Three TED Talks

07 Monday May 2012

Posted by Richard in Articles & Books of Interest, Escapes and Pleasures

Tags

Jer Thorpe, Sherry Turkle, Susan Cain, TED Talks

Three TED Talks, by Elizabeth Miller

During the month of April, I tried to watch 30 TED talks in 30 days. TED, for those who don’t know, is an annual gathering of some of the world’s leading thinkers and doers out in Long Beach, California. Standing for Technology, Entertainment and Design, the conference usually consist of 50+ talks over four days that allows speakers and attendees to discuss a wide variety of topics. Most talks are about 20-25 minutes long.

Touted as “the ultimate brain spa” and a “4-day journey into the future,” the original conference has grown to include TED-sponsored activities all over the world and on a variety of more specialized topics (the environment, young people etc).

The conference has come a long way since it first debuted in 1984. You can read more abut TED’s history online. These days, it posts most of the talks by featured speakers online (though not right away), which is what motivated me to watch them from the comfort of my own home.

I didn’t quite get to 30 talks in 30 days. I probably watched more like 15, but these are my three favorites, on quite different topics.

Join Me & Robert Caro

01 Tuesday May 2012

Posted by Richard in Escapes and Pleasures

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Free Conversation, Politics & Prose, Robert Caro, The Passage of Power

Having purchased two copies of Robert Caro’s new The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson (Vol.4), I was given four free tickets to a Politics & Prose bookstore event with the author.

Robert Caro will be “in conversation with Mike Allen, chief correspondent of Politico,” the newspaper/Internet/radio/TV outlet that focuses on what’s happening in Washington.

The event is Wednesday evening, May 9 at 7 PM at the Sidwell Friends School, 3825 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington, DC.

I have at least two free tickets (and perhaps three) available for folks to join me.

First to ask…by email, Comment below, or phone.

“Ways of Knowing Truth,” by David P. Stang

01 Tuesday May 2012

Posted by Richard in The Outer Loop

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

Truth, Ways of Knowing

As readers of this website may know, I am on a quest this year to try to understand how we know what we know and particularly how come good folks can differ so much on issues of politics and religion. Along that line, friend Dave Stang sent along the speech below he gave in 2007 in an attempt to school me on this subject.

(Also, see his Comment at the end of Articles of Interest.3)

Articles of Interest.3

30 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by Richard in Articles & Books of Interest

≈ 3 Comments

Here is the third in a series of links to recent articles I’ve found ‘of interest.’

The first three articles, in various ways, ‘talk’ about what has happened and is happening in the world about us. Then there is an article about a modern attempt to follow Odysseus’ Mediterranean ‘jaunt.’ And finally, a very short ‘review’ about a topic that continues to interest me – the brain and how we come to believe what we believe.

Articles of Interest.2

22 Sunday Apr 2012

Posted by Richard in Articles & Books of Interest

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

Aging, Articles of Interest, Book Reviews, Long Reads

Enough folks seemed to like the idea of my posting Articles of Interest, and so I will continue along. Let me know what kinds of articles most interest you. Until then, you’ll get a smattering of my eclectic reading.

For Articles of Interest.2, you’ll find one article relating to food/eating out, one on travel, two book reviews, a column for those who are aging or helping someone who is, and the 2012 Pulitzer Prize winning article for feature writing.

1. Six Rules for Dining Out by Tyler Cowan in The Atlantic Monthly, May 2012. Cowan has a slightly different slant than many restaurant writers.

2. You’re Welcome: Couch-Surfing the Globe, by Particia Marx in the April 16 New Yorker. Another slightly different way of looking at something, this time on traveling (especially if you’re a bit younger than I). Don’t be put off by the title. Hat tip to friend Sal Gaimbanco for alerting me to this article.

3. Wish You Were Here, a new novel by Graham Swift, lovingly reviewed by Washington Post’s fiction editor Ron Charles. I haven’t read it, but the review is intriguing.

4. India Becoming by Akash Kapur, reviewed Mar. 11 in FT Magazine by David Pilling. Another book I haven’t read, but one that also intrigues me, following along on Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forever.

5. Too Many Pills for Aging Patients, a column by Jane Brody in The New York Times, Apr. 16. If you are aging or helping someone who is, check out Brody’s article and recommendations.

6. The Bravest Woman in Seattle, by Eli Sanders in The Stranger, a Seattle Weekly. Sanders recently won a Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for this article. (Note: strong and disturbing content)

As always, please let me and others know of your comments or thoughts on any of the above articles.

Also, do alert me to any article(s) that you think others might find of interest.

