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2008 LETTERS
-new- Mile 9: The Journey of the Long Distance Runner (April 30, 2008)
“Our leaders have not caught up to our runners.”
To read more, click here.
Tipping Points V: Toilets, Trees, and Taste Treats (April 23, 2008)
“A glut of pig will add girth to your belly and fingerlickin’ stories to your memories.”
To read more, click here.
The Natural Aristocrat (April 16, 2008)
“We have been exalting shoddy products and half-baked services ever since. This has put us on the path to nowhere.”
To read more, click here.
Tipping Points IV: Plain Speaking (April 9, 2008)
“Because we don’t talk to the issues in a simple way, we even lose the ability to think straight about things.”
To read more, click here.
Homo Sapiens in a Barnum and Bailey World (April 2, 2008)
“We’re a a time when unusual people are heroic, and our institutions knaves.”
To read more, click here.
Tipping Points III: The Kitchen Sink Chronicles (March 19, 2008)
“As the American economy craters and our financial system teeters, we can only wonder whether kitchen sink politics will assert itself here, as in Japan....”
To read more, click here.
Humpty Dumpties: Chindia Rising (March 12, 2008)
“The Beltway Bandits have emptied out the federal larder.”
To read more, click here.
Tipping Points II (March 5, 2008)
“The turnaround of America’s economy is much more dependent on global agility than wonkish mini-moves on the domestic front.”
To read more, click here.
Well-Seasoned Food (February 27, 2008)
“It takes a huge amount of time and ingestion to get inside another culture and gain a genuine feel for it.”
To read more, click here.
Tipping Points I (February 20, 2008)
“To further contribute to your uneasiness, we intend to bring you little bulletins in today’s letter of odds and ends that might be worth knowing about for one reason or another.”
To read more, click here.
Death Be Not Proud: The Grey Market (February 13, 2008)
“What we can most discover in better obituaries is that people of interest have several lives and multiple personalities.”
To read more, click here.
Losers and Winners: Pirates of America (January 30, 2008)
“It’s clear that crises abound which only the unusual can surmount.”
To read more, click here.
The Swedish Uncertainty (January 23, 2008)
“For many visitors the soul of the Swede is elusive.”
To read more, click here.
Gimme Shelter: Companies You Love to Hate (January 16, 2008)
“The vituperation bait-and-switch companies arouse leads to a tainted atmosphere.”
To read more, click here.
One Nation Indivisible: All Fired Up (January 9, 2008)
“Only when we rethink our politics will business get going again.”
To read more, click here.
Getting Your Hands Dirty (January 2, 2008)
“One is well advised to pick one’s experts carefully.”
To read more, click here.
2007 LETTERS
The Art of Gifting; Tis the Season to Be Jolly (December 12, 2007)
“Good things come from somewhere, not everywhere.”
To read more, click here.
Friends of Global Province (December 5, 2007)
“[O]ur charter is to be a bit more creative than other firms, so we also wander pretty far afield.”
To read more, click here.
Getting out of the Hothouse (November 28, 2007)
“It is apparent that our push to do more and go higher has often become a losing game, where systems, parents, teachers, students, and institutions implode.”
To read more, click here.
All About Bird Dogs: Knowing What We’re Here For (November 14, 2007)
“As the saying goes, these bird dogs can find a lot of ‘new pigeons’ for us.”
To read more, click here.
Precious Imports: We Need Those Personas Non Grata (November 7, 2007)
“A rethink is in order, because we often are not guarding the right gates.”
To read more, click here.
Looking for Small Fish in Big Pond (October 31, 2007)
“[We] must be small, agile fish in a huge pond.”
To read more, click here.
Globalization: Culture Carriers (October 24, 2007)
“As we are discovering in our consulting practice, art travels and transforms.”
To read more, click here.
Europe: The Whole Is less than the Sum of Its Parts (October 17, 2007)
“It’s the paradox of our time that only unbelievers ... celebrate the wide
open opportunities the future still offers to us.”
To read more, click here.
