Books Are Back, Baby

04

Monday, January 4, 2010 | 7:17 PM
Filed Under General

When I was growing up, there were very few books in our house. I read the monthly Reader’s Digest from cover to cover but that was about it. (I think I can still recite a half-dozen “Humor in Uniform” anecdotes.) My parent just weren’t the reading kind.

Then, somewhere after college, I got the reading bug. I devoured books — fiction, non-fiction, classics, contemporary — I read them all. I had so much lost ground to make up for. There was one year in my late twenties in which I read fifty books! While I have yet to exceed that high water mark of almost a book a week I continued to read extensively for years.

That is, until Internet came along. My pace of reading dropped to a trickle in the last few years. Between 2004 and 2008 I read less than three books per year, and one year I read only one book. Ouch!

I am proud to report that in 2009 I got my reading mojo back. I read a dozen books this year. I don’t think it is a coincidence that 2009 was also the year that I got a Kindle (even though only half of the books I read were available in Kindle format). In the age of gadgets and electronics, the Kindle has made reading fun again. After almost a decade of wandering aimlessly in the Internet wasteland of too many RSS subscriptions I have rediscovered the depth and quality of well-written books.

Here are the books I read in 2009:

With the exception of The Lost Symbol, I would highly recommend each book on the list. If I had to pick a favorite, it would be Outliers. Wow! The the ideas in that book turned my head inside out. An excellent read.

I am already three-fourths of the way into two books and it is only January 04. If all goes well, 2010 promises to be a rich year for reading as well.

We Pay For What’s Important

09

Friday, October 9, 2009 | 1:01 PM
Filed Under Politics

On Wednesday, in his NY Times editorial, Nicholas Kristof cited an article by the American Journal of Public Health stating that 45,000 uninsured people die annually as a consequence of not having insurance.

We accept that life is unfair, that some people will live in cramped apartments and others in sprawling mansions. But our existing insurance system is not simply inequitable but also lethal: a very recent, peer-reviewed article in the American Journal of Public Health finds that nearly 45,000 uninsured people die annually as a consequence of not having insurance. That’s one needless death every 12 minutes.

Today Paul Krugman has an editorial on the demise of American education.

[F]or the past 30 years our political scene has been dominated by the view that any and all government spending is a waste of taxpayer dollars. Education, as one of the largest components of public spending, has inevitably suffered.

Until now, the results of educational neglect have been gradual — a slow-motion erosion of America’s relative position. But things are about to get much worse, as the economic crisis — its effects exacerbated by the penny-wise, pound-foolish behavior that passes for “fiscal responsibility” in Washington — deals a severe blow to education across the board.

Krugman goes on to comment on the recent job loss numbers. Of the 273,000 jobs last month, he says, “29,000 were in state and local education, bringing the total losses in that category over the past five months to 143,000.”

These two stories bounce around my mind in the context of a renewed debate on what our next steps should be in Afghanistan and Iraq. We spend hundreds of millions of dollars per year on our military operations. In my personal life, when money gets tight I prioritize my spending. If it is important, I spend it. If it isn’t important, it doesn’t get funded.

By not funding health care and not funding education we are saying that these things are not important. How can that be? This is baffling to me. How can they not be important?

Silence is Golden

12

Friday, June 12, 2009 | 8:01 AM
Filed Under Quotes

I have nothing to say, and I am saying it.

— Unknown

For the last few weeks I have been intensely focused on the launch of the web site for Rizers, my new company. I haven’t had much to add to the daily quote file. Stay tuned for the official Rizers’ announcement.

Bailouts and Begging

30

Saturday, May 30, 2009 | 8:09 AM
Filed Under Quotes

It is only the poor who are forbidden to beg.

— Anatole France


Klipstein’s Third Law of General Engineering

29

Friday, May 29, 2009 | 8:00 AM
Filed Under Quotes

Dimensions will always be expressed in the least usable term. Velocity, for example, will be expressed in furlongs per fortnight.

— Applied Murphology


Running the Country III

28

Thursday, May 28, 2009 | 8:00 AM
Filed Under Quotes

Democracy is the art of running the circus from the monkey cage.

— H. L. Menken


Running the Country II

27

Wednesday, May 27, 2009 | 8:00 AM
Filed Under Quotes

If I wished to put a curse on a nation, I would invoke the gods to decree that it be governed by those who consider themselves to be the only true patriots in it.

— Sydney J. Harris


Running the Country

26

Tuesday, May 26, 2009 | 8:00 AM
Filed Under Quotes

Too bad all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxi cabs and cutting hair.

— George Burns


Discovery

25

Monday, May 25, 2009 | 8:00 AM
Filed Under Quotes

Doubt is the father of discovery.

— Galileo

Galileo paid a heavy price for his doubt. It is inspiring to know that he held to its efficacy.


Learning Life’s Lessons

24

Sunday, May 24, 2009 | 8:00 AM
Filed Under Quotes

There are many people who reach their conclusions about life like schoolboys: they cheat their master by copying the answer out of a book without having worked the sum out for themselves.

— Søren Kierkegaard


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