Month: April 2020
So, what exactly is your opinion of Major Walter Clopton Wingfield? The overwhelming majority of sophisticated and intelligent people will answer “ahhhh…. None.” But, for a few who play a game called court tennis, Major Walter Clopton Wingfield is the devil incarnate. Why would this be? According to Wikipedia, “Major Walter Clopton Wingfield (1833 –1912) […]
The other day, I wrote a story that introduced the concept of C.E. and B.C.E. to the virus and resulting lockdown. Here’s a quick reminder in case you have overdosed on information, as I have. We think of C.E. and B.C.E. (Common Era and Before the Common Era) as more “inclusive” alternatives to B.C. and […]
Today is my 40th day of lockdown. That has a certain Old Testament quality as it was the customary description of “a long time.” I wonder what, if anything, I might have learned and what has changed under these restrictions. To think about learning and changing, it is helpful to imagine the period before something […]
The last several weeks have ripped more adhesive tape off conventional thinking than any period in recent memory. Every kind of decision now requires thoughtful consideration of the previously unthinkable. The Glover Park Group, a Washington, DC strategic communications and government affairs firm, convened a focus group, did some research and polling and published a […]
For at least the next 200 days, we are likely to be engaged in an ongoing three-front battle. It can either be described as the “3Ps” – pandemic, prosperity, politics – or as the “3Es” – epidemic, economy, election. To be concerned about any one of them seems entirely reasonable, and the anxiety might well […]
Voltaire’s “the perfect is the enemy of the good” is about the high-water mark of my philosophical or theological oeuvre. I lack the patience and perhaps intellectual capability to achieve the standards required in those fields. Seeing a glass as 1% empty when it is also 99% full is too frustrating for me. The famous […]
in a state of bewildered or bewildering disorder or confusion… Are you feeling muddled? If so, you are not alone. I am feeling extremely muddled. All of the curves you can see on graphs like the one above would serve just as easily to depict my learning curves as to things I think I ought […]
I am a big fan of imagination even if I am clueless about the subject. Seeing others do things that are wildly beyond my skillset makes me wonder how they did it or, if that is also beyond me, at least why. Imagination is ephemeral because, once something has been done a few times, it […]