Monthly Archives: August 2011

Currency exchange: The trade that matters most can never be quantified financially.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of currency in the exchange of values. If we think in strict economic terms, all we see is money and goods. But if you broaden the idea of value-pursuit to all human … Continue reading

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Good news: Transplantable hearts can be kept beating and warm in transit.

This is a snarky take from Dvice, but it’s wonderfully good news if you like being alive: It’s like something out of science fiction or a horror movie or both: in order to facilitate transplants, we can now keep human … Continue reading

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Good news: The bad news is wrong: Even when they aren’t hoaxes, media scares are overblown and under-researched.

From Pajamas Media: All of the analogous 26 alarms analyzed by Green and Armstrong turned out to be false, either completely or to such an extent that actions intended to be remedial caused greater harm than the supposed problem. See … Continue reading

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Good news: “Nowadays, history belongs to the first photographer to post the pictures of it.”

The author of this piece, from The Wall Street Journal, can’t see the silver lining for the clouds, but all this seems to me to be a cause to celebrate: We are no longer hostages to the tendentious “professionals” of … Continue reading

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Good news: A teaching company gives the public what universities no longer supply: A curriculum in the monuments of human thought.

From City Journal: Despite several brushes with mortality in its start-up years, after a decade, the firm was earning $20 million in sales, reported Forbes this January. From the start, some customers developed an intensely personal relationship with the product, … Continue reading

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How rich will you have to get before you stop insisting to yourself that you are so very poor?

Ten gorgeous televisions, all in a row. How many hi-def sets — TVs and monitors — do you have in your house right now? How long before you have this many — or more?

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Reifying Steve Jobs: Think different. Do better. And thrive.

Steve Jobs announced his resignation today as CEO of Apple, Inc. From that one little tidbit of information, we can foresee a long, slow roll-out of “news” content. Tonight and tomorrow we’ll see the newsy stuff — Jobs’ biography, his … Continue reading

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A rallying cry for the Tea Party rebellion: “You’re not the boss of me!”

I love that phrase — “You’re not the boss of me!” — those words, that order, that emphasis. Children say it when they’re put upon, and I love it so much I write it into their mouths in fiction, too. … Continue reading

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Reasons to embrace me: #1 — I can show you how to have the kind of sex you’ve always dreamed about.

For real. Droolicious, palsyfying sex, the kind of deeply satisfying soul-enriching love-making you’ve always known was possible, but which you’ve always missed out on — usually by a couple-hundred-billion miles. No details just yet — if you want to get … Continue reading

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Reasons to dismiss me: #1 — I don’t care if you do.

I write for my own ears. I’ve said that before, but it matters to me more than you can guess. I can defend that proposition from a lot of different directions, but the words themselves say what I most want … Continue reading

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