Wine, Culture & Taxes

#read Greg Popovich is one of the greatest basketball coaches of all time. He's held in equally regard with sommeliers and restauranteurs as well. He is considered a master of creating a winning culture and maximizing the talent on his rosters. His team was written off again this year to miss the playoffs and they took the 4th best team in the association to seven games. A big part of that culture is the passion and attention to detail he puts into meals with the team and staff.

#podcast Big Tax feels that making it easier to fill out your taxes would make for less engaged citizens. A professor tested out the idea of pre-filling some tax data to see how people would feel. They loved it. However that could have adverse affects on the tax filing industry. The story of how he did it, how it seems like such a no-brainer and how it was ultimately squashed by regulation due to lobbying is quite the encapsulation of our politics.

#listen Anderson.Paak is one of my favourite contemporary artists. His unique voice and sound never fail to lift my spirits. https://open.spotify.com/album/0YF8PfcGbsKg5IaFyPnlyY

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Bad Behaviour and Tough Talks

It's back to school kids! read : Good News about Bad Behaviour by Katherine Reynolds Lewis I randomly came across this book at the library and picked it up ironically. Soon afterwards I was hooked. The book speaks to the underlying cause of kids acting out. Sometimes it's bad modelling or connection with parents. Often it can be just low expectations yielding minimal output. The book advocates we relinquish control in ordrer to let our kids reach their potential and unlock their own sense of agency. One of my favourite lines is "By doing things for children that they're able to do, we are robbing them of feeling capable." I know for me doing things the kids are capable of is an expediency thing, but if they never learn. quick : We are ruining childhood - Kim Brooks likens childhood to one long internship just to get into the middle class. Overscheduling, no free time let alone free play. The idea of safety-ism means parents are trying to eliminate any and a...

Inconvenient Truths on the Alt-Left and Reconciliation

Read : The "left" has lot sight of progressive ideals being too deep in identity politics. Umair argues that the suffering from war, basic sanitation and poverty is not the equivalent as microaggressions but the outrage mobs feel equally upset. I thought this was a bit inflammatory calling them the zombie alt-left; but when we lose sight of the larger injustices; he makes a good case. Listen : "Canada is a state built on the removal of Indigenous peoples to make way for resource extraction companies." The removal of indigenous people for the sake of the economic benefit of the rest of us is not new. It's definitely an inconvenient truth. Some argue that members of the indigenous community will get jobs out of it, so they should just be grateful and shut up. The cost to the environment is significant as well as their ability to self-govern the little land that hasn't been stolen. Were someone to take over my backyard, potentially poison the groundwa...

DoubleThink, Getting Woke after the fact & Laundry

Doublethink Is Stronger Than Orwell Imagined. 1984 was the profound story of authoritarian control over everything even our thoughts. Today Orwell's dystopian vision is coming true but in self-imposed forms. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/1984-george-orwell/590638/ Not woke-washing it's Over-washing. Detergent companies need people to use more detergent. The environmental costs to this are enormous. Frankly going to back to university washing a shirt everytime you washed it felt over the top. https://www.fastcompany.com/90359188/the-next-big-thing-in-fashion-not-washing-your-clothes Woke-washing - when companies that have profitted to the detriment to humanity then try and a take a pittance as a gift to cultural institutions. These entities are lavished with praise as being good stewards of society. The forbidden fruit is to question the source of the philanthropy and whether it's acceptable to take 'dirty money'. The MET and oth...

Recency Bias

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