Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago School economists and fellow travelers.
Ginny WSJ notes a government study that finds news as remarkable as that college-age boys are attracted to college-age girls. The inevitability of one arises from human nature, the other from the nature of an open market place. The obvious may be acknowledged by Lou Dobbs and John Edwards, but such an admission would interfere with provoking sufficient envy to ensure their own income – and power – mobility.
The C&W star is cosmopolitan, taking the world’s time zones as his own.
Alan Jackson meets Margarittaville:
I’m gettin’ paid by the hour, an’ older by the minute.
My boss just pushed me over the limit.
I’d like to call him somethin’,
I think I’ll just call it a day.
Pour me somethin’ tall an’ strong,
Make it a “Hurricane” before I go insane.
It’s only half-past twelve but I don’t care.
It’s five o’clock somewhere.
(“It’s five o’clock somewhere“)
I suspect we all harbor doubts, but these people clearly don’t have enough to do.
Working to prove one’s self to one’s self may be admirable, but attending workshops in which you learn how to talk yourself into thinking you are competent seems like a waste of a lot of people’s time that might be better spent actually (if neurotically) doing something. (Chronicle linked by A&L – with, I suspect, some irony.) Faced with the eternal worth of literature and the fleeting worth of even pretty good literary criticism, it is small wonder that academics have moments of doubt. Still, this rather self-indulgent exercise doesn’t seem like a long-term remedy.
One of the hardest workers at my old business was clearly driven and thus terrible at delegating. She was, however, tireless in her industry and obsessive in her desire to get the orders done right. This pleased me and gave her a fleeting sense of accomplishment. Sure, we’d all have been better off if she weren’t quite so driven, but I can’t imagine such a workshop helping her – her doubts were real, just misplaced. I suspect that is often the case. For instance, she left the job and her husband for another woman – I hope she has found peace. If not, I bet she’s getting a hell of a lot of work done.
Two journals (mostly available on line) have fall issues with interesting discussions. City Journal includes Kay Hymowitz’s discussion of women’s roles and a feminist view of 9/11, both discussed briefly below. Melanie Phillips’ “Britain’s Anti-Semitic Turn” is just plain depressing. She suggests reasons America been a fertile ground for neo-cons – Jewish and not – while England seems to be sending them over here. The November New Criterion hosts a series of discussions on the twentieth anniversary of Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind
Weekly Wit & Wisdom from Country & Western:
Thank you for a life that I’d call happy
Overlooking all that we’ve been through
When it comes to loving I’ve been lucky
Everything I am I owe to you