Natural Energy: They Said It Couldn’t Be Done
(October 10, 2007)
“It’s the paradox of our time that only unbelievers ... celebrate the wide
open opportunities the future still offers to us.”
To read more, click
here.
The
Repairmen
(October 3, 2007)
“This idea of obsolescence is outmoded.”
To read more, click
here.
Lies, Estrogen, Useful Tips, Saving on Gas, Microtrends, Homespun Wisdom,
and Urawaza
(September 19, 2007)
“There’s a need to act in the face of this sea of misinformation.”
To read more, click
here.
A Noble & Thrifty Tree
(September 12, 2007)
“No culture anywhere can reach for the heavens without a lofty tree.”
To read more, click
here.
The Lost Art of Luxury
(September 5, 2007)
“True luxury not only depends on well honed products but on grace and
good deportment from the whole congregation—from every customer and every
server.”
To read more, click
here.
The End Is in Sight
(August 29, 2007)
“Busy shoring up the past, companies generally have not uncovered a new
corporate architecture and grand strategy that take aim at the years ahead.”
To read more, click
here.
O
Captain! My Captain!
(August 22, 2007)
“We no longer have to worry about Red Octobers and other Soviet threats: we
have seen the new enemy and it may be us.”
To read more, click
here.
Did Camus Ever Giggle?
(August 8, 2007)
“Serious is a disease of the spirit that’s going around now,
and it’s to be dreaded as much AIDS or bird flu.”
To read more, click
here.
How to Vacation
(August 1, 2007)
“The planet’s as tired as we are. Give it a break.”
To read more, click
here.
Flying into the Eye of the Hurricane
(July 25, 2007)
“It’s axiomatic that you have to get outside the very big cities to find
someone who truly knows something undiscovered.”
To read more, click
here.
The Bronze Horseman
(July 18, 2007)
“Around the world we have raised a whole generation that has never
been touched by greatness.”
To read more, click
here.
Don't Hang Up
(July 11, 2007)
“TV and cell phones had the potential to make a much better world,
but instead, seem to have gorged it with mediocrity.”
To read more, click
here.
Caught a Big One
(July 4, 2007)
“Isn’t it interesting what can get done with four hour lunches and no
contracts?”
To read more, click
here.
Gone Fishin’
(June 13, 2007)
“One can beat the unbeatable with slowness and strategic retreats.”
To read more, click
here.
It Pays You Not to Be a Philistine
(June 6, 2007)
“Culture ... still pays off. Herein lie dramatic lessons for urban and
national development.”
To read more, click
here.
Literay
Martinis
(May 30, 2007)
“If we are to preserve ‘taste,’ we must fashion valuable
one-of-a-kind local products that are integral to our culture—that are not
at all the same the world over.”
To read more, click
here.
Fixing Our Martinis and Our Health
(May 23, 2007)
“All the stuff and nonsense we surround ourselves with is laying us low.”
To read more, click
here.
The Name Game
(May 16, 2007)
“There’s a whole industry built around this naming of things that gives very
expensive, often mistaken advice to the world’s biggest companies for which
corporate chieftains pay a wad.”
To read more, click
here.
Better Than Best—Second: Terroir
(May 9, 2007)
“Everything—earth, sun, climate—must come together to make for perfection.
An alignment of the stars.”
To read more, click
here.
Better Than Best—First
(May 2, 2007)
“In a globally connected world, one is looking for artisans and individuals
who are disconnected enough to rise above the herd.”
To read more, click
here.
The Babes of New York and Mount Everest
(April 25, 2007)
“In a town where the men do not distinguish themselves by pursuing the
common interest and civilized interchange, they were both life giving and
lively.”
To read more, click
here.
North
Country Fair
(April 18, 2007)
“This helpfulness and down-to-earthness just don’t happen in most places.”
To read more, click
here.
Resurrection
(April 11, 2007)
“[W]e are seeking some way to turn around big corporations, institutions,
and governments in decline. To restore their get up and go.”
To read more, click
here.
