I read a wonderful novel tonight, Patrick DeWitt’s very dark & very comedic “tragedy of manners,” French Exit. (h/t the display stand at the local public library.) 📚
I hadn’t heard of translator Anthea Bell until I read her obituary yesterday. But then I realized that the day before, I had started one of her translations: of Stefan Zweig’s The World of Yesterday. So far, the book is profound, tragic, & absolutely captivating. 📚
The implausible idea of a "chief ethics officer"
I read Kara Swisher’s recent column on the need for chief ethics officers in Silicon Valley with great interest & great skepticism. Swisher documents, with droll understatement, just a few of the ethical “quandaries” [their words] our giant mega-corporate start-ups have faced (or created): Corporations accepting loads of money from Saudi Arabia (cozying up to Saudi Arabia is a problem they share with the NYT itself, incidentally) Facebook lying (again!
A wonderful short essay on soccer & politics in Brazil, from Andrew Downie in the London Review of Books: Sócrates & Brazilian Democracy.
Joan Barry & two forms of political belief
This article is fascinating. It follows Joan Barry, a Missouri Democrat whose politics don’t neatly fit entirely within party lines, as she tries to make some room for pro-life Democrats within the party. I think it reveals some damaging assumptions undergirding contemporary political life. Consider why one person quoted rejects Barry’s position: Right now it’s really important to stand for something. Later on, someone else uses very similar language to dismiss Barry:
Fall Walks, Silverwood Park
2018-10-17 2018-10-18
Truth vs useful knowledge: Teaching business students *How to Think*
I’m teaching Alan Jacobs’s book How to Think to my business communication students this semester. Communicating and thinking are inseparable, and I’ve always tried and struggled to integrate critical thinking into my course. Previously, I’ve tried using John Lanchester’s How to Speak Money, in addition to assorted essays and excerpts, without much success. But Jacobs’s book has gone much better so far, because it does something that the other books haven’t: it meets the students where they’re at, in a social-media environment that is shaping their habits of thinking and communicating in ways none of us fully recognizes or understands.
I work with a lot of different foreign languages, & Korean is my favorite, hands down. The font we use makes it look like hieroglyphics from the future.
Everything you need to know about Facebook’s understanding of journalism—in one useful ad!
Happy 85th birthday to the great Wayne Shorter! We mere mortals can celebrate by reading Ethan Iverson on Shorter’s transcendental year, 1964.
While you read, listen to his albums from that year: Night Dreamer, Juju, & Speak No Evil. 🎂📚🎶