I’ve been reading podcast guest Manisha Sinha’s book The Counterrevolution of Slavery, which recounts how slaveholders spoke and acted to justify and advance their institution of slavery. I know to expect it from having seen it before in podcast guest James Oakes’s The Ruling Race and Jenkins’ Proslavery Thought in the Old South, but I’m still shocked at how relevant their thinking is today. They treat a different institution, but[…] Keep reading →

A vignette from Michael Lombardi, podcast guest and football great General Manager about his mentor Bill Walsh, appears in his book Gridiron Genius, sticks with me. In particular, the part at the end of this passage about the picture frame. To me, one way mastery differs from just doing enough is that when we master an art or craft, we love the details. Before mastery, they may seem drudge work.[…] Keep reading →

Strategies and tactics based in convincing, cajoling, coercing, and seeking compliance that may sound nice, but step on the gas, thinking it’s the brake, wanting congratulations. That is, they exacerbate the problem. Compare this list with tomorrow’s list of emotions that emerge from the Spodek Method about nature that, when acted on, lead to people doing more than they said they would, expressing gratitude, and being happy to share. I[…] Keep reading →

Regular readers know I pick up litter every day. The other day I found this garbage wedged in the scaffolding of a building under construction. (Come to think of it, a topic I should write more about is this bizarre practice of litter being wedged and stuffed into places and why people do it. I’m not sure, but I have some ideas. In any case, all this littering is socializing[…] Keep reading →

I wrote last year about how We can’t turn off our emotional systems and we all share the same emotions, regarding NYU’s likely well-intentioned but misguided posters decrying saying “hate has no place at NYU.” I wrote then: To say “Hate has no place at NYU” seems like saying “Thumbs have no place at NYU” or “Spleens have no place at NYU.” We all have the wiring to hate. To[…] Keep reading →

The title says it all, but for clarity, I’ll generalize: if you choose to do something that requires polluting, depleting, or plundering, you don’t get to claim your life requires living unsustainably. You don’t get to then make claims on others’ resources. A life requiring hurting others is not liberty. Its’ the opposite: it’s destroying other people’s liberty. Why don’t I spend all my money and then claim you have[…] Keep reading →

Environmentalists call people who disagree with them “science deniers” and “climate deniers.” They get annoyed when people presented with the science don’t change their behavior when science shows it’s creating undesired outcomes. Meanwhile, I see environmentalists use ineffective techniques to try to change others’ behavior. When their techniques don’t work, they don’t change their behavior to ways that work. The science is clear that their techniques don’t work, yet they[…] Keep reading →

I can’t think of a message I received from environmentalists that suggested I would enjoy the experience of trying to live more sustainably. Every message from every source, including the most ardent environmentalists, told me living more sustainably meant giving something up. We had to worsen our lives to possibly help someone far away or in the future. A definite loss here and now for a possible gain sometime somewhere[…] Keep reading →

Maybe you’ve heard me share how from when I had my own kitchen, I always had ice cream in my freezer and pretzels and Doritos in my cupboard. I struggled to pace my consuming them, but nearly always ate more than I meant to, but kept buying more. Now I say there isn’t enough money in the world for me to eat that stuff. I also talk about my relationship[…] Keep reading →