorded time but has there ever been a more radical, more hopeful, more optimistic idea than that? And could there be a better thought to start the new year?

Happy New Year.

Hogmanay

With Trubisky's tenure in Pittsburgh not panning out as expected, there may be an opportunity for McSorley (from Penn State) to ascend from the practice squad and secure a spot as the third quarterback on the depth chart. --from a Steeler site

Hogmanay

Hogmanay is the Scottish New Year, a mixture of ancient traditions and, possibly, a more modern reaction to the strict Cromwellian restrictions of the Middle Ages. It has several characteristics. Bonfires are a part, perhaps from Viking or Clan days. "Redding" the house is another. It is a ritualistic cleaning, a 'readying' for the new year. The fireplace is swept and some read the ashes, like auguries. After midnight, neighbors visit, bringing small gifts, usually food, and receiving them, usually whiskey. 

Importance was placed on the first to enter in the new year, the "first foot." (Tall handsome men were good, redheaded women bad.) The house and the livestock are blessed with water from a local stream--which sounds really old--and then the woman of the house would go from room to room with a smoldering juniper branch, seemingly counteracting all the "redding" with smoke. Robert Burn's version of the traditional Scottish Auld Lang Syne, which translates to “times gone by,” is sung.

Happy New Year

 Happy New Year

One of the curiosities of New Year's Resolutions is the unspoken belief that new and better ideas are always coming to the fore. I hope that is true but my advice is always a hash of old suggestions:

Seek fulfillment. Emphasize safety.

The great Old and New Testament sin is pride, the great sin of the doomed Greek was anger. These geniuses were not kidding.

Do not go out of the house in your pajamas.

Spend less than you earn.

There are better ways to do military-type lifts that pressure bones and joints but no good reason to do them at all.

Keep boundaries. Always reassess them.

One thing at a time. Multitasking has been shown to be terribly inefficient.

Do not be on time, be early.

Never use the phone at social events, dinner, or in the car.

Keep up-to-date phone numbers and addresses of friends. Use them. Keep up with old friends with a line or e-mail; do not allow them to slip away.

Get seven hours of sleep a day.

The time before and after exercise is very important. Warm-up and cool down.

People will not remember presents but they will remember how you made them feel.

Ours is a period of downgrading. Start a mild upgrade with more effort on appearance. Maybe it will catch on.

Do not phone from the bathroom.

First dates should always be coffee or lunch.

Do not read anything other than menus while eating a meal with others.

Sign all petitions and always vote "no."

Build a good wardrobe, one good piece at a time.

Do not put ice in wine. If the wine is not cool enough, go to a better place.

Angry people are usually entertaining but avoid them after 6 o'clock.

Read a formal literary effort, a book, or essay, or play, a little bit every day.

Wake up. Early. The day will be nice and long and full of opportunities.

Go to bed at a reasonable time. Anything that happens late at night is because the perpetrators think no one is watching.

Do not name your children after large cities in Texas. Or European cheeses.

If you are going to drink alcohol, drink only good alcohol. Never drink something because it is there.
Never drink alcohol because you "don't want to waste it."
Never forget, alcohol is a neurotoxin.

Generalizations are verboten in our time. Nonetheless, the Irish have an inordinate appreciation of alcohol. Watch it.

Memorize one insightful quote or poetry line every week.

Have your teeth cleaned every six months.

Make a budget. The discipline alone is helpful. 

Set aside a percentage for two groups of savings. Use one account to go to when necessary for a big purchase or a surprise problem. Use the other one for retirement. Never touch the second one.

People tend to like what they do when they are good at it. So, be good at your job and your diversions.

Always get the cost of goods or services upfront. This is especially true of lawyers.

When traveling:

Never travel without a phone that works.
Always, always get the harbormaster's number when you leave a ship.

Never travel alone to an area where you do not know the language or the alphabet.

Always travel with enough money.

Avoid areas where you might depend upon the goodwill of people with old political grudges towards some group you remotely resemble.

Again, always, always get the harbormaster's number when you leave a ship.
 

Buy one tailor-made piece of clothing so you can see the difference from retail.
 

Floss.
 

"To trace something unknown back to something known is alleviating, soothing, gratifying, and gives moreover a feeling of power. Danger, disquiet, anxiety attend the unknown - the first instinct is to eliminate these distressing states. First principle: any explanation is better than none." (Friedrich Nietzsche) 

Remember this when attacking another's beliefs. You are attacking more than his intellectual position, you are attacking his area of comfort and command.

Save 10% of your income for retirement.

