Author: A.T.

Jim Burt:  “I’m glad you enjoyed the ‘Backyard Scientists.’ [Yesterday’s post.]  I have always considered boredom a sort of character defect which reflects more badly on the person suffering from it than on his or her circumstances.  Yes, we have access to endless resources now for the avoidance of boredom, but if nothing else is available we have memories, imagination, and hopes/plans to use to entertain ourselves.  [Still, standing in an endless supermarket line before smart phones? really?]  One of the available resources is e-books, of course, but I don’t know whether you are aware of how many of those are free or heavily discounted.  I suggest you go to Bookbub, where you can sign up for a daily listing of free or cheap books in both fiction and nonfiction genres, and various formats, according to your tastes.  Between Bookbub and my public library, I rarely find myself paying for a book.  [Music to an author’s ears.] Another resource is various on-line college level courses.  You mentioned TED and the Khan Academy – this latter I discovered through one of my grandchildren – but many universities offer the opportunity to audit courses on a host of subjects on-line for free.  I did one from Yale on ancient Roman architecture.  If it’s a course that is not reliant on visual images, you can often download it, strip the audio out of the program, and listen to it as you drive or stroll around.  We never have to stop learning, and now we can continue to do so from some of the best teachers and institutions in the world – for free!”

☞ “Remember,” Jim concludes, “we all have to get older, but none of us has to grow up.”

And thank heavens for that.

Jim Burt:  “You may not know it, but you really want to see this video.  It’s a production of some young ‘Backyard Scientists’ conducting some rather spectacular experiments with ‘Oobleck,’ a non-Newtonian fluid made by mixing approximately 1 part water to 1.5 to 2.0 parts cornstarch.  You’ll be amazed and entertained.”

☞ Do you remember boredom?  Are you old enough?

Yes, wages have stagnated and we face loads of challenges (that one party believes can almost all be met by shrinking government while growing the military and lowering taxes on the wealthy).  But is it not worth noting that in the last decade or so boredom has been eliminated for anyone with an Internet connection?  I now have the Backyard Scientist and his sidekick to amuse and enlighten me.  (They also do an experiment with hand grenades you’ll enjoy.) And cream, I’ve now learned, is a rheopectic non-Newtonian fluid, whereas honey is thixotropic, and there are two other kinds as well: ketchup and oobleck.

And have I mentioned Words With Friends?  Podcasts?  TED talks?  Khan Academy?  Social media?  Porn?  Who can possibly be bored?

Eliminating hunger and disease are higher priorities.  Keeping warm when it’s cold and cool when it’s hot rank higher as well.  On a pain scale from 1 to 10, boredom might be a 1, waterboarding a 9, and a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding* a 10.

But even at 1 on the pain scale, boredom is still a dull, grinding ache.

So eliminating it, while that doesn’t show up in the GDP, is a big deal.

Thank you, DARPA, Vint Cerf, Steve Jobs, Sergey Brin and thousands of others — very much including Al Gore — who made it possible.

Have a great day.  If you’re rich, bid high.  (Today’s the day.)  If you’re not, buy the book.  (Arrives next Tuesday.)

*Perhaps waterboarding with a non-Newtonian fluid?

Oh!  And Kip Forbes, Carly Simon, Suze Orman, Mark Cuban, Richard Branson, Elizabeth Warren, Howard Dean, former Presidents of Mexico, Poland, Chile, Nigeria, Switzerland, Colombia, Portugal and Brazil . . . plus 1,200 more (Mark Cuban! Carly Simon! Norman Lear! George Soros! Billie Jean King! Tom Brady!).

We’ve all signed this open letter to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urging in advance of next week’s UN General Assembly Special Session on drug policy reform.

In part:

. . . The drug control regime that emerged during the last century has proven disastrous for global health, security and human rights.  Focused overwhelmingly on criminalization and punishment, it created a vast illicit market that has enriched criminal organizations, corrupted governments, triggered explosive violence, distorted economic markets and undermined basic moral values.

Governments devoted disproportionate resources to repression at the expense of efforts to better the human condition.  Tens of millions of people, mostly poor and racial and ethnic minorities, were incarcerated, mostly for low-level and non-violent drug law violations, with little if any benefit to public security. Problematic drug use and HIV/AIDS, hepatitis and other infectious diseases spread rapidly as prohibitionist laws, agencies and attitudes impeded harm reduction and other effective health policies.