Fly in the Ointment
(April 4, 2007)
“Beware of fine businesses that have been shopped around too much. They lose
it.”
To read more, click
here.
In Praise of Siestas
(March 28, 2007)
“We require new energy and new thinking from all those small countries that
go unnoticed and where things are working a bit better.”
To read more, click
here.
La
Fhéile Pádraig:
Corned Beef
and Cabbage (March 21, 2007)
“We might, as well, celebrate the Irish miracle, even if it does not have
religious origins.”
To read more, click
here.
Up against the Wall
(March 14, 2007)
“Turning them around involves a top to bottom shakeup, much more
comprehensive than financial engineers, strategy gurus, or operations
managers can envision.”
To read more, click
here.
Dog Gone
(March 7, 2007)
“Getting more craft back into our goods and services ... is our only
answer to manufactures from other nations oversupplied with laborers who
receive each month what our workers earn in a day.”
To read more, click
here.
In Search of Searchlights
(February 28, 2007)
“The world of intelligence is the same as the world of media is the
same as the world of digital media.”
To read more, click
here.
A Few Good Buys
(February 21, 2007)
“We have a theory that you should take a look at companies that have been to
hell and back. It’s like going to the secondhand store and getting a
deal.”
To read more, click
here.
Prometheus Unbound: Catching Fire
Again
(February 14, 2007)
“It’s rather ironic that the true imperative of globalization is to
understand how to get increasingly local, particular, special,
one-of-a-kind, like-no-other.”
To read more, click
here.
UnZipping Memories
(February 7, 2007)
“Are the atmospherics such that it’s just too hard to think straight?”
To read more, click
here.
High on the
Hog
(January 31, 2007)
“As near as we can make out, good humor and celebrations seem to be enemies
of the state almost everywhere on earth: governments do a better job at
funerals.”
To read more, click
here.
The Cost of Things
(January 24, 2007)
“Now the price of ‘too much’ is ‘too high.’ Perhaps the follies of
youth become the psychoses of old age. Then it was playful excess; now it’s
competitive materialism decked out in stress.”
To read more, click
here.
The Translator's Alchemy
(January 17, 2007)
“We need interpretation, communication, intellectual vigor,
instruction infused with the honest spirit that pours in through stained
glass windows. Then we will hear the warning bells.”
To read more, click
here.
For the Love of Learning
(January 10, 2007)
“In some measure, new forms of education are arising that diminish the very
importance of our current, plodding institutions that have lost the ability
to teach people to read and write.”
To read more, click
here.
2006 LETTERS
-new-
A Votre Sante
(December 27, 2006)
“Health is when you are still in the driver’s seat.”
To read more, click
here.
The Quiet Man
(December 20, 2006)
“In statecraft, too, it is possible that solid accomplishment comes
from those who can hide their light under a bushel.”
To read more, click
here.
Wal-Mart on the Rack
(December 13, 2006)
“Wal-Mart has remade the world, but now the world has to remake Wal-Mart.”
To read more, click
here.
Literary Notions
(December 6, 2006)
“At the moment, the ‘madness of
crowds’ is in its ascendancy, not ‘wisdom.’”
To read more, click
here.
The Good Society
(November 29, 2006)
“Again, the question is whether we can stop some of the huge stuff,
and migrate to some of the right stuff.”
To read more, click
here.
Easy
Shopping for Christmas and Other Celebrations
(November 22, 2006)
“We are going to give you some recommendations on which you can rely, sight
unseen.”
To read more, click
here.
The Devil Really Is in the Details
(November 15, 2006)
“Media is about connectedness, but most of the media-ites are very
disconnected.”
To read more, click
here.
The Eighth Wonder of the World
(November 1, 2006)
“[T]here are many mile-high
towers around waiting to be pulverized.”
To read more, click
here.
Washington’s Marginalia
(October 25, 2006)
“Apple, we think, had the shrewd thought: one wants to move around
the various establish-
ments, cherry picking an item here and an item there. No one place has got
it all.”
To read more, click
here.
