The pejorative term, pointy head intellectual, has been replaced by elites, but it remains intentionally demeaning.
“It is no surprise that we are especially skeptical of elites these days. The Great Financial Crisis did not exactly go well, and the Covid pandemic was only slightly more than five years ago. Plenty of mistakes were made in both, even if parties do not always agree in which direction. Or consider the election of Donald Trump. If you like Trump, his rise is a sign of how far wrong things have gone. If you don’t like Trump, you still have to admit your elites let him win the presidency twice, surely a major failing.
As trust recedes in authorities, and also in legacy outlets, strange beliefs are proliferating, whether it is about life extension, global conspiracies, or even whether Hitler was the chief villain of World War II.”
From Tyler Cowen via The Free Press, Our Elites Don’t Deserve This Much Hatred
I’ve retained two hobbies, photography and woodworking, which give me great pleasure. While I am a bit episodic in my photography, I am more consistent as a woodworker and can’t help but notice the rising cost of lumber – and that is before tariffs. I am not alone in the increasing cost of my leisure.
“hobbies create “social worlds” that have “an ideology of openness, and a supportive infrastructure.” In other words, hobbies can produce communities where, because the hobby itself takes top priority, the participants’ social or cultural differences become less important. Surveying my phone’s contact list recently, I realized that most of my friends and acquaintances who are not like me—who are much older or much younger, who are richer or poorer, who toil in other lines of work, or who cast their ballots for other kinds of candidates—are people I know from hobbies.”
From the Atlantic, What We Lose When We’re Priced Out of Our Hobbies
Corporations have a long history. For many, the East India Company was perhaps the largest corporation in history, with its own country (India) and army. In addition to now being considered “individuals,” they have morphed from their original purpose.
“Historically, incorporation was used not to facilitate but to block wealthy outsiders from bending purposive organizations to serve their financial or familial interests. It had this effect because incorporation involves transferring ownership to a juridical person, eliminating outside ownership claims on the organization. Incorporation removed control of the Church from wealthy lay patrons, … removed control of universities and civil society associations from venal bishops and wealthy donors, … Little known, it also originally removed control of the firm from its investors. The board of the world’s first giant business corporation, the Dutch East India Company (VOC), was not selected by its stockholders … but by a complex process involving the lead merchants, the port-city burgomasters, and the Estates-General.”
From the Hedgehog Review, There are alternatives
This last week, I saw an ad for chicken nuggets from Taco Bell. Besides the heresy of a chicken nugget, let alone a “Mexicanized” version, it seems that the chicken thigh is getting some newfound respect.
“The boneless and skinless chicken thigh, however, did not exist as a widespread meat product in the United States until the 2000s. This is also partially a story of industrial innovation: Over time, the thigh-deboning process has become more automated, making boneless dark meat less labor-intensive to produce. The Baader 632 Thigh Filleting System, for example, boasts of processing 230 thighs a minute…”
From The Atlantic, The End of Chicken-Breast Dominance
Chuck Dinerstein, MD, MBA
Director of Medicine
Dr. Charles Dinerstein, M.D., MBA, FACS is Director of Medicine at the American Council on Science and Health. He has over 25 years of experience as a vascular surgeon.