Humankind cannot afford a 21 st century drug policy as ineffective and counter-productive as the last century’s.  A new global response to drugs is needed, grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights. . . .

It was so much fun helping to get people to sign.  Soooo much easier than getting people to give money.  I felt like I was on a fantasy vacation.  Shoot an email or a text to someone WAY above my pay grade who never normally responds, let alone with a big check, and minutes later . . . “Sure!  Count me in!”

So this topic has legs.  In the next few years we just might be able to make real progress. (Have you seen Michael Moore’s Where To Invade Next?  You promised me you’d watch!  If so, you learned how much better Portugal deals with drugs than we do.)

WEEK-END BONUS: While we’re at it, it’s not just drug policy that might be on the cusp of much-needed reform.  Look what Canada just did re assisted suicide (aka, “death with dignity,” aka “the right to control your own life”).

Have a great weekend.  Drive safely.  Eat right.  Stand up straight.  Pay your first quarterly estimated taxes.  (Yikes!  I almost forgot to remind you!  Though you do have until Monday because of Emancipation Day, and until Tuesday in Maine or Massachusetts, because of Patriots Day.)  Vote Democrat.

Start with this three-minute video, and remember that Success Academy’s 11,000 scholars are chosen by lottery — 93% of them children of color, 76% from low-income households, 12% “special needs” students, and 8.5% of them learning to speak English.  Yet they do spectacularly well.  The clip is filled with hope and promise.  It will make your day.

And what about Schuyler?  Did you see Lesley Stahl’s profile of him on Sunday’s “60 Minutes”?  Another amazing kid, recruited for Harvard’s women’s swim team, now swimming with the men.  Watch!  In the abstract, it may sound off-putting — but I don’t think anyone will fail to like and respect this young guy, or to wish him well.

Finally, I offer this study: “The Scientific Debate About Same-Sex Parenting Is Over.”

. . . a disaster — but in the best possible way:  Disaster on Broadway.  Is it Shakespeare?  No.  Is it Hamilton?  No.  Will you laugh for two hours nonstop and love hearing all the old songs?  Yes.  (Do I have an interest in the show?  Indirectly, and infinitesimal.)

It was too much fun just to go home and write a column, so margaritas got involved, and then there was actual dancing on a bar (not by me), and then a large dog appeared and ate my homework.

Tomorrow: Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

But first:

SETH SIKES . . .

. . . “may well be one of the saviors of the Great American Songbook” — NY Arts Review.

They keep inviting him back to 54 Below, Manhattan’s supper club, newly booked for May 2 and June 8. Buy tickets here.  It’s very fun, as described, for example, here.  Great songs, great singing, a great band, great drinks, and, if you’re hungry, great food. I like the shishito peppers.

If you don’t want to fly all the way from San Francisco for this, Feinstein’s flying him out to you, here, June 16.

 AUDIBLE REFUNDS

In response to my suggestion that you listen to One More Thing . . .

Carl G:  “I’m an audio books addict.  Audible is an even better deal than you think because for $225 you get 24 credits —  less than $10 a book.  They often have specials which makes it even cheaper.  And the best part?  You can try the book and if you don’t like it, return it and get your credit refunded.  Two recent favorites of mine have been Sapians: A Brief History of Humankind and Sex at Dawn: the Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality.  Both blow your mind and change your view of the world.  As gripping as any thriller.”

☞ In all these years, I didn’t know about the refunds.  I just went and return a couple of unread books for credit and “bought,” free, a couple of others in their stead.  Thanks, Carl!

AKBA

One of you asks whether to hang on to this stock, suggested here at $11, now $9.50, so I asked Guru for an update.  “The fundamentals are great.  They just won a patent battle with their lead competitor, FGEN, in Europe, so that sets them up for a nice partnership in Europe soon.  These pills are the wave of the future for anemia and they and FGEN are the leaders.  However, FGEN is a year ahead and AKBA will probably remain in their shadow.  I don’t see any obvious advantage for AKBA.  The drugs won’t be on the market for a numbers of years.  AND we are in a major bear market that won’t end for a while.”  He sees the stock “in the 20s or 30s within 5 years, maybe sooner.”

And now: FRANK, THE PERFECT MAN

(Not original with me) . . .

A man walks out to the street and catches a taxi just going by.

He gets into the taxi, and the cabbie says, “Perfect timing.  You’re just like Frank.”

Passenger:  “Who ?”

