Execupundit.com

Old Dog Teaches Class

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 03 Nov 2026 11:30:00 +0000

Today, I'm teaching a workshop on Equal Employment Opportunity. It has long been one of my most popular classes, possibly due to a mixture of fast-paced case examples, humor, and low expectations.

I've built an entire career on the last item.

Bear with me. I'll be back soon.

Signs of Weirdness

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 03 Nov 2026 11:00:00 +0000

"I haven't read a book in forty years."

"We never watch black-and-white movies."

"Who was Spencer Tracy?"

[Photo by Sean Benesh at Unsplash]

The Canary Islands Have Always Been on My List

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 03 Nov 2026 10:30:00 +0000

In My Stack

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 03 Nov 2026 02:52:49 +0000

A Quiet Pleasure

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 02 Nov 2026 22:23:32 +0000

A quiet pleasure takes place in Arizona when we hear that the rest of the nation is changing its clocks.

Your Own Weather

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 02 Nov 2026 21:17:47 +0000

The Sovereign Professional has an important reminder from Steve Pressfield.

My older brother could have used that approach the other day as heavy rain caused floods in Central Arizona.

His pastures were filled, the cattle were out in the water, and all of his neighbors left for higher ground.

But he stayed and outlasted the storm.

Great Painters of the American West

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 02 Nov 2026 11:30:00 +0000

[Photo by Jake Johnson for Unsplash+]

Our AI Future?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 02 Nov 2026 11:00:00 +0000

The most fundamental fact about current AIs is that they are grown, not crafted. It is not like how other software gets made - indeed it is closer to how a human gets made, at least in some important ways. Namely, engineers understand the process that results in an AI, but do not much understand what goes on inside the AI minds they manage to create.

- Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All

Find Something Beautiful Today

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 11:00:00 +0000

[Photo by Bernhard at Unsplash]

Memorable Fictional Characters from Novels

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 01:27:38 +0000

Sydney Carton, Natasha Rostova, Tom Joad, Raylan Givens, Phileas Fogg, Rutherford Calhoun, Skink, Atticus Finch, Hercule Poirot, Long John Silver, Tom Jones, Miss Jane Pittman, Scarlett O'Hara, Jackson Lamb, Madame Defarge, Sir Harry Flashman, George Smiley, Sam Weller, Hannibal Lecter, Sam Spade, Huckleberry Finn, Jeeter Lester, Jack Aubrey, Uriah Heep, Augustus McCrae, Joel Cairo, Woodrow Call, Fagan, Donald "Sully" Sullivan, Rub Squeers, Mr. Micawber, Becky Sharp, Flem Snopes, Sherman McCoy, Sherlock Holmes, Count Dracula, Pierre Lambert, Captain Ahab, Edmond Dantes, Shane, Smike, Dirk Pitt, Pierre Bezukhov, Harriet and Guy Pringle, Robinson Crusoe, Anton Rider, Quasimodo, Ben Gunn, Hondo, Alec Leamas, Arkady Renko, Edgar J. Watson, Aurelio Zen, Blue Duck, Ma Kettle, Pearly Soames, Perry Mason, Stephen Maturin, Queequeg, Penrod Schofield, Reverend Reginald Bacon, Rhett Butler, Jay Gatsby, Adrian Mole, Ebadiah Slope, Elmer Gantry, Father Hugh Kennedy, Boo Radley, Joe (The Fat Boy), Philip Marlowe, John Galt, Toad of Toad Hall, Jack Torrance, Victor Frankenstein, Sam Fong, Florentino Ariza, Don Corleone, Wackford Squeers, Mr. Bumble, Rooster Cogburn, Bilbo Baggins, Captain Nemo, Jack Price, Don Quixote, Charlie Carmody, Norman Bates, James Bond, Tarzan, Peter Pan, Rip Van Winkle, Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel, Dr. Doolittle, Holly Golightly, Ebenezer Scrooge, Gandalf, Dirk Struan, Oliver Twist, Dr. Reo Symes, Casper Gutman, Prince Yakimov, John Blackthorne, Claude Lebel, Josef Roubiček, Sammy Glick, Captain Queeg, Dobie Gillis, Auntie Mame, Charlie Chan, Dr. No, Frank Skeffington, Francis Prescott, Jamie McPheeters, Italo Bombolini, Passepartout, Winston Smith, Miss Jean Brodie, and, of course, Julian Fabius.

Happy Halloween!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 11:00:00 +0000

The scariest novel I have ever read is Ghost Story by Peter Straub.

