A Billion-Dollar David vs. a Trillion-Dollar Goliath 

Read Time: 11 minutes

Joe Kiani 

Joe Kiani emigrated to the US from Iran when he was nine. Thirteen years later, he had a master’s degree in electrical engineering. Two years after that, he began working on a way to read oxygen levels in the blood using light. He succeeded, and the “pulse oximeter” was a key factor in building his company, Masimo, from a one-person operation in a California garage into a billion-dollar corporation that monitors the health of more than 200 million patients across the US. “Then, in 2019,” says Katherine Laidlaw, writing in The Hustle, “Kiani learned that Apple, the $3 trillion industry titan, might be infringing on the tech he’d spent decades of his life perfecting.”

The rest of the story is still unfolding, and it reads like a thriller. Click here.

An Ode to “I Hate Myself and I Want to Die” 

Read Time: 8 minutes

In this essay, Freddie deBoer talks about something that everyone experiences – some more than others – and his way of thinking about it. “I’m talking about a type of self-pity,” he writes, “that the self recognizes as self-pity which just provokes more self-loathing and from that more self-pity.” Click here for more.

I Couldn’t Resist This Piece from Far Out Magazine 

Read Time: 16 minutes

The title was too good: “10 actors who declined roles in Quentin Tarantino movies.” Click here.

“Why I Am Now a Christian”

“I was born a Muslim in Somalia. Then I became an atheist. But secular tools alone can’t equip us for civilizational war.” – Ayaan Hirsi Ali [italics]

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a refugee from Somalia that became a Dutch politician who, despite being a Muslim at the time, criticized the 9/11 attack. In 2004, in collaboration with Theo Van Gogh (as producer and director), she made a short film that was critical of Islam (Submission). As a result, both she and Van Gogh received death threats. He was murdered on the streets of Amsterdam.

She did not back down. She wrote a memoir (Infidel) and became an American. “Since the early 2000s,” says Bari Weiss, introducing Hirsi Ali’s essay in The Free Press, she has been “among the most prominent atheists in the world. Or at least she was until late last week, when she announced… that she has converted to Christianity.”

I read Hirsi Ali’s essay and was impressed with her honesty and courage. Click here.

But there was something about her most recent conversion that didn’t sit well with me. I discovered what that was when I read this.

Killers of the Flower Moon 

By David Grann

338 pages

Originally published April 18, 2017

It was my book club’s November’s selection. I’m grateful to the committee for recommending it because it’s about an historical incident I would have otherwise known nothing about.

Killers of the Flower Moon is an account of a series of murders that occurred in Osage Country, Oklahoma, in the early 1920s. Those murdered were members of the Osage Indian tribe, who lived on a stretch of land where large oil deposits were discovered. As such, they inherited “head rights” to the oil, which, in total, came to many millions of dollars. Enough to allow them to quit working and live luxuriously on their royalties.

What happened was a very different story. A shockingly heartless plot to separate the Osage people from their money by any and every means possible.

What I Liked About It 

David Grann did a great job of recounting the story in a way that made me feel as if I were following an investigation in real time. And, at the same time, including enough factual detail to make me feel like I was getting a fair and responsible account of the truth.

What I Didn’t Like 

The first chapter. For some reason, it had me worried that I was going to get a romanticized and politically correct bowdlerization of the facts. But as I moved on through the book, I came to the opposite view – that, considering the astonishing evil of so many of the facts, Grann’s account was well and properly restrained.

Critical Reception 

Killers of the Flower Moon got rave reviews from many critics and good reviews from everyone else. A few examples:

* “Disturbing and riveting…. Grann has proved himself a master of spinning delicious, many-layered mysteries that also happen to be true.” (Dave Eggars, New York Times Book Review)

* “Contained within Grann’s mesmerizing storytelling lies something more than a brisk, satisfying read.” (The Boston Globe)

* “A marvel of detective-like research and narrative verve.” (Financial Times)

Congress: From Canings and Stabbings to Murder

It’s happened several times now. AOC, that adorable nitwit representing New York’s 14th Congressional District since 2019, has several times complained publicly (and twice, hysterically) about being accosted by political enemies.

The reported assaults have ranged from having her purity defiled on the steps of Congress by an apparent Trumpster who was swept away by the plenitude of her derriere, to a Maga insurrection mob forcing her to lock herself away in her office, even though her office was in an unmolested building down the street from where the “insurrection” actually occurred, to, most recently, accusing Ted Cruz of threatening to kill her.

To be fair, AOC, does attract a lot of condescending criticism. (This bit included.) And politics in DC seem to be getting nastier every month. One might wonder, “Has there ever been a time when our Congressional representatives were ruder and meaner and more duplicitous than they are now?

Well, it turns out there was. Check out this essay on the History website about violence in Congress before the Civil War.

Ayn Rand

In the early 1960s, Ayn Rand was one of the most influential intellectuals in America. Today, her first name appears now and then in crossword puzzles. If you don’t know who she is, here’s a brief introduction…

Click here to listen to Ayn Rand “On Happiness” (1961).

And click here for a short video about her philosophy of Objectivism.

Words of Wisdom on Life, Happiness, and Investing 

In this short essay – a letter to his son on his 16th birthday – my partner Porter Stansberry provides some good advice about making important life decisions.

Click here.

Inside Comedy: The Soul, Wit, and Bite of Comedy and Comedians of the Last Five Decades 

By David Steinberg

352 pages

Published July 13, 2021

“Insecurity combined with arrogance is good DNA for a comedian. So is anger, aggression, and sadness.” That’s the first sentence of David Steinberg’s Inside Comedy, described by one reviewer as “a lifelong story of comedy and its brilliant careers, told by a consummate insider.”

It’s an easy, upbeat read. Funny. Insightful.

Critical Reception 

* “In his new, entertaining, and enlightening book, [Steinberg] gives a reader a colorful and personal panorama of the laugh makers he has known, plenty of them.” (Rick Kogan, Chicago Tribune)

* “Steinberg paints deep and intimate portraits of the comedians we know and love. He tells us their life stories, how they found comedy, and gives us insight into who they really are. In doing so, he also takes us through the development of comedy over the past several decades.” (Molly Sprayregen, Associated Press)

* “Steinberg’s recollections are as vivid as they are hilarious.” (Michael Ruzicka, Booklist)

About David Steinberg 

David Steinberg is a comedian, actor, writer, director, and author. At the height of his popularity, during the late 1960s and early 1970s, he was one of the best-known comics in the United States. His directing credits include episodes of Seinfeld, Friends, Mad About You, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Golden Girls, and Designing Women.

Steinberg appeared on The Tonight Show more than 150 times. Click here to watch a clip of his first appearance.

The Great Taki on the War in Ukraine

“What’s frustrating as hell,” writes Taki in his latest essay, “is the inability, or unwillingness, of Uncle Sam to stop the slaughter.”

Click here to read the entire thing.

No, Freddie. This Is One Problem We Don’t Need to Worry About. 

In this piece, Freddie deBoer joins a conversation about whether America’s elite college students may be hurting themselves by being too competitive.

So… this is a problem? Something that needs to be fixed?

No!

The labor issue Freddie and others should be worried about is not that a small slice at the top is working so very hard, but that a very large slice of the working population in the middle is not working harder. For various reasons (including technology), per capita productivity in the US is going down. That will eventually result in a lower GDP and a lower per capita income.

This is another example of how so many perfectly smart and educated people acquire beliefs about the economy that they wouldn’t consider applying to themselves or their children. Don’t have enough money to pay for that fancy new pair of sneakers? Work more hours or get a better-paying job!

Click here.