Two Good Films

22 Sunday Apr 2012

Posted by Richard in Escapes and Pleasures

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

Foreign Films, Hermano, The Kid with a Bike

The Kid with a Bike ****

Another good foreign film, another one in French with subtitles, another one which offers some hope amidst times and circumstances that are troublesome (See Le Havre, Monsieur Lahzar).,

This one is about an 11 year old boy, Cyril, who has been abandoned by his father and misses him terribly. Living in a children’s home, Cyril desperately wants to find his father. While searching for his father, he literally runs into a kindly young woman, Samantha, who decides to try to help.

The 88-minute film traces Cyril’s search for his father and the growing relationship he has with Samantha. So as not to spoil the film, I’ll refrain from outlining what happens, but the boy and his bike and the woman who is helping him become individuals you will not easily forget.

(Note, wife Ellen did not like The Boy with a Bike as much as I did, but the film was the winner of the Grand Jury Prize ag Cannes and a Golden Globe nominee for Best Foreign Language Film.)

Hermano *****

This Venezuelan film may be the best film we’ve seen this year in our Sunday morning Cinema Club. Maybe the best we’ve seen anywhere so far this year.

It’s the story of two brothers raised in the barrios of La Ceniza. The younger brother, Daniel, “Gato,” was found and rescued by Julio and Julio’s mother. Then raised as brothers, Gato and Julio become inseparable. They also become rising soccer stars and are presented with the opportunity to play professional soccer. What happens then I will leave to when you see the film.

There are so many good aspects to this film, the acting, which almost doesn’t seem like acting, the filming, which while slightly jarring to some folks, I thought was superb, music that adds another layer of interest, and a story line that is much more than the usual sports as a metaphor for life film.

The film has not been shown yet in this country but has won some prizes outside of the US. It will be shown here, opening within the next couple of months after several benefit performances around the country.

Do put it on your list to see.

——————————————————————————————————————————

Monsieur Lahzar, which I reviewed earlier, got a rating of 100% (good or excellent) from our film club when we saw it several weeks ago. Apparently that high a rating has only happened one other time in the 20 years of the movie club (“The Piano” was the other one.). It opens in Washington April 27th.

A Sad Apology

21 Saturday Apr 2012

Posted by Richard in Escapes and Pleasures

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

Sam Wo's, SF Chinatown, Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again

One Last Time

In October of last year, I wrote, “Thomas Wolfe was wrong. You can go home again – almost.”

The topic was an old favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurant in San Francisco’s Chinatown, Sam Wo’s. After being away a few years, I found myself one noon in SF with some free time, and so hastened to Washington St. to see if it was still there. You can read for yourself how delighted I was with what I found.

Now, thanks (?) to my good niece Leslie, comes word that after 100 years, Sam Wo’s is closing. You can read about the details as written in the SF Chronicle, but basically, the place is so far from being acceptable to the Health Department, that it would take a mammoth rebuilding to keep it open.

Alas, the present owner has chosen, probably understandably, not to do so. It will close Friday nite/Saturday morn, April 20/21.

And so my apologies to the also deceased Thomas Wolfe. After going ‘home’ to Sam Wo’s for the last 50 years, that is now no longer possible.

So sad.

Never again.

So sad.

Update: Sat., Apr. 21, 4 PM: Now comes word that there may be hope. According to this article, the owner’s daughter wants to keep Sam Wo’s open and will appear before the Health Board on Tuesday. Stay tuned.

Update, Wed., Apr. 25: The health dept hearing’s over, and all agree that Sam Wo’s can reopen if they correct the code violations. Owner appears to want to do so. No reopening date set. See SF Chronicle latest story.

The Hunger Games: The Books Trump The Movie

18 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by Richard in Escapes and Pleasures

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Jennifer Lawrence, Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

Because so many MillersTime readers (including this editor’s daughter) put The Hunger Games’ triology on their ‘best reads’ list of the last year or two, and because the first of the three films is now out and setting all kinds of box office records, I succumbed to both the books and the movie over the last several weeks.

So here’s my take on the books and the movie. (If you haven’t read said daughter’s take on them both, check out her review here).

Liberals & Conservatives, ‘Explained’

17 Tuesday Apr 2012

Posted by Richard in The Outer Loop

≈ 4 Comments

David P. Stang, a friend, upon reading Chris Mooney’s Liberals and Conservatives Don’t Just Vote Differently, They Think Differently, which I posted yesterday in my new addition to this website, took exception to the article, intimating Mooney was 51 cards short of a full deck (my interpetation of Dave’s comments).

But rather than just throw stones, Dave composed what he calls an ‘essay” to school us on what he believes we all need to know about Liberals and Conservatives.

