Our recruiting process isn’t an automated one. We read every application. Most candidates have a strong resume and transcript. What often sets candidates apart is the cover letter. So here are three Dos and three Don’ts, very much of in the spirit of being helpful.
Read MoreDecades ago the issue of “translation effects” came to lodge in my brain, in the course of reading Naguib Mahfouz’s Cairo Trilogy. During the course of an ongoing learning journey, I read The Analects of Confucius in translation. I wrote a paper in response, and this essay captures the main points of that paper minus all the citations :).
Read MoreI have occasionally posted on social media about the Trump presidency, but haven’t felt moved to write something longer. I am doing so now because I feel it is important to “stand up and be counted” before the elections.
Read MoreI read Antigone and the Aeneid (well, the first half of it) in consecutive weeks and a few thoughts occurred to me about parallel threads between both works.
Read MoreThis past week I read The Odyssey, in Robert Fagles’ translation, and felt a bit like “stout Cortez” staring at the Pacific (note: I am not stout. At least not right now). In reading this brilliant translation from the Greek — with an introduction by Bernard Knox that is worth the price of admission in itself — I realized how much I had missed.
Read MoreIn my Twitter header is a quote by Michel Foucault, whose influence on me which has been substantial. A friend asked me about the quote, and I haven’t written a stand-alone piece on Foucault, so here are three brief thoughts.
Read MoreGilgamesh is an ancient Sumerian epic, the oldest literature known. I found myself reading it recently, in the Foster translation, as part of a learning journey. I engaged slightly grudgingly with the text and emerged very moved.
Read MoreModern life doesn’t present the same opportunities for belonging that existed in generations past. It is a defining characteristic of our age. But belonging is an elemental human need, and in the modern world, we have to be very “intentional” about finding it.
Read MoreThe table at the end of this post, which can be sorted and filtered, lays out goals and actions regarding climate and the environment for six Bay Area counties: San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, and Marin.
Read MoreMy father died on June 16 at the age of 90. I have relied on his memoirs — the first, which covers the first half of his life, is a wonderfully evocative chronicle of a very different time and place — for some of what I write here.
Read MoreThe capitalist unit isn’t the worker or the company or the currency or the entrepreneur. The unit of capitalism is the unit of ownership, which is a single share in a joint stock corporation.
Read MoreI’ve come late to the realization that the fight against the coronavirus is truly a war. It has a well-defined enemy; it has invaded our home front; it requires total mobilization. A year or two from now, your child (or friend or relative or colleague) is going to ask: what did you do in the war? Your answer better be a good one.
Read MoreHow did we get to the point that a man (for they are mostly men) sitting behind a screen on a high floor in an office building in Manhattan can make, in comfort, millions, perhaps billions, more than the laborer who, at risk to life and limb, helped build that office building? And what lies ahead in the networked episteme?
Read MoreI’m almost exclusively vegetarian. I am so by choice but after reading this article I wanted to dig a little deeper about the interrelationship with climate. TL;DR: it is much more complicated than you think (or I thought before Alina Goh pulled together a bunch of research).
Read MoreHere's the best of what I read in 2019. Like all of us, I am struggling to make sense of the world, and all of these books helped me on that journey. Perhaps one theme is that each one provoked thoughtfulness even when I strongly disagreed with the author
Read MoreThird and last in my series of “factoid” posts about climate denial.
Read MoreI am going to dribble out “factoid” posts about climate denial. These are not intended for actual climate deniers. As I’ve written elsewhere, droning on about the data is not going to make a difference. It is for people I think of as “climate-aware” — to provide useful Information that might clarify things in your own mind.
Read MoreThe structure of modern life, from the conveniences in the First World to the massive poverty alleviation that has taken place in the Third World, is dependent on energy consumption. Nobody is going to sign up for being back in the Stone Age, foraging for berries and communicating by smoke signal. And yet: there are simple things we can all do to “do our bit” without feeling like we’ve taken a hatchet to that which makes life worth living.
Read MoreThis essay is a reaction to Don’t Even Think About It, by George Marshall. This is not an academic work. It is conversational and accessible, and I found it interesting enough to want to inflict my response on an unsuspecting world.
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