“We have to live without sympathy, don’t we? That’s impossible of course. We act it to one another, all this hardness; but we aren’t like that really, I mean…one can’t be out in the cold all the time; one has to come in from the cold…d’you see what I mean?” “I can’t talk like this, Control. What do you want me to do?” “I want you to stay out in the cold a little longer.”                                         –Control and Leamas, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold   On Sunday, my favorite author died at 89 years of age. John Le Carre’, born David

      I WAS A FAN of Matthew Rhys from having watched The Americans series and then had no choice but to rave about him in Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. His typically somber and introspective character is perfect for the tone of this series. The measure, for me, of the strength of a series is how deeply I pine for the next episode and I pined (silently) like a hound for the chase. This Perry Mason genesis story has all the things I like: it’s a period piece, it’s noir,  has good casting with several plot points converging. At a time in our country when Justice and Truth are struggling to take a form we can all recognize, what better way to put them into

STOCK MARKET CHARTS  tell a story. Of course on the surface, most chart styles show a continuous map of prices over a period of time. But what a chart actually depicts is a series of collective (investor) responses to the flow of new information about the earnings potential for the companies involved (e.g. DOW or S&P 500). OK, so what? Well during the evolution of a mania or bubble, there comes a point when prices are driven not by the potential for earnings but by the price action itself. In other words, more emphasis is placed on the rising prices than on the reasoning behind them. Perhaps my favorite definition of a bubble is purely psychological – as it should be: a bubble happens when

  [Authors Note: With the calamity-induced emphasis on teaching remotely, I remembered, fondly as with special friendships or past celebrations with family, a short story I wrote about teaching online and perhaps about “connecting” in that context.  It occurred to me to dust it off and share it with readers of this blog.  Because it is longer than the usual fare,  I attach the PDF.]   MORE CERTAIN THAN HOPE10  

  NOT BECAUSE I JUST EMERGED from long hours indoors during the Wisconsin winter, but rather because of the self-quarantine brought on by the Digital Age and social media, I find it ironic that many people today will easily adopt to their new lives under government-ordered quarantine: after decades of mass human migration toward self-confinement inside the virtual world, a decree, for many, would be a mere formality. Meanwhile, in the same fashion that a virus in your computer can completely disrupt a computer network, the novel coronavirus shut down society. But that’s not the point. The point is whether or not the virus can be removed and the network and data saved relatively quickly, or whether the equipment is useless and the data lost.

IN EVERY introductory economics class, it becomes clear from early on that specialization is the source of greater efficiency or productivity; in the division of labor and in free trade, the secret sauce is “specialize.” In other words, everyone should stop doing what they used to do and begin to do only the things they do best. It even works if they only do the things they do least poorly. This sounds great and all the textbooks have nice charts, pictures, and examples of how much we all benefit from this miracle. The books almost insult us for thinking that we might do things any other way. As a result of the consistent application of these principles over time, a country or an integrated global

    WITH THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION less than nine months away, the plot couldn’t get much thicker. Trump’s approval hit a new high of 49%, and the Dems seem to be struggling to identify a candidate and agree on a platform. The pundits mostly focus on two things, namely a) who can get the Democratic nomination, and b) will that person be able to beat Trump. Little of this is new information. But really, the spoiler in the whole business may not be a candidate at all. As I pointed out in an earlier post, the economy has to hold for Trump to win;  without the economy, he would lose 20-30% of his current supporters. The candidate best suited to unseat the president might be the

SOMETIMES, THE BEST WAY to tell one story is by telling a different story. That’s what happens in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. In 1998, the editor of Esquire asked a particularly cynical reporter to do a short piece on Fred Rogers, aka “Mr. Rogers” for a segment on heroes. The interviews with Mr. Rogers changed the writer. The short piece changed into a full-length cover story and one of the most popular magazine pieces of the year (https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a27134/can-you-say-hero-esq1198/).  Tom Hanks “became” Fred Rogers, and Jonathan Rhys (from The Americans) killed it playing Lloyd Vogel, the angry, edgy journalist. This movie made me want a “do-over” of at least a decade in my life. A lot of people are kind, but there are special

  Bombshell is going to win movie industry awards. It would be more fitting if it won a Pulitzer. The performances were exceptional, and the story had all the ingredients of a mystery thriller. My eyes (and sometimes my mouth) were wide open as I watched Charlize Theron act herself into an Oscar nod. She played Megyn Kelly, star anchor who faced the top-down machinery of power, misogyny, and fear at Fox News—which informs the culture of many large companies and which dovetails with the male, tyrannical culture of the Trump administration. The movie is the real bombshell; it explodes the veneer and exposes the ruthlessness of power and influence inside the Western world’s most powerful media empire (and as the movie reveals, a powerful

The Rise of Skywalker had a lot to live up to and mostly delivered. It had a powerful plot and an assuring conclusion, but it might be better appreciated for the relevant cultural themes than for the credulity; like its predecessors (and like the Marvel/DC franchises), each new episode has to ratchet-up the limits of the imagination in order to impress. For example, this one went farther with the concept of deus-ex machina (from Greek theatre when gods were brought down on stage) to resolve plot barriers: people are reincarnated, resurrected, or move between worlds more on a par with the Harry Potter series. I don’t wish to disparage the experience, however.  In a post four years ago about “The Force Awakens,” https://www.moviesmarketsandmore.com/not-long-ago-and-not-far-away/, I celebrated the