Sticks and
Stones
(October 18, 2006)
“[W]e need patrons, not collectors of sticks and stones. Commissioners of
greatness.”
To read more, click
here.
Never Say Never
(October 11, 2006)
“There is quite a need to know what’s well over the horizon. And to
forget about tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.”
To read more, click
here.
Le Déjeuner sur l’herb
(October 4, 2006)
“Now, for our health, we have to break free of the mindless mechanism
in which we are caught that seems to have us running fast the wrong ways.”
To read more, click
here.
Dr. Johnson's Stone
(September 27, 2006)
“Put bluntly, the paradox is that the best players on the globe may
not survive in a world of comparative advantage. The marketplace works
rather imperfectly.”
To read more, click
here.
The Color of Money
(September 20, 2006)
“When you do things wrong, sooner or later you cease to exist.”
To read more, click
here.
Can You Forgive Her?
(September 13, 2006)
“It is possible that culture can put a mark on a company’s product
and services that give it a leg up in the marketplace. Culture, in fact, is
part of our economic infrastructure.”
To read more, click
here.
The
Big Sleep
(September 6, 2006)
“[T]here’s no education without leisure. And there’s no leisure without
sleep.”
To read more, click
here.
Terroir
(August 30, 2006)
“It’s not enough to be a brand anymore. The product must come from a
time and place—Hawaii, Iwo Jima, Chambertin.”
To read more, click
here.
I Can't Believe I Ate the Whole Thing
(August 23, 2006)
“We have advised our clientele that social messaging can be compared
to humorous advertising. Only certain types of products and services can
bear the freight of social messages.”
To read more, click
here.
The Power of Attention Deficit Magnified
(August 16, 2006)
“It’s an interesting thing about entrepreneurs: they sort of succeed because
they cannot stay focused and so they find time to go up alleys the rest of
us are content to ignore.”
To read more, click
here.
Summer Reading: Elegant Getaways
(August 9, 2006)
“We want to know about uncommonality.”
To read more, click
here.
Rum and the Fancy Food Show
(August 2, 2006)
“Truly special niches have to be uncovered where special craft and intimacy
between makers and users are the key drivers of individuality.”
To read more, click
here.
Good
Morning, Heartache
(July 26, 2006)
“With our medical system so awry, we need physicians who consciously
swim upstream, fight the tendency to churn our procedures and pills, and
understand thoroughly the humanistic dimensions of their art.”
To read more, click
here.
Two Women Expatriates
(July 19, 2006)
“Across the world the men in power are making a hash of things,
having risen too easily to comfortable levels of incompetence where they can
muck it up for the rest of us....”
To read more, click
here.
The Torquay Phenomenon: Bureaucracy Unbounded
(July 12, 2006)
“Bureaucrats do what they do, not because it’s leading anywhere, but because
it’s what they know how to do and it’s what they have always done.”
To read more, click
here.
Fish House Punch
(July 5, 2006)
“We haul out the usual array of delights for the Fourth—corn on the cob and
hot dogs, a dip in a cool stream, a timid patch of fireworks, and remembered
moments of the Tall Ships on the Hudson, the Statute of Liberty, and the
Empire State Building festooned with bright lights during the Bicentennial
back in 1976.”
To read more, click
here.
Tennessee Gone Missing
(June
28, 2006)
“Tennessee seems to have turned its back on beauty and its Volunteer
tradition and become something else, something elusive.”
To read more, click
here.
Looking
Backwards in Greensboro
(June
14, 2006)
“If Greensboro can get reignited, so can North Carolina....”
To read more, click
here.
Tinker's Dam
and Other Errata (June
7, 2006)
“This is only one of several examples of mucking about with the scientific
process, all brought about because the short-sighted have been promoting
their political agenda.”
To read more, click
here.
Lament for Mexico: Destiny Thwarted (May
31, 2006)
“[T]he
best of Mexico is unknown amid a system that cannot be amended, but must be
totally redone.”
To read more, click
here.
The
Real Right Stuff (May
24, 2006)
“Clearly management understood that it’s people with heart who make things
right—not rulemakers.”
