Month: December 2017
We Have More in Common Than We Know – Los Angeles Review of Books
From inboxing to thought showers: how business bullshit took over | News | The Guardian
After the meeting, I found myself wondering why otherwise smart people so easily slipped into this kind of business bullshit. How had this obfuscatory way of speaking become so successful? There are a number of familiar and credible explanations. People use management-speak to give the impression of expertise. The inherent vagueness of this language also helps us dodge tough questions. Then there is the simple fact that even if business bullshit annoys many people, in most work situations we try our hardest to be polite and avoid confrontation. So instead of causing a scene by questioning the bullshit flying around the room, I followed the example of Simon Harwood, the director of strategic governance in the BBC’s self-satirising TV sitcom W1A. I used his standard response to any idea – no matter how absurd – “hurrah”.
A Translator’s Reckoning With the Women of the Odyssey | The New Yorker
BBC – Culture – The secret meaning of ghost stories
“But Maybe?”: Immortality, Time, and Nabokov’s Dream Diary – Los Angeles Review of Books
We catch too many sardines — but should we stop eating them? | Grist
We Asked 615 Men About How They Conduct Themselves at Work – The New York Times
Street Planning in These Cities Rethinks the Curbside – Next City
https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/cities-street-planning-rethinking-curbside
The report cites a Los Angeles study showing that merchants on a stretch of Cesar Chavez Avenue estimated that 36 percent of their patrons had arrived by car and none by transit, when in fact 46 percent had arrived by transit and only 7 percent by car.