A while ago (because, of course, this is a book blog) I did a post about contemporary movie actors being commonly unable to generate a recognizably human expression—due to the ubiquity of Botox use in the Hollywood community.
Yesterday, James Lileks at the Bleat did a review of the movie Wall-E. In it he rhapsodized about the wonderful expressiveness of the main character, a computer-generated cartoon robot.
So it seems to me we’ve come to this—we’re getting more recognizably human performances from animated actors than from actual people actors.
Signs of the times. Chesterton would have had something scintillating to say about it. Me, I just note it in my pedestrian manner, and stroll on.
Nathaniel Peters at First Things linked to an earlier First Things appreciation of P. G. Wodehouse by Joseph Bottum. Well worth reading.
A light went on over my head today (unfortunately it was an incandescent light, so the authorities forced me to switch it off).
I took a moment to look at a news page on the web, and checked the stock market, which as we all know has been weak lately. And I found myself thinking, “My 401-K has lost a lot of value.”
And then I realized that this was ridiculous. I haven’t lost a cent in my 401-K. My loss or gain will only be known when the day comes (a long time from now, I hope) when I take the money out of it.
Since that day is not yet with us, I’m actually in a cycle where the money that goes from my paycheck into my pension plan is able to buy more stock for the buck. I’m getting’ a bargain here. There are many reasons to be unhappy about the economy, but for me personally, that ain’t one of ’em.
This is not to minimize the pain the downturn is causing to many people. The thought of being laid off (it’s happened to me) gives me a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach.
I’m just saying, there are times (rare, perhaps) when looking at the dark side doesn’t make a lot of rational sense.
WHAT AM I SAYING???????
You’re right, but don’t count on your 401(k) too much. Retirement is probably going to go away.
Past generations could retire for three reasons:
1. They worked hard during their fertile years, raising a large number of kids to replace them.
2. They died early enough that retirement only meant paying their expenses for a few years.
3.
Oops. I wasn’t done writing.
3. Most jobs were the kind of manual labor that an older person wouldn’t be able to do very well anyway.
These three assumptions no longer hold. People have much smaller families (about replacement level in the US). They expect to live for decades after retirement. And most jobs are in offices and can be done by healthy people in their seventies and eighties.
Something is going to give. Unless I miss my guess, it will be the retail investments that people hold primarily as retirement assets. We’ll see inflation reduce the value of the debt instruments, and a lower stock market reduce the value of equity instruments.
I have no plans for a long retirement. I’m fortunate to have the kind of job that you can pretty much do as long as you walk, so I expect (God willing) that I’ll work long past the age of 65.
Also we bachelors don’t generally live very long. I figure the chances are good that I won’t make it to retirement.
Also we bachelors don’t generally live very long. I figure the chances are good that I won’t make it to retirement.
I wonder if anybody ran the figures specifically on religious bachelors. Is it the lack of a wife, or is it self destructive behaviors that a wife wouldn’t tolerate, and that we believe God discourages?
Women, with their profound powers of perception, subliminally recognize genetically inferior men, and reject them. Such men tend to die off early.
Oh Lars… there’s always hope… like the wussy cat said, I mean pussy cat…
What is weird is a committee for a blog…
Funny though is a committee of One for sermons from pulpits and radio airings that denounce others wickedly… using their personal lives in their folly…
BUT He is my moderator and His system doesn’t crash or delete things…
Truth will prevail… Always and Forever…
Sorry about encribtic… meant as comeback to “abc” or whatever it was for putting you down… at least one of us protects the other…
I love the poems and especially the songs… that site is going to be helpful I got my own pod now… for music that is.