To read more, click
here.
What Do They Know of Cricket Who Only Cricket Know? (May
17, 2006)
"To
know one thing, no matter how well, is not to know very much."
To read more, click
here.
More Is Less (May
10, 2006)
"America’s
largest corporations are today much like the Spanish Armada—big and unwieldy."
To read more, click
here.
Imus: Almost Walking Wounded (May
3, 2006)
"We
simply think America—and all the developed countries—are growing old,
reaching the stage where one complains about things instead of doing
something about them. It gets easy to be cantankerous and churlish."
To read more, click
here.
UnCanny Tom Canning (April
26, 2006)
"[Canning's]
offspring are just out with a book of his prose and poetry, sadly in a
limited edition that most of the world will not see. You would find it a
far better missal for modern life than those slim-pickins-self-help books
that dot the bestseller lists."
To read more, click
here.
Resurrections (April
19, 2006)
"Still
miraculous ... are the institutions and people who have come back onto the
stage, cats with nine lives."
To read more, click
here.
The Czeching Rangers (April
12, 2006)
"[I]t
is no longer certain the migrants should remain forever in their new land
and that a fluid model where people move more than once may be the best for
all concerned."
To read more, click
here.
Fire and Darkness (April
5, 2006)
"For
every scenario, you have to prepare for its opposite."
To read more, click
here.
Lost Treasures (March
29, 2006)
"There
is a real question as to where the public health establishment is helping,
and where it is hurting."
To read more, click
here.
Climb Another Mountain (March
22, 2006)
"Our
own thought is that high-order creativity in America is, above all, the
result of successful importation from abroad."
To read more, click
here.
Our
Favorite Dirty,
Rotten Scoundrels (March
15, 2006)
"There’s
always plenty of lust and avarice to go around. In politics we call it
corruption."
To read more, click
here.
Patria Nostra and Genuine Fakes (March
8, 2006)
"When
the prophets of doom are crying the loudest, then we are well instructed to
give the patient another look. Recovery is probably right around the
corner."
To read more, click
here.
Vapor Brands (March
1, 2006)
"If
you ever decide to become a seer during times of great change, we recommend
that you read the daily papers, see what they insist is most happening, then
take a look behind the screen where you will discover that the flipside is
actually true."
To read more, click
here.
Our Intrepid
Cohorts (February
22, 2006)
"The
auto industry in the West is simply undergoing painful consolidation."
To read more, click
here.
Museums: Is There a
Muse in the House (February
15, 2006)
"Museums
can own the culture market, because colleges, schools, theaters, and others
that have traditionally been media for dispensing culture have lost that
capacity, as the nature of the experiences there become more production-like
and less imbued with a love of learning."
To read more, click
here.
Boundary Jumpers (February
8, 2006)
"The
world over, financial markets are sending us signals that are causing us to
put our bucks in the wrong buckets."
To read more, click
here.
Autos: The Thrill Is Gone (February
1, 2006)
"We
can have one-of-a-kind autos, rather one of our neighbor’s kind."
To read more, click
here.
Brush with Death (January
25, 2006)
"One
swats the carrion-sniffing flies aside and savors the moment."
To read more, click
here.
Getting out of
Limbo (January
18, 2006)
"[O]ur
top level managers also are stumbling around in Limbo, not energized by a
belief in tomorrow and a devotion to greatness."
To read more, click
here.
Up the Down
Staircase (January
11, 2006)
"It
is still possible to be a growth business or a growth institution. But
intelligence has to triumph over oafish greed."
To read more, click
here.
Domestic Bliss (January
4, 2006)
"The
decline of mass audiences embracing all the variety and all the age groups
that make up America and the rise of private homefare for many
entertainments is an earthshaking economic event for the
media-entertainment-cultural-institution industry."
To read more, click
here.
2005 LETTERS
In Praise of Excess (December
28, 2005)
"It’s
just possible that creative, grand people occasionally do need boilermakers
coursing in their veins."
To read more, click
here.
