Mike > Recent Status Updates

“When one experiences a profound setback in the course of an enviable life, one has a variety of options. Spurred by shame one may endeavor to hide all evidence in the change in one’s circumstances. In a state of self-pity one may retreat from the world in which one has been blessed to live.
Or, one might join the confederacy of the humbled.

Road trip book. For the most part quite a boring selection. Clearly the editors and I do not share the same taste in stories. Really a struggle to complete the book.

Estimates of impact of open markets & borders on global gdp is +67% to +147%

The only purpose of economic forecasts is to give astrology a better image” - Galbraith

1. Poverty costs about 13 IQ points due to the impact of constant scarcity

2. Nixon’s most important legislation was a basic income for the US. It was blocked by Democrats in the Senate who thought it didn’t go far enough. Major sticking point was view that divorce increased (women were more independent). This later was shown to be statistical error.

15. Contribute to good causes
16. Learn from peers in other countries
17. Listen for dangerous words
18. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives
19. Be a patriot
20. Be as courageous as you can

Lessons:
1. Do not obey in advance
2. Defend institutions
3. Beware the one party state
4. Take responsibility for the face of the world
5. Remember professional ethics
6. Be wary of paramilitaries
7. Be reflective if you must be armed
8. Stand out
9. Be kind to our language
10. Believe in truth
11. Investigate
12. Make eye contact and small talk
13. Practice corporeal politics
14. Establish a private life

"I wanted you to understand that to be distanced, if even for a moment from fear, is not a passport out of the struggle. We will always be black you and I, even if it means different things in different places."

"Remember the Roma you saw begging in the streets, and the venom with which they were addressed."

"...there is no velocity of escape. Home will find us in any language"

You can no more be black like I am black, than I can be black like your grandfather was black”

“Racism is a visceral process.”

“The world did not have time for the childhoods of black boys and girls...”

“Schools did not reveal truths, they concealed them”

“America makes claims of exceptionalism. one can at once claim to be superhuman, and then plead moral error.”

“...Gettysburg shows that a government by the people and for the people will continue to endure...”. The problem is in the definition of “the people” as that did not at that time include your mother or grandmother, or men like me.