Friday Four

1. Self-made billionaire Seymour Schulich recently volunteered how he makes tough decisions. After listing and rating pros and cons separately:

If the positive score is at least double the negative score, you should do it -- whatever "it" is. But if the positives don't outweigh the negatives by that two-to-one ratio, don't do it, or at least think twice about it.

What a great improvement on the traditional pro/con list!

2. From the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), good news regarding freedom of speech on campus:

... Purdue University has earned FIRE's highest, "green light" rating for free speech. With help from FIRE, Purdue revised its speech-related policies to comply with the First Amendment. Purdue further affirmed its commitment to academic freedom and freedom of expression by adopting a statement similar to the University of Chicago's laudable statement on academic freedom, endorsed by FIRE in January. [links omitted]

Purdue became the twenty-first "green light" institution.

3. Most people would ... ahem ... prefer not to, but a story about a man who chose to live in his office for over a year is somewhat inspiring (if we set aside for a moment that this is probably trespassing):

Yawning myself awake in an empty office, that impossibility disappeared. So what if there was sacrifice? Waking up with a pumping adrenal gland wasn't ideal, but it was better than lying in bed knowing your hours were auctioned off to a status quo you never wanted in the first place.

As one can tell from the story, the time to try something like this that is actually legal is well before one assumes too many other responsibilities.

4. Words to live by:

Remember, a dead fish can float downstream, but it takes a live one to swim upstream. -- W. C. Fields, via "Dream Weaver"

Too many people, confusing stupid social norms for those based on man's nature, choose the wrong "current" to swim against, but this is otherwise an inspirational aphorism.

-- CAV