Why Experts Are
Wrong! (December
21, 2005)
"It’s
not clear, in other words, that experts should run the world, because,
curiously, they rule out the complex, in favor of one-way, my-way notions."
To read more, click
here.
In Search of
Perfection (December
14, 2005)
"The
creative insight and the hint of perfection always lurks at the margins,
somewhere hidden from view."
To read more, click
here.
Why Not Turn Back the Clock? (December
7, 2005)
"Let’s
save something worth saving—that century of independent thinking that gave
birth to our country."
To read more, click
here.
Men
at Work (November
30, 2005)
"If
people are to labor without pause, they need to know their work adds up to
something. But the system turns them into robots programmed to ladle out
bad porridge."
To read more, click
here.
New York: Chacun A Son Gout (November
23, 2005)
"The
chase for the perfect and the elusive in Manhattan is a great deal of fun,
leavened by the knowledge that sooner or later you will find something worth
having."
To read more, click
here.
Just One Fish in the Big Pond (November
16, 2005)
"[W]ith
the end of the Cold War, there’s not one center, or two centers, but a host
of nodes that control our economy and our politics. If we face that
reality, then we will have a better future.."
To read more, click
here.
Big Footprints (November
9, 2005)
"It’s
hard to have Big Ideas about small products and small markets, so nano-thinking
has taken over the stage and tried to come to grips with a declining economy
by offering niche products aimed at fractions of the market."
To read more, click
here.
Just
a Crapshoot (November
2, 2005)
"In
a world that’s in utter turmoil and a world economy that’s equally roiled,
the high rollers are still out shooting a little craps."
To read more, click
here.
The Medicine Men; the Cancer Paradox (October
26, 2005)
"At
the point when specialists infected the health system in America, we started
treating diseases instead of curing people."
To read more, click
here.
In Search of a Joke (October 19, 2005)
"We
have long known that art and propaganda don’t mix very well: eventually
propaganda, not art, becomes the goal, and the audience races for the doors."
To read more, click
here.
Lorenzo's Oil
(October 12, 2005)
"We
believe that in a world of distributed intelligence and virtual networks
value is added by unlikely partnerships."
To read more, click
here.
BioWillie
(October 5, 2005)
"Our
sober leaders tell us that so-called alternate energy sources will never
provide more than a drop in the bucket of our energy needs. It’s fossil
fuel and atomic fission/fusion or nothing, and don’t stop to think about
global warming. Or so they say."
To read more, click
here.
Sportsmanship
(September
28, 2005)
"Is
the essence of sportsmanship a graciousness of spirit that allows one to
treat one’s antagonists as comrades?"
To read more, click
here.
Acadia and Other Deviations off the Beaten Track
(September
21, 2005)
"It
is morbid to quiver over what’s past, but it is simply exciting to hone in
on the future."
To read more, click
here.
Gales of Creative Destruction? Islands of Self Reliance (September
14, 2005)
"The
trouble, lately, of course is that we have had a lot of destruction—without
the creative."
To read more, click
here.
Not to Worry (September
7, 2005)
"There
are two types of seer in Wall Street."
To read more, click
here.
The Uses of Prayer (August
31, 2005)
"Prayer
has something to do with saving oneself. But, as well, we think it is part
and parcel of reconstructing society in the 21st century."
To read more, click
here.
Restoration in August (August
24, 2005)
"Gardening,
as it turns out, is very much about worms and water, the terrestrial
infrastructure which makes all things possible."
To read more, click
here.
Investment Outlook: Infrastructure (August
17, 2005)
"We
are still a long ways off from the kind of collaboration we require to move
on the biggest problems of the world. In many ways, conquering space and
time is not a technical problem, but more of a psychological or ethical
problem."
To read more, click
here.
Anthony Converse (August
10, 2005)
"We
are peopled with talented, advantaged men and women. But they lack purpose."
To read more, click
here.
The Healthy Society (August
3, 2005)
"As
near as we can tell, we are very much getting the wrong answers about how to
set health care to rights because we are asking the wrong questions."
