“If you're really listening, if you're awake to the poignant beauty of the world, your heart breaks regularly. In fact; your heart is made to break; its purpose is to burst open again and again so that it can hold evermore wonders." Andrew Harvey

Editor’s note: I’ve often wondered how Winston Churchill could be so often quoted, and now I know. He wrote over 15,000,000 million published words – books, speeches, articles, letters and papers. This book contains “only” 350,000 of them. “By Himself” was a gift from my good friend, Rob Falls. It’s a “best of” Churchill – over 4,000 quotes that are attributable and arranged by topic. The author is a leading Churchill scholar which would be a career since another 35,000,000 words have been published about Winston Churchill. Obviously, it’s not a book I read but it’s become a favorite for perusing when I have the time and intention to learn from the ultimate statesman of the 20th century.

Editor’s Note: This song was given to me by my daughter, Caitlin, who represents the point of the song – balance. The music and rhythm also bring me upbeat, just like she does.

“Life does not consist mainly – or even largely – of facts and happenings.  It consists mainly of the storm of thoughts that is forever blowing through one’s mind.”  Mark Twain

Editor’s note:  I went back and forth on featuring this book due to Kagan’s known conservative credentials and the books rambling nature.  But in the end, two ideas, one past and one future, are powerful.  The past is that the United States became “sole world power” somewhat ambivalently.  That is, Kagan says, over history we tend to 1. Resist getting engaged in conflict, 2. Engage only when there appears to be a human cost that we feel can no longer be ignored and then 3. We become uncomfortable with the power we’re given by our engagement.  The second, far more importantly, is Kagan’s future view from past learning which is that we must decide now not later how to act as one of two or three world powers since we will soon no longer be at the top alone.  His conclusion, as noted in the excerpt below, is that this is not a one dimensional issue, as it is so often considered.

 Editor’s note:  The Southern Cross is a constellation long loved by sailors.  The song is one of the early, more obscure Crosby Stills and Nash songs but is one of my favorite for its harmonies, its melody and its meaning. The song is about failed love but as the excerpt below suggests, has a far broader meaning to me.  Peace. 

Editor’s Note: This irreverent “journey through the new Third World” by Lewis is at once vastly entertaining and concerning. Within the past year or so, he visits Iceland, Ireland, Greece, Germany and California to measure the fallout of the financial crisis. Interviews with many key players in these focal point geographies suggest to the reader that the crisis a. looks obvious in retrospect and b. is not nearly over yet. And while I’d already had this fact drilled into my head in MBA school in 2005-2007, he reminds me that the clearest sign of trouble ahead is our government (all levels) un-fundable benefit commitments to public workers and pensioners.

Editor’s note: This is perhaps my favorite quote ever, a sign posted behind the desk of my friend, placed so no one can see it but him.

Editor’s note: This is just a great throw-back song for me. A lot of memories come to me from this hitchhiker’s ballad of missing their mate, some of the best from singing it with my family. But there is also a point in the refrain, noted below in my favorite lyric.

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication…nature loves simplicity and unity.” Steve Jobs