Prospect on Hitchens

It’s that preternatural capacity for certainty, carried through the velocity and elegance of his writing, which has made him the most scintillating and disturbing British journalist of the ‘68 generation. He is not exaggerating much when he says: “The world I live in is one where I have five quarrels a day, each with someone who really takes me on over something; and if I can’t get into an argument, I go looking for one, to make sure I trust my own arguments, to hone them.”

Full length cover story on Christopher Hitchens. (HT Tyler Cowen)

High comedy

Looking for laughter ?

Baseball by Ken Burns

I’ve been picking up dvd’s of the Baseball series that was produced by Ken Burns and aired on PBS in the mid- 90’s. Burns’ Civil War has been a staple of the Kurns household and I’ve exhausted every episode - I feel like I’m on familial terms with Shelby Foote, for one.

Episode (Inning) 6 highlights Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, and Jackie Robinson. Of course, the Ted Williams segments spotlight Boston and Red Sox fans. With regards to the Landsdowne lunnies - “how things change, how things stay the same!” A beautiful swing in baseball is as all about bat speed.  And the chip on the shoulder reminds us that - if nothing else - it means something to desire and accomplish your goals to be the best hitter to ever live.

Watching this series reinvigorates my passion for today’s game. The wonder of the game then, I believe exists today. It’s about capturing the attention of the people with an uncommon talent and an inspirational grace.

“DiMaggio even looks good striking out.” - Ted Williams

Other sports succeed in capturing the attention and imagination of the public. But baseball is different. Baseball is the coo-coo-clock of our lives. It is a communal glue that bonds strangers. Baseball moves at the pace of life and it means something to be a fan.

This series is an excellent reminder to take joy in the accomplishments of your neighbors and friends.  In  many ways “history is today”, and baseball records remind us of the reward: posterity & legacy.  How will you be remembered?  Stretching a single into a double?

Update on the program

I’ve just begun my 2nd week of the 10 week endurance / fitness program that I’m in. I am already noticing real progress with my endurance.

The workout this morning was particularly tough - a step above what we did in week 1. Workouts are structured: 15 minutes stretched (Active Isolated stretching), 15 minute core (abs), 45 minutes rowing, 45 minutes spinning. Pretty grueling stuff.

I’m really enjoying the program. I’m surprised at how much I’ve been enjoying the mornings. We were asked to keep a diary of our diet throughout the program. I’ve done so, though I’m still hit/or/miss (had chicken guacamole sandwich and 2 beers for dinner at St. Johns tonight = nicht so good). Perhaps the biggest help has been the simple fact the program forces me to bed early.

More reports to come… future posts will include more details on the progress of my fitness pursuits.

New program starts tomorrow

I’m anxious to start a new exercise routine tomorrow.  I’ve decided to sign-up for a class through my gym.  5:30 - 7:30 AM Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.  That’s Ante Meridiem!  Gonna be quite a change.

I plan to provide regular updates on my progress, for documentary purposes.  I can’t really go anywhere but up.  I’m weighting in at about 18 pounds over-weight - enough for the Doc to comment.  The course emphasizes spinning, rowing, stretching and core exercises - all areas I’ve been looking to improve.  And when I found an organized course that will give me the discipline to participate regularly, I jumped on it.

I’m excited to get this started.  I’ve turned up the volume and set my alarm for an ungodly hour.  Unless I sleep through it, keep your eyes open for an update before long.

Long tail genius?

Chris Anderson on Charlie Rose via TechCrunch

“Let’s say Craig (of craigslist) has taken $400M of wealth from the newspaper industry… and Craig himself takes a tenth of that. Where does the rest go? I think what it does is it gets distributed to all of us. Each one of us who use this service save a little money, we have a better experience, and we get a better price. What you’ve taken is a re-distribution of wealth from advertiser driven publications and the advertisers to all of us.”

<<cringe>> Where do I start? <</cringe>>

I can’t be the only person to furrow my brows and immediately think of Mankiw (specifically principle #2 - the cost of something is what you give up to get it.) Individuals derive varying degrees of value from free newspapers (I find them useless, others like knowing which advertisers can afford to get favorable local coverage). But we can all agree that the quality of news reporting will have some correlation to the resources available to that news agency.