Cabbie:  “Frank… he’s a guy who did everything right all the time. Like my coming along when you needed a cab, things happened like that to Frank Feldman every single time.”

Passenger:  “There are always a few clouds over everybody.”

Cabbie:  “Not Frank.  He was a terrific athlete.  He could have won the Grand Slam at tennis.  He could golf with the pros.  He sang like an opera baritone, and danced like a Broadway star.  And you should have heard him play the piano !  He was an amazing guy.”

Passenger:  “Sounds like he was somebody really special.”

Cabbie:  “Oh well there’s more.  He had a memory like a computer.  He remembered everybody’s birthday.  He knew all about wine, which foods to order, and which fork to eat it with, and he could fix anything.  Not like me – I change a fuse, and the whole street blacks out.  But Frank, he could do everything right.”

Passenger:  “Wow, some guy then.”

Cabbie:  “He always knew the quickest way to go in traffic and avoid traffic jams.  Not like me, I always seem to get stuck in them.  But Frank, he never made mistakes, and he really knew how to treat a woman and make her feel good.  He would never argue back, even if she was in the wrong; and his clothing was always immaculate, shoes highly polished too.  He was the perfect man !  I never knew him to make a mistake !  No one could ever measure up to Frank.”

Passenger:  “An amazing fellow.  How did you meet him?”

Cabbie:  “Well, I never actually met Frank.  He died, and I marrried his wife.”

It’s coming, slow but sure (or at least pretty sure): delicious meat made of peas and stuff, not the vast quantities of water and oil and suffering required to make a steak or chicken salad.  Click here: ” Good Food Institute Aims to Make Animal Products Obsolete.”

Meanwhile, your fellow reader Janet Tavakoli has resurrected William Worthington Fowler’s 1880 Twenty Years of Inside Life in Wall Street or Revelations of the Personal Experience of a Speculator, annotating it for the modern reader.

In 1985 [she writes], I attended Salomon Brothers’ infamous Liar’s Poker training class.  My boss handed me a copy of Edwin Lefevre’s [classic] Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, the entertaining biography of Jesse Livermore.  I thought it was a pretty good book. But I later learned it pales in comparison to William Worthington Fowler’s much earlier autobiography . . . as relevant today as it was in 1880.

The physical book is expected in a few days, but click here and then “look inside” (click just above the book’s photo) to read her foreword.  You may decide to blow $9.99 on the Kindle edition, as I did.

Where you or I will find time to read this enticing volume is an open question.  I still haven’t seen Straight Outta Compton or switched to Fios or cleaned my windows (Renee is wonderful four hours a week, but Renee doesn’t do windows) — all items on a very long to-do list . . . nor visited most of the 250 places on this list nor raised nearly enough money to assure the best possible outcome November 8, which sounds like just one more thing to do but actually will determine the nature of the Supreme Court for the next 20 or 30 years, among much else . . . and it is the Court that gave us Bush and the Iraq War and a wrecked national balance sheet, and then — moved further right by Bush — gave us Citizens United, McCutcheon, and the decision that gutted the Voting Rights Act, all serving to shift yet more power to the already powerful.

So much to do!  (Click here.)

Fortunately, it’s only Monday.

Barbara Streisand believes there’s a place for us.  A four-minute duet you might enjoy.

Peter (Paul-and-Mary) Yarrow believes kids can be taught to treat each other well.

His Operation Respect this week released a revised, refreshed Don’t Laugh at Me curriculum — entirely free.

Used in tens of thousands of schools around the world since its original publication in 2000, Don’t Laugh at Me has stood the test of time and its themes, activities and iconic music still resonate and inspire educators, school counselors, after care providers, camp counselors, youth ministers and all who work with children and young people.

From music to research, statistics to profiles of the schools and districts with which we work, we hope the new site offers support to those seeking a kinder, more respectful world for children.

If you don’t want your kid beating up on all the other kids — or one of them bullying yours — check it out.

Or maybe your kids are grown and — like Lesley Stahl — it’s now your grandkids that you dote over and fret about.  Her just-published Becoming Grandma is a labor of granny love — and #24 out of 2 million titles on Amazon.

So alert your grandkids’ school or summer camp to the availability of this free curriculum.  Couldn’t hurt.

And speaking of teaching kids to accept diversity, one of the grandmas Lesley Stahl profiles is my pal Babs Siperstein, fellow DNC Executive Committee Member, whose kids still call her Dad (she was Barry when they were born) and who is on the front lines of opening hearts and minds to this whole transgender thing that’s only lately begun terrifying the good people of Mississippi and North Carolina.