[Photo by Maryam Sicard at Unsplash+]

The Busy Mr. Bate

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 03:08:06 +0000

It does not surprise me that The Man Who Never Sleeps is also an artist.

Compared to him, I am a towering castle of sloth.

Fiscal Update

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 20:18:04 +0000

First Paragraph

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 11:30:00 +0000

Shortly before Easter in the year 1188 CE, an English archbishop of Canterbury went to Wales on a recruitment drive. Thousands of miles away, war had broken out in the eastern Mediterranean and the archbishop, whose name was Baldwin of Forde, had been tasked with recruiting several thousand able-bodied fighting men to join an army that was being deployed there.

- From Crusaders: The Epic History of the Wars for the Holy Lands by Dan Jones

Slow Horses

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 11:00:00 +0000

Read the books by Mick Herron.

Watch the series starring Gary Oldman.

Great stuff.

The Global Antimanagerial Revolution

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 20:19:36 +0000

Elite rule within liberal democracies has been noted for many decades, with few analyses more insightful on this score than James Burnham's 1941 study, The Managerial Revolution (which influenced, among others, George Orwell as he was writing 1984). Burnham described this revolution as a different kind of realization of a Marxist vision: the propertied (aristocratic) class was in the process of being replaced by a new class who perceived that power lay no longer in static property but in the manipulation of ideas and production processes. The new "managerial elite" would maintain the appearance of what Burnham called "Parliamentary control," but power would be pooled in public and semipublic agencies and bureaus. The new ruling elite would govern a state-managed economy in which a nation's (and, eventually, the world's) wealth would necessarily flow through these agencies, enriching the managerial class. The simultaneous cry against the corruption of Washington, D.C. - surrounded by so many of the nation's wealthiest counties - and the lack of any national dedication among ostensibly American corporations was a reflection of a revolution from below against the "managerial elites" Burnham described. What is conventionally called a populist revolution is better described as a global antimanagerial revolution.

- Patrick J. Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed

Cultural Offering's 9 Books

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 15:25:47 +0000

Here is Kurt's excellent list.

I'm still thinking about mine.

Poems, Novels, and Values

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 11:30:00 +0000

I was thumbing through an old and treasured book that I probably snared at a rummage sale while in grade school: One Hundred and One Famous Poems.

It was published in Chicago by The Cable Company in 1926. In addition to some very nice poems, it includes the Declaration of Independence; the Gettysburg Address; President Lincoln's Letter to Mrs. Bixby; the Magna Charta; The Ten Commandments; and Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death" speech.

It also has "Rules for Choosing Books" which provide guidelines for parents. Among them are:

"Does this book lay stress on villainy, deception or treachery?"

"Are all the incidents wholesome, probable and true to life?"

"Does it show young people contemptuous toward their elders and successfully opposing them?"

"Do the young characters in the book show respect for teachers and others in authority?"

"Are these characters the kind of young people you wish your children to associate with?"

"Does the book speak of and describe pranks, practical jokes and pieces of thoughtless and cruel mischief as though they were funny and worthy of imitation?"

"Is the English good and is the story written in good style?"

Although I have a great deal of sympathy for the character-building nature of the guidelines, I can think of many good books that could fall below their standards.

How would Oliver Twist fare? Or Huckleberry Finn? Or Treasure Island?

Classic

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 11:00:00 +0000

Hmm

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 28 Oct 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Elon and His Inquisitors

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 28 Oct 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Their entire system is built to neutralize the people who disrupt.

The result: where we should have 15 to 20 universal geniuses alive at the same time, we have one.

Just one.

And you want to put him in prison.

You summon him before judges, you raid his offices, you insult him morning, noon and night, you dream of breaking up his companies. The man who lands rockets vertically and wants to take humanity to Mars.

You're disgusting.

History won't remember your names. It remembers Galileo, not the inquisitors who tried to silence him.

- Brivael Le Pogam

They're Coming for Your Children

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 28 Oct 2026 11:00:00 +0000

"We'll get you through your children!" - Comment that Allen Ginsberg made to Norman Podhoretz in 1958

More information is surfacing on what many of the Left refer to as "Adultism."

A few books:

gotta work poem

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 28 Oct 2026 10:30:00 +0000

Read, smile, and then get to work.

Extraordinary

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 28 Oct 2026 01:08:11 +0000

Car Shopping?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 27 Oct 2026 21:52:17 +0000

The first fully electric Bentley - the Torcal - will be making an introductory appearance at the 15th annual Bentley Scottsdale Polo Championship on November 7.

It will be the only Torcal in the country.