To read more, click
here.
The Collapse of the Ivory Tower (July
27, 2005)
"Ideas,
or the lack of them, matter we think. The evaporation of principles and
conceptual structure in philosophy have gradually drained the popular
marketplace of big ideas."
To read more, click
here.
On Writing Well (July
20, 2005)
"Strategy
in these United States will revive when our people can put one word in front
of another in a way that goes somewhere."
To read more, click
here.
Annual Reports from 2004: Hubris:
The Fat Cat Gets Fatter (July
13, 2005)
"Annual
reports 2004 are very dour and hopelessly thick, the optimistic words
notwithstanding."
To read more, click
here.
And the Earth Moved (July
6, 2005)
"Infrastructure
probably will be where the real money will be made for the next 25 years,
and the wise investor will put many long-term dollars into this sector."
To read more, click
here.
Heart Surgery Coming Soon to Santa
Fe
(June 29, 2005)
"So
what if there is no heart doctor. You are there to enjoy yourself, not to
seek immortality or even another year of life."
To read more, click
here.
Best of Class Index
(June 22, 2005)
"Best
of Class now has some 365 entries, covering everything from wine to pepper
mills."
To read more, click
here.
Of Our Company Index
(June 15, 2005)
"We
want to make you fully aware of our Company Index."
To read more, click
here.
Day by Day
(June 8, 2005)
"Cancer
amongst friends makes us think such thoughts."
To read more, click
here.
Secrets of Old Age
(June 1, 2005)
"[T]here’s
nothing much we can do about the body when we get old, but it’s possible to
recharge the mind and, with it, life itself."
To read more, click
here.
Canada's Shrinkwrap Comedians
(May 25, 2005)
"Not
for Canadians are the bragging jokes and stories of Texas that manage to
make molehills into mountains and mortals into giants."
To read more, click
here.
Our Daly Bread
(May 18, 2005)
"Too
much focus on business is bad for these businesses."
To read more, click
here.
Bumper Crop of Swiss Spaghetti
(May 11, 2005)
"You
don’t have to be a churlish rightwinger to know our media’s a mess."
To read more, click
here.
The Price of Tea in China
(May 4, 2005)
"[B]oth
tea and China are extremely pertinent to everything that’s happening in our
world, especially in the economic sphere."
To read more, click
here.
Don't Step in the Same River Twice
(April 27, 2005)
"We
now live in an age of conspicuous conservatism in which, ironically enough,
we are unwinding institutions and ingrained patterns, all in the name of
recapturing some mythical past."
To read more, click
here.
Quantum Thinking
(April 20, 2005)
"[O]ur
knowledge machinery is sclerotic. Big ideas don’t get circulated, and only
the trivial floats through our knowledge canals, stuffed as they are with
fatty substance."
To read more, click
here.
A Better Vintage
(April 13, 2005)
"If
we are to get past the sins of our media that worships hollow men, we must
look for chaps with a certain low key economy of style who seem to have a
penchant for quality."
To read more, click
here.
"My Spring Break"
(April 6, 2005)
"The
City, then, is on remote control at the moment—running well, but far from
vibrant, perhaps bloodless, suddenly faceless."
To read more, click
here.
Debranding
(March 30, 2005)
"[T]he
general debranding of business is the greatest threat to American enterprise
today."
To read more, click
here.
All
About Autism
(March 23, 2005)
"It’s
not a lead-pipe cinch that we are looking in the right places for the causes
of the disease. [B]lind alleys have slowed progress on autism."
To read more, click
here.
The Digitally Distressed and Getting on with It
(March 16, 2005)
"Stress
is here to stay, so what are you going to do with it?"
To read more, click
here.
The
Post-Consumptive Society
(March 9, 2005)
"Our
minds, as much as our stomachs, are surf-fitted."
To read more, click
here.
Laws That Make
Outlaws (March 2, 2005)
"Thoughtful
people of every political stripe know that the government is on a financial
binge, that lending practices are beyond the pale, and this legislation is
irrational providing a t |