There is a new “Iron Curtain” and its purpose is to deny access to accurate information to the Russian people. — This is fascinating in its scope and implications. This is a translation but the original has been vouched for by a U. of Texas professor I greatly respect. My translation of the analysis of the current situation in Russia by an alleged active FSB analyst. Buckle up for a long…

Passages from The Secret Knowledge by David Mamet — Temple Grandin, an animal behaviorist, cattlewoman, and designer of livestock systems, is autistic and writes extensively about the similarities between autism and animal thinking. Both think in pictures. Both learn through observation. A hand-reared animal does not know how to behave in the wild, what is food, what is threat…

The Caves of Lascaux were lost for 20,000 years. Then a dog fell down a rabbit hole. — — Every Journey Begins With a Stumble “We were utterly crazy,” exclaimed one of the boys. For nearly 300 million years, a black fungal delicacy has lain patiently in the shadows of French Oak, Beech, and Chestnut trees in the Dordogne region of France. The fragrant lumps we call truffles today might still be loitering if an…

In the 1st century B.C., the impassioned expression of a nameless Roman citizen made his wife immortal. — “Take my wife, please,” the Jewish comedian Henny Youngman once said with such definitive sarcasm it became a running commentary on the state of marriage. Little did Youngman know that the joke was borrowed from Roman antiquity, minus the sarcasm, of course (another concept also borrowed from Latin).

Elon Musk was right to hold a Twitter poll. 3.5 million people voted. He will now sell $20 billion of Tesla shares. This explains why. — Why Elon Musk’s Twitter Poll Was Smart Some of us awoke to the headline, “Tesla Share Price Slides After Musk Promises to Sell $21 Billion Stake.” Was this another of Musk’s “oops” moments, similar to smoking marijuana on a podcast or selling his only home? For the world’s wealthiest man…

When did social media become a dystopian religion? About four hundred years ago. — Question: When did social media become a dystopian religion? Answer: About four hundred years ago. Call it the year of Tweeting badly. Rants on social media are now substituted for scientific reasoning. No one gets the final say until they are blocked. If you say anything that disagrees with the…

Malcolm Forbes proved that you have to change your life to change your career. — “To measure the man, measure his heart.” ― Malcolm Forbes In 1990, a yellow taxi dropped me on lower 5th Avenue a block or two where Greenwich Village meets Little Italy. It was bitterly cold, and I yanked the belt on my trench coat. A red Mercedes honked the horn…

The founding principles of the magazine that calls itself a newspaper “To take part in a severe contest between intelligence.” To those who believe The Economist is meant to be about the economy, that is logical but inaccurate. The New York Times doesn’t write about time, nor does Time magazine…