A Different Portrait of America
Accumulating stuff takes time. After reading this unusal portrait of America, I had one question: How much time do people actually spend shopping? Until the end of my teenage years, I used to enjoy bargain hunting immensely and spent endless hours in pursuit of gadget that fell within my budget. I hate shopping now and my favorite shopping experience is Amazon.com’s “One- Click.” Takes less then a minute to get the item I want delivered to my place.
In Modern Era, Self-Storage Has Right Stuff By DAVID WESSEL (WSJ)
Whatever the strains and shortcomings of the U.S. economy, we Americans have a whole lot more stuff than we used to. How much? So much that there is enough space in rentable self-storage lockers in the U.S. for each man, woman and child to stand on a spot 2
Love and Passion Reconsidered
In college I had the privilege of taking a yearlong reading and writing course that picked a new theme every quarter. In the first term we read books and wrote essays on the idea of love going back all the way to Plato’s Symposium. Although I was fully able to articlulate Plato’s view of love, I emotionally did not understand what Plato was talking about. I wish the review article “Fidelity With a Wandering Eye ” by Christina Nehring had been on our reading list. Nehring is deeply informed, her language is clear, and its a pleasure to follow her guided tour. See for yourself by clicking on the “More” button.
America’s “Deep Throat” in Action
What a man! Taking down a president is no small job even in a democracy. Mark Felt, then working in Salt Lake City, posed in this 1958 photo.
Turning a Confession into a Small Work of Art
If you have something to confess and a catholic priest is not your type, here is an alternative. I discovered a fantastic weblog called PostSecret. Send them your confession!
Continue Reading
A Conservative Columnist updates Karl Marx
David Brooks fills the role of William Safir as the conversative op-ed columnist in the NY Times. I often don’t agree with his columns but today he is written one that is right on the money about educational segregation.
Karl’s New Manifesto
By DAVID BROOKS (NYT)
I was in the library reading room when suddenly a strange specter of a man appeared above me. He was a ragged fellow with a bushy beard, dressed in the clothes of another century. He clutched news clippings on class in America, and atop the pile was a manifesto in his own hand. He was gone in an instant, but Karl’s manifesto on modern America remained. This is what it said:
Continue Reading
Talk is cheap but surprisingly effective
Sometimes one piece of writing changes one mind. Until today I thought that talk therapy was utterly discredited. But there appears to be strong evidence that a skilled therapist can help the brain to change its relationship to the world.
Depression From The Economist print edition (Apr 14th 2005)
FOR almost a century after Sigmund Freud pioneered psychoanalysis,
Continue ReadingWelcome to the Afterlife of Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow had to die before I would pay any attention to him. I read today’s obituary in the New York Times (click on “more” button) and immediately realized that I should put some of his novels on my summer reading list. I just ordered myself a copy of The Adventures of Augie March, Henderson the Rain King, and Humboldts’ Gift. The New York Times has a special web feature on the work of Bellow. There is also an interesting obituary note in Slate. His editor shares most interesting memories of how Bellow worked. Other writers comment on Below’s influence.
Peter Pan
I started to read Peter Pan. The last time that I came into contact with the characters of the story was in the movie Hook, which invented a sequel to the original Peter Pan. I have not heard about the plot of the original story since childhood and almost completely forgotten it. Reading the book today, therefore, is just like reading a new story. It starts in the most delightful way: All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs Darling put her hand to her heart and cried,
“I only need 5 hours of sleep.” Liar!
WARREN ST. JOHN and ALEX WILLIAMS on today’s NYT provide good news for you night owls. The notion that early risers live more healthily and are more productive is a self-promotional myth. People need to find the sleeping patterns that suits them best!
The Crow of the Early Bird
Mr. Iger, who is married to the television journalist Willow Bay, with whom he has four children, is up at 4:30 in the morning, works out and arrives in the office by 6:30.
The New York Times, March 14, profile of Robert A. Iger, the new president of the Walt Disney Compan
What George F. Kennan might have written about the thread of Al Queida
I read for the first time today what Kennan wrote in 1946. I replaced in my mind the words “Soviet Union” with “Al Queida” and “communism” with “terrorism.” From this vantage point, the last paragraph becomes particularly insightful into our current situation.
WORD FOR WORD | COLD WARRIOR
The Man Who Took the Measure of the Communist Threat
By PETER EDIDIN in NY Times:
GEORGE F. KENNAN, who died Thursday at 101, was “the nearest thing to a legend that this country’s diplomatic service has ever produced,” the historian Ronald Steel has said. He was the man who proposed “containment,” the cornerstone of the cold war, as a way to oppose the Soviet Union.
Continue Reading
© 2026 Peter Murmann. Powered by ExpressionEngine.
