Reblogged:Friday Hodgepodge

[Gus Van Horn blog]

Three Things

1. Months ago, my son acquired a flimsy blue plastic bracelet and lost it within days. He may have won it when I took him to a friend's birthday at a Chuck E. Cheese's, but I am not certain. In any event, he lost it within a day or so and seemed to have forgotten it -- until the next time he got upset, when he cried, "I can't find my blue bracelet!"

It took me a few moments to realize what he was talking about, but I eventually figured it out. Mrs. Van Horn later purchased for him a couple of nice blue bracelets, but still, he will sometimes make the same complaint when he gets upset or tired. "It's his Rosebud, I guess," I said to Mrs. Van Horn the last time this happened.

2. Discussing our next shoe purchase for the kids, my sleep-deprived wife told me of a shoe sizer from the web site of the store. "Print two," she said.

"Why do we need two?" I asked.

Then, feeling mischievous, I added, "I'll print four."

Justice came swiftly in the form of a quick poke to the ribs.

3. Ayn Rand has become required reading in the UK:

A-level students in the UK will now be called upon to know and understand the core tenets of Rand's philosophy, along with those of other conservative thinkers like Thomas Hobbes and Edmund Burke. (The A-Level politics course also includes the study of liberalists like John Locke and John Stuart Mill, socialists like Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, feminists like Simone de Beauvoir, and more.)

"Students will get to grapple with a diverse worldview and build up their own respective intellectual muscles through this new curriculum," says Yaron Brook, chairman of the nonprofit group The Ayn Rand Institute...

The government shouldn't interfere with education at all, much less run it, but given that it currently does, it is good to see an improvement like this.

Weekend Reading

"Unless someone is holding a gun to your head or is outright lying to you, you are never really a victim." -- Michael Hurd, in "Victimhood: Mostly a State of Mind" at The Delaware Wave

"By piously preaching to others, the hypocrite is trying to wish away his or her problems." -- Michael Hurd, in "Hypocrisy is a Full-Time Job" at The Delaware Coast Press

"[W]e face not some nebulous threat from 'terrorists' or 'violent extremists,' but a distinct enemy: the Islamic totalitarian movement." -- Elan Journo, in "The Jihadist Attack in London" at The Times of Israel

Baffled by Nonconformity

Framing a bizarre question for Allison Green of Ask a Manager, a boss sounds completely flabbergasted by the habits of an employee:

She is different, she is under 25 and does not have social media or any internet presence and when her name is searched for nothing comes up. She has a landline and no mobile phone and she doesn't own a TV or any kind of streaming service, and when she isn't job searching she only checks her email once or twice a week. But she doesn't see why using cash [for] a business meal or event is a faux pas or misstep. As her supervisor, am I able to mandate her to use an electronic payment? She has refused all attempts so far and says she won't change.

Except for the television and possibly the credit cards, everything about this person would have been almost unremarkable as little as twenty years ago. In fact, when I was about that age, I went for a few years without owning a television, come to think of it.

-- CAV

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