“genius” on the street

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Quote marks: so-called.

It’s certainly so-called in journalism. David Brooks did a column 11 years ago (I’m an obsessive archivist) that’s typical, titled “Genius: The Modern View.” He riffs off a couple of books about building expertise through practice and persistence, focusing especially on child development. Alas, you too can someday be called a “genius.”

VE Day in a pandemic

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Yesterday’s VE Day observance caused me to recall that American isolationism after WW-I led to the League of Nations failing. There’s an epochal lesson in that, re: the Trumpist withdrawal from collaborative global relations in the face of mounting severities: tipping points in climate risk, desperation-driven militarism, the current pandemic.