Conclusions based on no evidence, stated boldly

The internet makes us feel lonely. Good books, theater, music, make us less lonely. Television makes us dumb.

I don't know why, though I have cockeyed theories. Regardless, I'm keeping myself off the internet except once a day and only checking my email twice a day -- and rarely after 5 p.m. -- and I feel much much better.

Political reporters do not report on the issues because they don't understand the issues. Some of them are dumb. Dumb and smart people exist in all professions in the same percentage as your high school math class. At the same time, in their defense, they have to write a lot of articles for their publications. The reporters who are taking the time to understand the issues don't have the politics beat. Political reporters have no time to get smarter. Also, in truth, their beat isn't the issues. Their beat is explicitly the horse race. That's what they're told to report. Someone else is supposed to cover the issues.

Which would be fine with me if editors would just be more clear about the difference and help us find the issues coverage better and more often.

The Good is the enemy of artistic expression. When you want to make something Good, you are creating external criteria to fulfill rather than expressing what you need to express in its most ideal form. Also, when you think you have made something Good, then you stop learning how to improve. Artistic expression must be characterized by constant failure or you'd just stop doing it at a certain point. . . I've heard people call artists narcissists but perhaps it would be more accurate to call them sado-masochists. The sadism comes from their willingness to perform failure in front of others.

Neuroscience can and should be used to show why live theater is more satisfying than movies. . . I'm sure someone wants to waste some money on that, right? Because studies about neurological diseases can just get boring after a while. I bet that brain scans would show some very interesting things about how the same script when seen on a screen has a different, and less active, affect on the brain than it does when its experienced with live performers in the same room as the audience.

No more. Moving this weekend. Time to pack up my office.