And some book suggestions from a truncated reading year.
Palace Walk by Malfous (the trilogy got him the Nobel Prize) is a real challenge, almost an immersion in an alternative universe. It's the first of the trilogy around WWI in Egypt and centers on a Muslim family ruled by a conservative autocrat. Very good. I did not like Philip Larkin.  Hayek's Fatal Conceit is a good introduction to him. My project for the year was Paradise Lost. (Was on the Index.) The problem is that it is so profound and demanding that it can not be read once and fully enjoyed. Still, a wonderful project if you can put the time aside. (And some references will help.) I did not think the Devil was the most interesting, I thought Eve was. And I've started to reread, at Chris's suggestion, Fire and Ice, just to understand how Martin makes it so readable.

Paul's Letter to the Galatians says that Christ on earth means that all men are adopted sons of God, heirs to His infinite creation.
So every man, regardless of station or circumstance, wealth or heritage, birthright or appearance, sickness or health is equal in the eyes of God. There have been a lot of notions--from nihilism to castes, from divine right to class conflict, from Freud to Malthus--that have come down the pike since the beginning of recorded time but has there ever been a more radical, more hopeful, more optimistic idea than that? And could there be a better thought to start the new year?

Happy New Year.

Hogmanay

“The picture of the prettiest girl that ever lived will in the long run prove powerless to maintain the sales of a bad cigarette.”--Schumpeter

***

For years, two administrators at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ) have been withholding notifications of National Merit awards from the school’s families, most of them Asian, thus denying students the right to use those awards to boost their college-admission prospects and earn scholarships.

***

The word pharmacopoeia has four vowels in a row. Some other words with four vowels in a row are obsequious and onomatopoeia. The word queueing has five vowels in a row.

***

AAA tested the range effects of 20F degree weather on several popular EVs and found that temperature alone could reduce range by 10-12%, while the use of in-vehicle climate control could amplify range loss to 40%. Idaho National Labs reported that cold weather can increase charging times by almost threefold.
Wait. What?

***

Hogmanay

Hogmanay is the Scottish New Year, a mixture of ancient traditions and, possibly, a more modern reaction to the strict Cromwellian restrictions of the Middle Ages. It has a number of characteristics. Bonfires are a part, perhaps from Viking or Clan days. "Redding" the house is another. It is a ritualistic cleaning, a readying for the new year. The fireplace is swept and some read the ashes, like auguries. After midnight, neighbors visit, bringing small gifts, usually food, and receiving them, usually whiskey. 

Importance was placed on the first to enter in the new year, the "first foot." (Tall handsome men were good, redheaded women bad.) The house and the livestock are blessed with water from a local stream--which sounds really old--and then the woman of the house would go from room to room with a smoldering juniper branch, seemingly counteracting all the "redding" with smoke. Robert Burn's version of the traditional Scottish Auld Lang Syne, which translates to “times gone by,” is sung.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year

One of the curiosities of New Years Resolutions is the unspoken belief that new and better ideas are always coming to the fore. I hope that is true but my advice is a hash of old suggestions:

Seek fulfillment. Emphasize safety.

The great Old and New Testament sin is pride, the great sin of the doomed Greek was anger. These geniuses were not kidding.

Do not go out of the house in your pajamas.

Spend less than you earn.

There are better ways to do military-type lifts that pressure bones and joints but no good reason to do them at all.

Keep boundaries. Always reassess them.

One thing at a time. Multitasking has been shown to be terribly inefficient.

Do not be on time, be early.

Never use the phone at social events, dinner, or in the car.

Keep up-to-date phone numbers and addresses of friends. Use them. Keep up with old friends with a line or e-mail; do not allow them to slip away.

Get seven hours of sleep a day.

The time before and after exercise is very important. Warm up and cool down.

People will not remember presents but they will remember how you made them feel.

Ours is a period of downgrading. Start a mild upgrade with more effort on appearance. Maybe it will catch on.

Do not phone from the bathroom.

First dates should always be coffee or lunch.

Do not read anything while eating a meal with others.

Sign all petitions and always vote "no."

Build a good wardrobe, one good piece at a time.

Do not put ice in wine. If the wine is not cool enough, go to a better place.

Angry people are usually entertaining but avoid them after 6 o'clock.

Read a formal literary effort, a book or essay or play, a little bit every day.

Wake up. Early. The day will be nice and long and full of opportunities.

Go to bed at a reasonable time. Anything that happens late at night is because the perpetrators think no one is watching.

Do not name your children after large cities in Texas. Or European cheeses.

If you are going to drink alcohol, drink only good alcohol. Never drink something because it is there.
Never drink alcohol because you "don't want to waste it."
Never forget, alcohol is a neurotoxin.

Generalizations are verboten in our tome. Nonetheless, the Irish have an inordinate appreciation of alcohol. Watch it.

Memorize one insightful quote or poetry line every week.

Have your teeth cleaned every six months.