As I’m in my extended search to understand how good folks can see things so differently, particularly in the area of politics and religion, I post Dave’s thoughtful piece below.

See what you think.

Blogger Nails Sox Sports’ Writers

17 Tuesday Apr 2012

Posted by Richard in Go Sox

≈ 2 Comments

For some time now I have been annoyed by various (Boston) sports’ writers who seem to me delighted to create controversy, stoke ‘controversy,’ and generally confuse good sport’s reporting with manufactured controversies.

I know Boston writers have a history of being tough on the Sox (Teddy made it easy for them), but I’m not talking about that so much as the ‘manufactured’ controversies, the over interpreting, the seeming delight in augmenting even the smallest issue into a major bruhaha (sp?).

The latest along this line is the Bobby V comment on Youk and the fallout resulting. We all know that Bobby talks too much. But so do the (Boston) sports’ writers who need controversy to fill their columns.

I don’t plan to comment on each and every so called controversy this season, but I just read on a friend’s blog what I think is all that needs to be said about Bobby & Youk and whatever else will come along along these lines this season.

Check out what Jere Smith wrote last night in his A Red Sox Fan From Pinstripe Territory blog: An Elvis Man Should Love It.

He nails it.

The New MoneyBall

17 Tuesday Apr 2012

Posted by Richard in Go Sox

≈ Leave a Comment

Now that the season is underway, and especially since most Sox fans have put down sharp objects and stepped away from high places, we can settle into the season and try to enjoy the sport with all its infinite variety.

I’m always looking for articles and discussions about baseball that go beyond the daily scores and the media hype that many writers seem to get paid to produce, articles that add to my understanding of the game.

A few weeks ago I came across this Forbes magazine article by Tom Van Riper, The New Moneyball. Take a look at it.

When you finish reading the article, be sure to click on the link at the end of the third page, Special Report: The Business Of Baseball 2012, to see what your baseball team and all the other teams are worth.

Moneyball it is.

Articles of Interest.1

16 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by Richard in Articles & Books of Interest

≈ 3 Comments

One of the wonderful benefits of the Internet is the access it allows to a wide range of articles, videos, etc., on many, many subjects. One could spend, for example, an hour a day just reading articles on say the Boston Red Sox, much more than was previously available on one’s local sports page where there might be only a few lines and a box score.

Now that I have more leisure to follow my interests (not only the Red Sox, but as you know from MillersTime, escapes and pleasures, family and friends, local, national and global issues, etc.), I come across numerous articles each week that I never would have seen prior to the advent of the Internet and my own retirement from my professional life.

Some of these articles I mention on the website, and some of you have written that you appreciate these links as you never would have seen the article(s) otherwise. But there are many more ‘articles’ I find and read/watch, etc. that don’t necessarily fit into a blog post.

The thought occurred to me that perhaps once a week, perhaps more irregularly than that, I could simply post links to a half dozen or so articles on a variety of topics, that might have interest for MillersTime readers. I’m not sure if this ‘addition’ to the website will pan out over time nor exactly into what form it may morph. (For example, I might include original writing from folks who want a place to post something they have written.)

Robert Caro: “”The Passage of Power”

13 Friday Apr 2012

Posted by Richard in The Outer Loop

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

biography, LBJ, Robert A. Caro, The Passage of Power, The Transition, The Years of Lyndon Johnson

I just finished Robert A. Caro’s The Transition, an excerpt* (April 2 The New Yorker ) from his soon to be published fourth volume, The Years of Lyndon Johnson biography.

This excerpt describes the day LBJ took over the Presidency, and, like everything else in Caro’s LBJ biography, it’s a page turner.

If you know the three previous volumes, you know what to to expect from Caro. And he doesn’t disappoint.

If you don’t know Caro or haven’t read any of the LBJ biography, you have a treat in store, a long one. His first volume, The Path to Power came out in 1982 and was about 900 pages. It was a page turner.

Angels Will Beat Phillies in the WS

12 Thursday Apr 2012

Posted by Richard in Go Sox

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

2012 World Series, Angels, baseball, NYY, Phillies, Red Sox, Washington Nationals

As I prepare to head to the Nationals’ home opener today, I ‘note’ that my beloved Sox are in last place in the AL East with a 1-5 record, an improvement over last years opening of 0-6.

I also note that the Nationals are tied for first in their Senior Circuit Division with a record of 4-2. While the Nats, or any other team, could never replace my Sox infatuation/obsession, it’s nice to consider that my ‘home’ team may be competitive this year.

Anyway, neither the Sox nor the Nats seemed to impress the contestants in this years MillersTime Baseball Contests.

Here, then, the wisdom of those who succumbed to my endless nagging to participate in the six contests: