Immoderate Greatness: Why Civilizations Fail.  Perhaps the most depressing book you will ever read.  On the plus side: it’s wonderfully short (106 pages).

The author argues that it’s basically hopeless, because human nature doesn’t change.  Success leads to over-reach and moral decay, which lead to disaster.  But what’s the point of buying into that, even if it does seem ever more likely with every news cycle?  I have the happy gene.  We’re going to win!

And maybe Claude will save us.

Click that for a three-minute conversation between a human and Claude, which — assuming this is real — turns out to be some combination of poetic, surprising, and profound.  Or so it seemed to me.  Computing power has sure come a long way since I first played Pong.

Or maybe Anthony Scaramucci is right (90 seconds), and Trump’s outrageous depravity will lead to a reckoning and renewal.  It happens, he says, every 80 years.

BANANA FEEDBACK

Richard F.: “What a temptation!  Disclosure:  The banana is our official household fruit, so I have many thoughts.  Bananas Foster:  The entire concept needs standardization.  We used to frequent the Eddie V in San Diego.  Great bananas Foster.  Not so for Eddie V in Scottsdale.  Different recipe, only OK at best. Banananomics: Free bananas from Amazon.  Pricing: A 43:1 ratio.”  With regard to Mark P’s Bananas Gabrielle, I’m skeptical.  Peeling an exceedingly ripe banana would be something of a challenge!”

→ Nothing great in life comes easy.

EPSTEIN

Still nothing?  What are they trying to hide?  Why doesn’t Congress impeach and convict him for flouting a law that he himself signed that passed Congress just one vote shy of unanimously?