Gongol.com Archives: September 2019
September 18, 2019
What's the ideal age for a US President?
The instinct to ask these questions is strong, but the answers should always be context-dependent. A 65-year-old who keeps learning is probably more mentally agile than a 35-year-old who has a fixed worldview. Consider the wide age ranges of achievements by some of history's "greats": Thomas Jefferson started building Monticello around age 25, Warren Buffett took over Berkshire Hathaway around 35, Isaac Newton published Principia Mathematica around 45, and Winston Churchill became UK Prime Minister around age 65. Instead of measuring age, we ought to test candidates' mental agility, curiosity, openness to new ideas, and humility.
Art that gives a flying flamingo
An interpretation of John Bercow worthy of mounting on a wall
The doughnut-chicken sandwich is here
Yet another thing we didn't know that 2019 had in store
Comedy: Let it be thought-provoking, not mindlessly provocative
Some of the best laughs come from an uncomfortable confrontation between something we find familiar and something incongruous or subversive that a comic manages to expose about that familiar thing.
"[G]auge the President's risk tolerance and operate just underneath that"
It's hard to dismiss this interpretation of the evidence on how adversaries around the world are operating. And that's worrisome.
The only test that matters on climate change
"What are the Dutch doing?"
How much could Warren Buffett charge for tuition?
Warren Buffett himself worked for Benjamin Graham and didn't even ask about salary before accepting the job, because he was so eager to learn from his mentor. Later on, Buffett went to work for himself. Which makes it interesting that one of Buffett's closest associates is leaving to start her own firm. Other people are willing to pay millions of dollars just to have lunch with Buffett. Yet here is someone who has worked closely with him as a paid employee who has decided to stake out on her own. How much could Buffett charge as "tuition" to get someone else to work for him? Undoubtedly it's worth an enormous amount.