Make a budget. The discipline alone is helpful. 

Set aside a percentage for two groups of savings. Use one account to go to when necessary for a big purchase or a surprise problem. Use the other one for retirement. Never touch the second one.

People tend to like what they do when they are good at it. So, be good at your job and your diversions.

Always get the cost of goods or services upfront. This is especially true of lawyers.

When traveling:

Never travel without a phone that works.
Always, always get the harbormaster's number when you leave a ship.

Never travel alone to an area where you do not know the language or the alphabet.

Always travel with enough money.

Avoid areas where you might depend upon the goodwill of people with old political grudges towards some group you remotely resemble.

Again, always, always get the harbormaster's number when you leave a ship.
 

Buy one tailor-made piece of clothing so you can see the difference from retail.
 

Floss.
 

"To trace something unknown back to something known is alleviating, soothing, gratifying, and gives moreover a feeling of power. Danger, disquiet, anxiety attend the unknown - the first instinct is to eliminate these distressing states. First principle: any explanation is better than none." (Friedrich Nietzsche) 

Remember this when attacking another's beliefs. You are attacking more than his intellectual position, you are attacking his area of comfort and command.

Save 10% of your income for retirement.

And some book suggestions.
Damrosch's The Club was very interesting. Boswell was emotionally incontinent and it made him really sick. Hard to believe these guys survived to middle age. Peterson's Twelve Rules was a good display of how an intelligent, reflective mind works. His YouTube debates are as interesting.  American Lion, When Einstein Walked with Godel were good, Greg Bear less so. Rovelli's two books on time were interesting but, like Godel, work. John Williams is all the rage now and I read Butcher's Crossing, Augustus and Stoner--all are terrific, Stoner the best. Ted Chiang's short sci-fi is thoughtful and imaginative but elaborate. The best of the year was a reread, The Devils, by Dostoyevsky, a book for our times.

Paul's Letter to the Galatians says that Christ on earth means that all men are adopted sons of God, heirs to His infinite creation.
So every man, regardless of station or circumstance, wealth or heritage, birthright or appearance, sickness or health is equal in the eyes of God. There have been a lot of notions--from nihilism to castes, from divine right to class conflict, from Freud to Malthus--that have come down the pike since the beginning of recorded time but has there ever been a more radical, more hopeful, more optimistic idea than that? And could there be a better thought to start the new year?

Happy New Year.

Hogmanay

Hogmanay

Hogmanay is the Scottish New Year, a mixture of ancient traditions and, possibly, a more modern reaction to the strict Cromwellian restrictions of the Middle Ages. It has a number of characteristics. Bonfires are a part, perhaps from Viking or Clan days. "Redding" the house is another. It is a ritualistic cleaning, a readying for the new year. The fireplace is swept and some read the ashes, like auguries. After midnight, neighbors visit, bringing small gifts, usually food, and receiving them, usually whiskey. Importance was placed on the first to enter in the new year, the "first foot." (Tall handsome men were good, redheaded women bad.) The house and the livestock are blessed with water from a local stream--which sounds really old--and then the woman of the house would go from room to room with a smoldering juniper branch, seemingly counteracting all the "redding" with smoke. Robert Burn's version of the traditional Scottish Auld Lang Syne, which translates to “times gone by,” is sung.

Origins of Resolutions

Origins of Resolutions

Pale Gas is the mnemonic for the seven deadly sins (vices): pride, avarice, lust, envy, greed, anger, and sloth. These were originally listed by Pope St. Gregory the Great but, of course, redefined by Aquinas who felt they were rather vices that led to sin. It is a shame that lust so dominates our cultural prohibitions because the other vices are vibrating and alive. They all deserve some thought. And these old thinkers thought about them so well.

Five are of the "inordinate desire" variety: "For one's own excellence"--pride (Aquinas changed this to "vainglory", the desire for the recognition of one's own excellence), of "possession or riches"--avarice, "sexual pleasure"--the old reliable lust, "of food and drink"--gluttony, "for revenge"--anger (vs. the righteous anger of seeking justice.)

Anger, the Achilles killer, is surprising as only revenge, an interesting sharpened point. And the church fathers struggled over pride and where it fell among fulfillment, ambition, and achievement which explains St. Thomas' modification away from excellence and into the recognition of same. Envy is defined as "sadness on account of the goods possessed by others." Envy is sadness! And sloth is "sorrow in the face of spiritual good", not just laziness but "a malady of the will which causes us to neglect our duties." (Sheen, Fulton not Martin) Sloth is more than slobbering weakness or self-indulgence, at its core is sorrow! Therapists take note.

The world is the lesser for the absence of these thinkers, high-minded, confident and clear. And it misses the debate on these qualities--or lack thereof. There is a frisson in just the reading of them.

