Monday, November 15, 2010

As the world turns....

Post 582 - Here are some items that caught my eye last week:

The Beaujolais Nouveau will be uncorked on Thursday, November 18th.

The Irish State will mark the 88th anniversary of its founding on December 6th.

USA Today reports that the number of federal workers earning $150,000 or more a year has soared tenfold in the past five years and doubled since President Obama took office.

By 2020, the U.S. will be spending $1 trillion a year just to pay the interest on the national debt. If nothing changes between now and then, a major catastrophe will surely be upon us.

According to the New York City Planning Department, 46 percent of New Yorkers in their 20s who moved to the city from out of state between 2006 and 2008 lived with people to whom they were not related, up from 36 percent in 2000.

A new federal report projects one in three American adults could have diabetes by 2050. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the number of Americans with diabetes may double or triple over the next 40 years. People with diabetes face medical costs more than twice that of those without the illness. The total costs of diabetes is about $174 billion annually. Currently, roughly 24 million Americans, or one in ten adults have the disease.

According to David Brooks, Howard Gardner of Harvard once put together a composite picture of the extraordinarily creative person: She comes from a little place somewhat removed from the center of power and influence. As an adolescent, she feels herself outgrowing her own small circle. She moves to a metropolis and finds a group of people who share her passions and interests. She gets involved with a team to create something amazing. Then, at some point, she finds her own problem, which is related to and yet different from the problems that concern others in her group. She breaks off and struggles and finally emerges with some new thing. She brings it back to her circle. It’s tested, refined and improved. The main point in this composite story is that creativity isn’t a solitary process. It happens within networks. It happens when talented people get together, when idea systems and mentalities merge.

2 comments:

Anti-Laureate said...

It's ironic that most of the countries which embraced a particular model of unregulated financial industry, leverage by debt, boom growth as espoused by the Chicago school of economics now have huge national debt and budget deficits, while team-playing, social democratic, low-growth, regulated market, surplus wealth economies like Germany,Norway and Canada are in a position to lend to the rest of us.

john cotter said...

Must be a lesson there somewhere...