Dig It

SAVE MONEY WITHOUT THINKING ABOUT IT

Tom Foley:  “Well, if you like Paribus, have you seen Digit?  Using a special algorithm, they transfer small amounts of money from your checking account to a savings account a few times a week. Think like $6.25. , then, a few days later, maybe $2.37, so you don’t even notice. It takes more on payday and when you receive your tax return, but relatively small amounts. It has some behavioral finance motivational messaging built in and is great for teaching the power of savings to new or young savers. I signed up a few months back for fun, and checked my balance today, like $475. All sorts of guarantees so you don’t overdraw the account, and you can manage it by text, app or online. It’s super neat.”

THE MUSLIM MAYOR OF LONDON

Roger Cohen contrasts him with the presumptive Republican nominee, here in the New York Times.  One appears to be a thoughtful leader for a 21st Century world, and widely popular; the other, a vulgar egomaniac.

THE ELECTION

Jeff Daniels’ take — starting halfway through this seven-minute clip, after talking about his starring role on Broadway in “Blackbird.”

BACK IN STOCK

Dana (a chemistry professor):  “I bought a copy of the new edition of your book [now back in  stock — thanks for helping to sell it out].  I usually give a copy to my students when they graduate or get married, so I figured I would read it and then pass it on.  This morning I hit the last page.  There was a paragraph, ‘What if you are 63?.’  Well I am exactly 63, but you were prescient.  Back in my 30’s, after I stopped being a penniless grad student, I got a copy of your book and now I am financially set.”

FOREVER YOUNG

Betsy Uprichard:  “Since that Billy Collins poem you ran (‘Forgetfulness’) was so good, here’s something similar.” From the Writer’s Almanac With Garrison Keillor:

VII

by Wendell Berry

I know I am getting old and I say so,
but I don’t think of myself as an old man.
I think of myself as a young man
with unforeseen debilities. Time is neither
young nor old, but simply new, always
counting, the only apocalypse. And the clouds
—no mere measure or geometry, no cubism,
can account for clouds or, satisfactorily, for bodies.
There is no science for this, or art either.
Even the old body is new—who has known it
before?—and no sooner new than gone, to be
replaced by a body yet older and again new.
The clouds are rarely absent from our sky
over this humid valley, and there is a sycamore
that I watch as, growing on the riverbank,
it forecloses the horizon, like the years
of an old man. And you, who are as old
almost as I am, I love as I loved you
young, except that, old, I am astonished
at such a possibility, and am duly grateful.

“VII.” by Wendell Berry from Leavings. © Counterpoint, 2010. Reprinted with permission. (Buy now)