Ergo, fewer resources causes worse reporting.

I’ve praised the role of craigslist and other recent technological developments that seem to be having profound impact on our daily lives. However, the Schumpeterian nature of these developments by no means infers a “new economy.” That phrase alone should cause trepidation.

My concern is that market inefficiencies exist today that are the direct result of the consumer-favorable environment (the low interest, fast moving technological period of the last 8 years) . I’m concerned that we will simultaneously see increased regulation to address concerns of the public, and increased monopoly control as big market survivors exercise economies of scale. This is a lousy scenario, and may seem hyperbolic, but I do think the naivete of statements such as Anderson’s - that the movement toward free is inherently good - is cause for concern.

Strategies from ‘Inside the Black Box’

The Ath continues to deliver.

CMC alum Jonathan Rosenberg (’83), VP of Product Management at Google, spoke at the Ath a few weeks ago.  He layed out, with unbelievable examples from his experience, 15 principles of business/entrepreneurial success.  In short, he layed out why VC’s give the advice that they do (crackpot as it may sound), in story after ‘Google is taking over the world’ story.  Entrepreneurs enjoy!

1. Hire smart people and don’t let them specialize
2. Openness - Share everything (trust great people and allow them to contribute)
3. Morph ideas - don’t kill them (the economics of technological innovation)
4. Users come first, not money
5. Data drives all decisions (from logs)
6. Plan-Writing fails
7. Vision - memorize the mission statement
8. Think big!
9. OKR (objectives & key results) promises
10. Bet on a trend or fall victim to one
11. Take a small piece of a larger pie
12. Feed the winners starve the losers (functionally-oriented)
13. Avoid hippos (opinions of the highest paid people)
14. Reward innovation (HP)
15. Learn how to learn]

Rosenberg is a fast-thinking, inspiring alum.  He credits Larry, Sergey, and Eric for all of Google’s success, but I do not envision Jonathan sitting silent in the meetings where Google decided to move forward with Google Earth, News, Apps, gmail, or Youtube.  Congrats to him for the success and thank you Google for lifting the Silicon Valley economy.

Dee Dee Myers visits SCU

It was a joy to hear Dee Dee Myers talk this last week. Dee Dee is a Bronco (class of ‘83) and she is currently touring to promote her book Why Women Should Rule the World. Simply put, I was extremely impressed and inspired by her presentation.

Americans have many reasons to respect and admire her. The first thing that jumps out is her ability to connect. Her communication skills are literally ‘extraordinary’. She opened with a joke about Rush Limbaugh which I feel demonstrated how she would set the tone, how she dealt with the unenviable task of justifying the statements and behavior of Bill Clinton. This was a sympathetic, non-hostile crowd (I didn’t intend to infer otherwise) but I think DeeDee effectively neutralized critical listeners with charm and warmth.

She told stories about the antics of the msm, Bill and others. The ‘why’ of her message (which I infer as the message of her book) was difficult to extract. She is passionate and honest in her effort to make women’s empowerment a central issue. And she cited a bunch of examples of why. The take away from the afternoon was her view that women are specially gifted to lead. Many women are ideally suited for leadership, but they’re not realizing this potential for several reasons, in large part because of too much self-criticism.

I exited the event blown away by her. The life that she has lived, accomplished and promising, is enviable. And yet she clearly has a lot left to contribute. Her argument about women being under-represented in politics is something that I hope resonates with girls like my sister and wife; girls that exude talent and potential, but are challenged to find outlets and opportunities equivalent to those available to males.

It Must Be Taken

William F Buckley’s passing has had a profound effect on me the past few days.

Mom tells me that her Mom, my grandma, Helen was a big fan of Buckley. I’ve read and heard enough of Buckley to know that the fact she was a fan is not sufficient for me to make any conclusions about her politics. However, knowing this does make me extraordinarily proud. More than anything else, Buckley was a proud, intelligent, respectful, fun-loving person. It was these attributes that touched millions of Americans. And it is his character, the character to stand for the importance of ideas, that will inspire my generation of Americans.

