The Inevitable Decline
Noblesse obligeWas under siegeThat battle is doneAnd it's greed that has won.Once the uber rich's predationWould have caused a sensationBut now it is the normSo, the rest of us must conform.Our former...
View ArticleMaslow 101
If you run a regressionOn creative expressionRegarding where you lookYou'll find you were mistook.For the workings inside one's headCan neither be measured nor readAnd while idea fragments internally...
View ArticleFodder for a Loren Tate Column
Recently, Loren has been giving readers a stroll down memory lane (and for most of us he's also going into history before we were around) about Illinois sports, trying to tie past to the present where...
View ArticleNo Unbeaten Teams Left
No team wants to be ranked number oneEach then tanks on the road.The burden makes basketball less than fun.Emotional circuits on overload.#PurdueAndHoustonBothLostYesterday
View ArticleA Belated Response To: College Is All About Curiosity. And That Requires Free...
A Facebook friend posted a link to this NY Times Magazine piece by Professor Stephen L. Carter along with some kudos about how the piece captured the poster's views of what college should be about. In...
View ArticleIt's Time For Some Indoor R&R
Here's a snow burnFrom winter's returnWeather forecasting we learnIs something to spurn.#TheMeltIsSaidToStartSunday
View ArticleShould we call it an upset?
Along the plateau of reasonably good teamsNone wants to be number oneThat honored station a burden or so it seemsTaking away all of the fun.So now we must wait till the Tournament plays outIn order to...
View ArticleFaux Spring
The trees in the park with their dry brown leaves tinkingWhat is it possibly that Mother Nature is thinking?Go outside for a walk and find something oddThen decide whether it's already time to turn the...
View ArticleThe Writer Does The Work So The Reader Doesn't Have To
Once having choseTo avoid brief proseWith rhyme on the noseThen eschew adipose.#IfYouInsistOnOnlyTheGistRhymeOffersATwist
View ArticlePod System for the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament
Illinois is in the East Regional but is playing in Omaha Nebraska. While on Thursday it played the second game that finished in the afternoon, today's game starts in the evening. It is the second to...
View ArticleSports Forecasting
Predicting the future based on the pastHoping the pattern will continue to lastBut for something truly new, what can you say?Which is why we watch all the games they...
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Inadvertent Anti-Learning
For the past couple of weeks I've watched a lot of the NCAA College Basketball Tournament. Even with Illinois' decisive loss to UConn, certainly very disappointing for Illini fans, I continued to...
View ArticleThe Old Dog Is Working On A New Trick
Trying extra hard to restrainImpulse control is a drainYet it is what's neededFor aging to be impededThe message could not be more plain.#HopingToKeepTheOldDemonsAtBay
View ArticleEating as Consolation, Overeating as Habit
This piece is meant as something of a refutation to, A Year on Ozempic Taught Me We’re Thinking About Obesity All Wrong, an opinion piece in the NY Times from 10 days ago. While my critique can...
View ArticleA Simple Statistic for Measuring Income Inequality
The traditional macroeconomic measures of economy-wide performance are the unemployment rate and the inflation rate. When both are low the economy is thought to be performing well. When one or both...
View ArticleIs Seven Days in May, a book and then a movie from the 1960s, relevant for now?
The book was published in 1962. I was 7 at the time. The movie came out in 1964. I don't think I ever saw it in the theater, but I watched it on TV several times, perhaps before I read the book,...
View ArticleA Brief Note in Response to Aaron Sorkin's Opinion Piece
I am reacting to this essay, which appeared in yesterday's New York Times. Let me say first what I liked about it. There is no doubt that now the Democrats need to make an appeal to lifelong...
View ArticleA Selective History from Reagan to Trump
I'm responding to this opinion piece from Peter Wehner entitled What Has Happened to My Party Haunts Me. There is no doubt that those Reagan Republicans still alive today are haunted by all that Trump...
View ArticleAn Oddity That May Be Worth Further Consideration
Nowadays, I mainly do my book reading on an electronic device, mostly that's a Kindle Fire, and recently I read a novel on my new Mac laptop, using the Kindle app for the Mac as the reader. I prefer...
View ArticleDemographics and Democratics
So it seems we now have each political party claiming to be populist. I am quite cynical about Republican populism and I definitely am not alone in that view, for example consider this recent piece by...
View ArticleMale Fail
I'm going to give a brief reaction to this piece in the New York Times: Many Gen Z Men Fell Left Behind. Some See Trump as an Answer. There are three points I'd like to make. First, while at the...
View ArticleImpatience
Getting the meaning in what you readDoing so at near ultimate speedThe inherent contradictionBrings forth an afflictionWhich is termed - intellectual greed.#SlowSlowQuickQuick
View ArticleWhat Will Follow the Trauma of Trump?
The last week or two I've been haunted by the following metaphorical scenario. A cancer patient has learned that the disease has metastasized. There is a particularly large tumor which is causing a...
View ArticleYeah Baby
Giancarlo StantonSeems like he could be in CantonBut with so often going for the downsIts more probable to be Cooperstown.#MVPForTheALCS
View ArticleFrom Long Ago - My Inner Thoughts About Learning Technology And Undergraduate...
What I write here was triggered by seeing an ad in Facebook about a Master Class taught by the well known writer, Michael Lewis. I've read several of his books. Back in 1999, I read The New New...
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