In fairness to them — and others, including me 10 or 20 years ago — let’s be honest: the T in LGBT does take some getting used to.  What doesn’t?  And yet once you do get to know folks like Babs, the fear often turns to empathy, respect, and friendship.

(Another of my trans friends, Diego, was Barney Frank’s aide-de-camp in Congress — a prince. A third, Martine, of whom I’ve written before, was America’s highest-paid female executive a couple of years ago.  Her company may save your life someday.  A fourth, Renee, pitched for my all-boys high school baseball team, caught for the football team, and captained the tennis team. Then captained the all-male Yale team and won the all-Navy tennis championship, as recounted here. I feel fortunate to have friends like these.)

So it is good timing that Science yesterday published, “For real this time: Talking to people about gay and transgender issues can change their prejudices.”

. . . In one of the strangest twists in social science history, their study shows that the canvassing strategy really can influence biases. “The data are solid and the analysis convincing,” says Gabriel Lenz, a political scientist at UC Berkeley. . . . The effect is “so large and enduring,” he says, “that many researchers will be skeptical.”

But he buys them.

Have a great weekend.

UPIP — I was just the tiniest bit early re-suggesting this at $10 Tuesday — it dropped 31% yesterday.  The company announced plans to sell its patent portfolio for $30 million, significantly less than we hoped it might one day win in court.  But between UPIP’s current cash, the cash they will receive from this sale, and the value Chris thinks can be realized from its $1.7 billion in net operating losses, the stock remains a good bet for money you can truly afford to lose. I’m buying more.

Surprise!  Electroshock therapy as currently administered for treating severe depression it is apparently something to applaud.  Better still once the FDA allows magnetic pulses to replace electricity. Read “The Shock Doc” in December’s Atlantic, by Dan Hurley.

And in the same issue: lots of hopeful technologies for water recycling and desalinization. Read ‘The End of Thirst,” by Sam Kean.

(Well, I was on an airplane with time to enjoy some back issues of favorite magazines.)

And look at this!  Kim Jong Un on Donald Trump . . . in the manner of King George III from Hamilton. Enjoy!

Long-time readers will know that I collect “historic documents.”  E.g., this column three years ago about a Steinbeck letter along with letters by the inventor of television and another by the inventor of the telegraph.

Back off!  They are not for sale.

But with this site’s subscription fees down and ad sales as low as they’ve ever been — and an avocado-a-day habit to support — I do, in fact, offer an item or two in this upcoming auction.

Ah, but which?

Could it be the set of Edward Albee letters?  (Estimated at $600-$800, plus the buyer’s premium you have to pay.)

One of the Einsteins? (“If Hitler were not a lunatic he could easily have avoided the hostility of the Western powers. That he is a lunatic is the sole advantage in the present sinister picture of the world.” — September 3, 1942 — $30,000-$50,000.)

The Rutherford B. Hayes ($300-$500)?

The Nehru, talking about Gandhi ($3,000-$5,000)?

The President Truman to Eleanor Roosevelt (and hers, passing his along — $1,500-$2,500)?  The Hamilton?  (You’ve heard the show; now own the letter — $10,000-$15,000.)

An actual honest-to-God John Hancock ($600-$800)?

How about the photo of Thomas Edison inscribed to Madame Curie ($6,000-$12,000)?

Add a Franklin Pierce to your collection (he was President, after all, if no Lincoln — $300-500)?

A 1795 document signed by Robert Morris ($300-$500) or a 1782 Robert Morris letter to Benjamin Franklin in Paris (with Franklin’s signature of receipt — $40,000-$80,000)?

Or a Hemingway letter talking Gertrude Stein?  (“She used to talk to me about homosexuality and how it was fine in and for women and no good in men and I used to listen and learn and I always wanted to fuck her and she knew it and t was a good healthy feeling” — $25,000-$35,000.)

It’s a lot cheaper, obviously, and perhaps a lot smarter, to read through the catalog, here, free, than to get hooked on any of this.*  But if you do bid on anything April 18, please bid high.

It could be mine.

*The lots are listed alphabetically, from John Adams and Beethoven to Zachary Taylor and Orville Wright.  There is a Zola, but it’s lumped in with the seven other authors, like Rudyard Kipling and Mark Twain, who inscribed the same page, and so listed as item #8.