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All about the standing-upright chimps that really love to talk about themselves.
Fear stalks women in America even when amoral men aren’t directly targeting them. This post from last year discusses how fear is a part of our culture, and drives far too much of our politics.
Freedom. It’s the basis of not just our system, but the values that the system was created to protect. Americans value their freedom above everything else.
But do we really have what it takes to be truly a free people today?
It’s October! Time for you to watch this absolute classic of animation and lose yourself in the brilliant score. This post is part of the annual tradition, first run in 2015.
It’s the spooky season, but it’s also the fun season. Before Winter wraps its embrace around us there is Halloween, the last chance to have some fun. It’s a challenge to the eerie creep of darkness we’re still adjusting to, still resisting at least one last time.
No movie captures the season for me quite like “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” the epic Tim Burton classic of stop-motion animation from the old school. Released in 1993, it was immediately recognized as a great classic movie for the holidays – Halloween, for the fun of it, and Christmas for the cynically twisted reaction to what it has become.
What makes this movie, however, isn’t just the great story and animation. The score by Danny Elfman is pure genius – and belongs in the repertoire of classical greats.
This piece from a year ago is still valid.
A lot of people are upset about the direction of the nation. Nearly a two to one ration finds that the nation is on the wrong track, according to a Rasmussen poll. That fits with the ongoing controversies sweeping our mindscapes involving protests of various kinds.
A lack of faith in our government should be one thing which unites us. It’s something of an American tradition, after all. Some think it’s involved in vast conspiracies. Some want to stockpile arms against it. Some think it’s just plain incompetent. Some think our history is a complete lie.
No one, anywhere, thinks that government is going to solve all of our problems. No one trusts it completely. No one thinks our taxation system is completely fair. No one thinks that the system always produces justice.
Yet protests about our system or our government are the surest way to spark a highly emotional shouting match that transcends any ability to get anything done. And there may be a good reason.
Call it the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” or the more hip “Industry 4.0” if you like. What matters most is that industry, or the process of making things, is changing in ways that seem fundamental and permanent. The world is moving on to a new era which, difficult as times like this can be to understand, appears to be rather well defined and describable.
If you do a deep dive into Industry 4.0, however, there is still something missing. It’s the “why” of the process which seems to be at least assumed, if not elusive. Not just why it is happening, but why it is being driven now and why it is expected to cast aside Industry 3.0.
What’s missing in the increasing chatter of Industry 4.0 appears to be the fundamental force behind it, which is the decline of what we might call “capitalism” in favor of a purely market centered, low overhead “marketism” approach.
I have read that email is dead. Well, it isn’t – especially as a formal introduction to a stranger when asking for a job, et cetera. That makes these tips, first published two years ago, even more important.
Long ago in a High School far away, we were all taught how to write a formal business letter. It included the date, return address, and all the pertinent information needed to either file it away or write a reply. It also had a standard format, not terribly different from the standard five paragraph theme.
Today, everything is done in email. Everything. The sorting and replying are automatic, the formality is limited, and the attention span of the reader is probably short. What is the right format for a formal email to a client or prospective employer?
There is no right answer. I have been asked this by many clients over the years, and I have my own format that seems to work. If you have your own, please share with us and let’s see what we all come up with.
Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 