Just about everybody that I’ve allowed to know me well has commented to me directly that I am overly soft-spoken. Knowing that, readers of this post may say ‘of course you find Buckley appealing - he’s the public figure / the confidence that you wish you were.’ Allow me one paragraph to refute this seemingly legitimate paradox.

I point to what I view to be a character strength - a conservative communication style - which less competent individuals see as weakness. I recognize that I determine the worth of my relationships. I control all of them to the greatest extent that I am able. To express myself bluntly, as I attempt on this blog and as Buckley has in millions of famous snippets, is to risk devaluing the sincerity of a human connection. I have learned what miniscule amount of social psychology, a discipline on which I am ill-informed to comment on, from the brilliant Erich Fromm as well as from famous economists of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. I think it’s safe to conclude from their work that the free individual determines one’s own reality by the company that one keeps and the pursuits to which one dedicates their life.

The only consistent motivating factor in my life has been the opportunity to engage with intellectuals. I have been blessed to receive a liberal arts education, an experience that has created opportunities that align with this ambition. And I have been blessed that everything important in my life - social and professional - has been framed by a childhood experience that supported my pursuing opportunities that aligned with my incentives - an experience that instilled self-responsibility for determining my own moral order.

This is the reason that I have such immense respect for public figures like Buckley and Hitchens, Vidal and Chomsky. Polemicist, agitators, and grandstander’s perhaps; more importantly, they are intellectuals that articulate an educated world-view in a highly self-confident manner. William F Buckley will continue to resonate with me, manifestly in the challenges that I face in all of life’s arenas. He will resonate as well with millions of other Americans that seek an honest intelligent voice for justice.

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Now playing: Boston Pops Orchestra | Keith Lockhart - America
via FoxyTunes .

Enough of Olbermann

Gotta love his self-righteousness.  Battling Bush Administration fire with pathetic rambling, then queue the ‘you are a liar, mr. bush, sir…’ lefty-idiom , place on repeat, insert jargon directly from the atrios comment board.  When Doogie mumbles his 3rd “sir” (oh the irony of subliminal talking points!) of the night, how can you not be reminded that you’re listening to the Neil Patrick Harris of broadcast journalism.  The genius wonderkid, blazing an intrepid path to un-paralleled success.

No, instead viewers tune in to get lectured on, of all things, telecom policy.  Expert that he is on the industry, Olberman’s bunched panties produce authentic vitriol.  I’ll watch that any day of the week.  Fine entertainment it may be, I recognize of course that it is worse than useless.

Olbermaniacs out there - you volvo-driving, latte drinkers (remember the Kerry camp supporting the CFG on that gem!) church-bashing Dem’s - I have one question for you.  Are you serious?

You decry faith-based initiatives - yet you turnaround and listen to talk-show host Keith Olberman, and then regurgitate like it’s the word of jesus.  Perhaps, to describe my position more succinctly, “you foolishly think he knows what he’s talking about.”   The thought that people take Olberman seriously makes me vomit in my mouth.

 After so much time and energy bashing Rush Limbaugh, Liberals appear to have decided that the prudent course now that the world knows ‘he does oxycontin, hence he can’t be that bad’, the correct thing to do now is to recreate a Rush of the Left.  To support an Ed Schultz with charisma and eyeglasses?

My folks who love Keith Olbermann don’t understand why I’ll watch a show like Countdown that I do not enjoy.  The explanation that I express: that it’s better than any alternative programming suits them.  But it’s not the real answer.  I watch Olberman (on occassion) to be reminded of the idyllic, simple-minded nature of ideologues (of both the left and right) and to appreciate the msm, msnbc in particular, for the shit-show that it is.  A reminder to never trust a word uttered on the network.  And never for a moment think that what I’m listening is the genuine expressions of an intelligent individual.  Rather msnbc specializes in meticulously-crafted, heavily staffed and hence well-disguised, messages designed to control public opinion.  This is not a bad thing in the least!  In fact, it’s a great thing - the freedom that organizations have to do this.  But, my point is that msnbc programming is no different than superbowl advertising.  It’s effort to influence my opinion and behavior is blatant.  On me, it will fail.

(this post is in response to this recent rant.)