Tension, drama, fullness are all impossible without confines, without a fixed point, without the right of judgment.

Norberg is Optimistic

From Johan Norberg's blog:

New Years!

One of the curiosities of New Years Resolutions is the unspoken belief that new and better ideas are always coming to the fore. I hope that is true but my advice is a hash of old suggestions:

Seek fulfillment. Emphasize safety.

The great Old and New Testament sin is pride, the great sin of the doomed Greek was anger. 

Do not go out of the house in your pajamas.

Spend less than you earn.

Learn a good quote once a week.

There are better ways to do military-type lifts that pressure bones and joints but no good reason to do them at all.

Keep boundaries. Always reassess them.

One thing at a time. Multitasking has been shown to be terribly inefficient.

Do not be on time, be early.

Never use the phone at social events, dinner or in the car.

Keep up-to-date phone numbers and addresses of friends. Use them. Keep up with old friends with a line or e-mail; do not allow them to slip away.

Get seven hours of sleep a day.

The time before and after exercise  is very important. Warm up and cool down.

People will not remember presents but they will remember how you made them feel.

Ours is a period of downgrading. Start a mild upgrade with more effort on appearance. Maybe it will catch on.

 

Do not phone from the bathroom.

First dates should always be coffee or lunch.

Do not read anything while eating a meal with others.

Sign all petitions and always vote "no."

Build a good wardrobe one good piece at a time.

Do not put ice in wine. If the wine is not cool enough, go to a better place.

Angry people are usually entertaining but avoid them after 6 o'clock.

Read a formal literary effort, a book or essay or play, a little bit every day.

Wake up. Early. The day will be nice and long and full of opportunities.

Go to bed at a reasonable time. Anything that happens late at night is because the perpetrators think no one is watching.

Do not name your children after large cities in Texas. Or European cheeses.

If you are going to drink alcohol, drink only good alcohol. Never drink something because it is there.
Never drink alcohol because you "don't want to waste it."
Never forget, alcohol is a neurotoxin.

Memorize one insightful quote or poetry line every week.

Have your teeth cleaned every six months.

Make a budget. The discipline alone is helpful. 

Set aside a percentage for two groups of savings. Use one account to go to when necessary for a big purchase or a surprise problem. Use the other one for retirement. Never touch the second one.

People tend to like what they do when they are good at it. So, be good at your job and your diversions.

Always get the cost of goods or services up front. This is especially true of lawyers.

When traveling:

Never travel without a phone that works.
Always, always get the harbor-master's number when you leave a ship.

Never travel alone to an area where you do not know the language or the alphabet.

Always travel with enough money.

Avoid areas where you might depend upon the good-will of people with old political grudges towards some group you remotely resemble.

Again, always, always get the harbor-master's number when you leave a ship.
 

Buy one tailor-made piece of clothing so you can see the difference from retail.
 

Floss.
 

"To trace something unknown back to something known is alleviating, soothing, gratifying, and gives moreover a feeling of power. Danger, disquiet, anxiety attend the unknown - the first instinct is to eliminate these distressing states. First principle: any explanation is better than none." (Friedrich Nietzsche) 

Remember this when attacking another's beliefs. You are attacking more than his intellectual position, you are attacking his area of comfort and command.

Save 10% of your income for retirement.

And some book suggestions.
DeSilva's Secret Servant continues the savage Israeli intel services stories. A little pretentious--the lead is an art restorer--but ok. The best and most informative of this type--i.e. books to read on a plane--was A Man Without Breath by Philip Kerr.
Hayek's Fatal Conceit is  surprisingly astute and readable. (I have a positive bias.)
Nexus by Naam is a good, if complex, sci-fi with serious science foundation about pharmacologically manipulated group action.
Bunker Hill by Philbrick is a non-academic look at the Revolution that is fascinating and enjoyable
The First Circle I think is Solzhenitsyn's best work.
Founding Brothers by Ellis is a clear and easy read about a complex time peopled by complex men and women. Very good.
The Last Policeman by Winston and The Three body Problem by Liu Cixin were my two favorite sci-fi stories. Three Body was the most important sci-fi book in China when it came out. (Fair warning: It's a trilogy--but so is Nexus.)
 

Paul's Letter to the Galatians says that Christ on earth means that all men are adopted sons of God, heirs to His infinite creation.
So every man, regardless of station or circumstance, wealth or heritage, birthright or appearance, sickness or health is equal in the eyes of God. There have been a lot of notions--from nihilism to castes, from divine right to class conflict, from Freud to Malthus--that have come down the pike since the beginning of recorded time but has there ever been a more radical, more hopeful, more optimistic idea than that? And could there be a better thought to start the new year?

Happy New Year.