I’ve saved a bunch of articles from the beginning of the summer, and now I am making my way through them. The first: Advice for High School Graduates from The Conversation Blog at the New York Times. The blog is like sitting around a dinner table with two knowledgeable, witty, opinionated folks: David Brooks and Gail Collins, both columnists at the Times. In this piece, Brooks requests help from Collins, as he will soon make a commencement speech at a high school. He laments some sizable gaps in the education options available:
The most important decision any of us make is who we
marry. Yet there are no courses on how to choose a
spouse. There’s no graduate department in spouse
selection studies. Institutions of higher learning devote
more resources to semiotics than love.
The most important
talent any person can possess is the ability to make and
keep friends. And yet here too there is no curriculum for
this.
The most important skill a person can possess is
the ability to control one’s impulses. Here too, we’re
pretty much on our own.
These are all things with a provable
relationship to human happiness. Instead, society is busy
preparing us for all the decisions that have a marginal
effect on human happiness. There are guidance offices to
help people in the monumental task of selecting a
college. There are business schools offering lavish
career placement services. There is a vast media
apparatus offering minute advice on how to furnish your
home or expand your deck.
This isn’t the only great piece from The Conversation Blog — check it out if you’d like some more thoughtful, witty commentary on the “pressing, and not-so-pressing, issues of the day.”
Just heard the distinctive honks of geese flying overheard. It’s amazing how evocative of fall that sound is. I suppose fall is only one week away. I hope we have one of those lovely indian summers, where it remains warm into October.
Read Memories of Bob Gorlin in Northwest Dentistry (the journal of the MDA). He has an entire syndrome named after him, and a clinical sign. He worked at the U of M School of Dentistry for 30 years. Well, he was the SOD for 30 years. But, that’s not the full story.
He was a wonderful person, the cornerstone of the dental school, eminently personable and entertaining… he was well known amongst dental students for giving extemporaneous lunchtime lectures about a huge array of topics. Dr. Raj (our oral histology, embryology, and genetics prof) showed us a video of Dr. Gorlin talking about how he discovered the syndrome named after him — absolutely fascinating to listen to him speak. Every tangent was so interesting. Anyhow, a few excerpts from that article, which are memories of Dr. Gorlin from folks at the School of Dentistry:
I had known about Bob Gorlin since I started dental
school in 1966, finally meeting him in 1976. From that
moment on he called me by name, and every time he saw me
he remembered everything about me and asked about my
program, my family, and so much else. I was so proud that
he knew me. I’d tell people all the time that Bob Gorlin
was the only true genius that knew me by name. He was
faster and more accurate than Medline. In one area only
he wasn’t accurate. He’d often introduce me as his boss.
I don’t believe Bob ever really had a
“boss”.
Michael Rohrer
I do believe this is my favorite anecdote:
A patient who was coming from Norway needed the Gorlin
touch, but unfortunately the letter describing her
potentially life-threatening problem was in Norwegian.
With apologies, I presented the letter, and what followed
was typically Bob. He began reading the letter with
virtually no pause as he translated. The phone rang and
Bob took the call, conferring in the speaker’s apparently
eastern European native language. At which time one of the
foreign post-docs popped in with a technical question.
Grand total: two simultaneous conversations in two foreign
languages plus translation of a third. Result for me:
diagnosis of a rare developmental problem, a visit for the
patient with Dr. Gorlin, a referral to the physician who
could best help her, and another moment of awe that such
things exist — all of them. But especially Bob. David Born
I wish I had been at the school when Dr. Gorlin was alive. I hope to hear more about him during my remaining 3 years.
Izzard, 47, together with a tour manager, a sports
therapist and the ice-cream van, left Trafalgar Square on
July 26 after a snap decision — “all decisions are snap,
aren’t they? You can’t have a bendy decision” — to run 30
miles a day in as many days around the country. The
effort is for Sport Relief, the fundraising initiative by
Comic Relief and BBC Sport.
He had to downgrade to a marathon a day, and as of the writing of the article, was on his 19th. Impressive! He’s even doing some “impromptu” comedy shows on the road, announcing the shows at the last minute on Twitter. Follow along on his Twitter feed.
Did some code refactoring here at tumbledry over the past few weeks, and fixed a few bugs, too. If anything isn’t working right, please let me know! I’ll be updating server software here soon, and then I’ll have no time to think about tumbledry maintenance for another 11 months!
Even though I won’t have time for more code clean-up, I do hope to continue posting. I’ll do my best.
Anthony Bourdain’s show on the Travel Channel continues to amaze me with its fantastic writing (does he do the writing for his voiceovers? I think he does…) and exotic locales. In the Spain episode, Bourdain visits his close friends, the father and daughter team who run the world class restaurant Arzak. A good quote from the father:
“Joy and order, but not boringness or seriousness.”
— Juan Ramon Arzak
Brought to you by the best show about food currently on television: No Reservations.
