Romances for Alto Flute
Saturday, February 8, 2025
Here be monsters..................
Musk had to be destroyed, or others might start to believe that they could also defy the groupthink. . . .
On a much higher level, Musk seems to have felt the same liberating aspects of being declared persona non grata. They turned Musk into the very monster they feared.
One upside...............................
.....................................of young children:
One of the best parts about having young children is so much of your time is devoted to their activities that you don’t have a lot of time to pay attention to the outside world. Some parents complain about being busy all the time but I find it to be a welcomed break from paying attention to all of the craziness this world has to offer.
Friday, February 7, 2025
On free speech......................
Whether Trump’s policies turn out to be right or wrong evidently matters. But the resumption of the great American debate, of speech that is unencumbered and unafraid, of a Jeffersonian open society, matters much more, since it will enable progress.
-Martin Gurri, from here
Thursday, February 6, 2025
Wednesday, February 5, 2025
landmines.......................
Investing would be a lot easier if there were no uncertainty. If someone could just kindly tell you where all of the landmines are buried ahead of time, you could side them completely and go on with your life.
Life doesn’t work like that, unfortunately. Uncertainty is always at all-time highs because no one knows what’s coming next. The hard part is there is this human need for control in life, even if that control is an illusion.
You have no control over what happens with taxes, trade, tariffs, the Fed, interest rates, economic growth, inflation, earnings or stock market returns. None. So it’s really your reaction to the uncontrollable events that determines your success or failure as an investor.
-Ben Carlson, from here
man, this sounds familiar...............
Williams also got the politicians. The Junto consistently elected Federalists to local seats—often by playing dirty. One corrupt practice of the era was called "making votes." Since many people couldn't meet the state's stringent property requirements, Federalist attorneys created fake deeds that voters presented to poll inspectors. "In this cursed crooked world," Williams wrote Ebenezer Foote, "if our institutions are worth preserving, we must preserve them by use of such means as alone can sustain them."
-James M. Bradley, Martin Van Buren: America's First Politician
unflagging diligence...............
Making votes was one example of how corruption evolved—one could even say became democratized—in post-Revolutionary New York. Given that land was no longer the sole path to wealth, politics became another pipeline. Elites funded newspapers that promoted their interests. They bribed legislators in exchange for votes on banks, turnpikes, and chartered corporations. Van Buren saw this "implied alliance" between monied interests and the state as a means of restoring colonial-era oligarchy under a different guise. Columbia's "money power" was, he believed, the essence of Federalism, whose raison d'etre was to "combat the democratic spirit of the country . . . an object which it has pursued with unflagging diligence."
-James M. Bradley, Martin Van Buren: America's First Politician
still.............................
This idea was at the core of Van Buren's worldview. It would never change. Collusion between government and private interests, he believed, would always enrich the few at the expense of the many.
-James M. Bradley, Martin Van Buren: America's First Politician
separation..........................
. . . Separation between God or reality and yourself is brought about by you, by the mind that clings to the known, to certainty, to security. This separation cannot be bridged over, there is no ritual, no discipline, no sacrifice that can carry you across it; there is no savior, no Master, no guru who can lead you to the real or destroy the separation. The division is not between the real and yourself; it is in yourself.
-J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life
delight.........................
26. A man's true delight is to do the things he was made for. He was made to show goodwill to his kind, to rise about the promptings of his senses, to distinguish appearances from realities, and to pursue the study of universal Nature and her works.
-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations: Book Eight
Monday, February 3, 2025
Tariffs.............................
I'm probably wrong about all this, but methinks he mis-reads Trump.
Tariff wars are the measles of international economics—juvenile, contagious and inherently self-defeating.
-Roger Lowenstein, from here
-Roger Lowenstein, from here
A quick review of history shows Lowenstein is likely correct about tariff wars being bad from an economic perspective. But....it looks to me that Trump is using his willingness to unilaterally impose tariffs - on our allies as well as our foes - to get his way in international politics. Economics has nothing to do with it. But, I'm probably wrong.
On friendship...............
Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow-ripening fruit.
Understanding the concept..............
..........................................of enough.
The perfect level of wealth is the one you’re content with.
just do it..............................
Almost nobody wants to hear the real answer to the question of how to spend more of your finite time doing things that matter to you, which involves no system. The answer is: you just do them. You pick something you genuinely care about, and then, for at least a few minutes—a quarter of an hour, say—you do some of it. Today. It really is that simple. Unfortunately, for many of us, it also turns out to be one of the hardest things in the world.
-Oliver Burkeman, Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts
Die empty................................
The most valuable real estate in the world is the graveyard. There lie millions of half-written books, ideas never launched, and talents never developed. Most people die with everything still in them.
The way to live is to create. Die empty. Get every idea out of your head and into reality.
-Derek Sivers, How To Live: 27 conflicting answers and one weird conclusion
Sunday, February 2, 2025
nourish............................
He admonished "young men of genius and ambition" seeking fame, money, and power—men much like himself—to nourish the mind first. Van Buren's successes "would have been much greater and more substantial if . . . I had first acquired a sound education and stored my mind with useful knowledge" as opposed to the lawyer's arsenal of facts, rulings, and precedents.
-James M. Bradley, Martin Van Buren: America's First Politician
purpose........................
One day,
your story will end
and all the choices you made will be frozen
like an insect in the amber of history.
your story will end
and all the choices you made will be frozen
like an insect in the amber of history.
Friend, this isn't meant to be grim.
Just a reminder that you are building something that
will one day be
whole and complete,
So, build with purpose.
Jarod K. Anderson, "End Point"
I've always believed in it.........
The
“great man” theory of history lost favor a century ago, and for decades
university faculty have found it quaint, vulgar, or problematic. Like other
ideas that right-thinking people long ago discarded, its disreputable status
hasn’t stopped many from believing in it anyway.
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