“I’m clearly a textbook case of the silent majority of middle-aged men who won’t admit they’re starved for friendship, even if all signs point to the contrary,” wrote Billy Baker in his recent exploration of male loneliness in TheBoston Globe.
Perhaps one reason the piece made so many internet rounds is just how many people could relate: Last year Surgeon General Vivek Murthy warned that Americans are “facing an epidemic of loneliness and social isolation.”
Though “I’m going to die alone” is the common grumble among single people, scientifically, it’s more like, “I’m going to die if I’m alone.” A lack of social connections can spark inflammation and changes in the immune system, so lonely people are far more likely to die prematurely. Loneliness is more dangerous than obesity, and it’s about as deadly as smoking. The threat is considered so serious that England has created an entire “Campaign to End Loneliness.”
From the time we’re young, we’re taught that knowledge is power. Our education system evaluates students based on their ability to cram as much information as possible into their heads.
Similarly, in today’s startup climate, it’s tempting to think that learning more will strengthen your competitive advantage. And we can satisfy our knowledge craving literally any time of day, through thousands upon thousands of online courses available 24/7 — digital marketing to blindfolded origami, there’s probably a course for it out there. In fact, almost 80% of U.S. companies offer online training for their employees.
As CEO of my own company, JotForm, I’m no stranger to the feeling that I should be acquiring some type of informational currency at all times. As of the time I’m writing this article, I have a hundred or so articles saved in my Pocket app. I can’t help feeling anxious sometimes, that I might miss a good think piece or game-changing update from my industry.
Again, again and again, the New York Yankees kept hammering away.
At the umpires — and the Cleveland Indians, too.
Manager Aaron Boone, Brett Gardner and the Yankees threw another severe temper tantrum Saturday, this time in prolonged rants that brought several members of the team spilling onto the field in a 6-5 win over the Indians.
“Kinda crazy, to be honest,” Gardner said.
Gleyber Torres hit two home runs and Didi Gregorius and DJ LeMahieu also connected for the AL East-leading Yankees.
But what really fired up the crowd of 47,347 at Yankee Stadium erupted in the sixth inning after Cameron Maybin was called out on strikes by Triple-A ump Ben May.
My poor daughter. She’s happy and healthy, and has loving parents and a stable home.
But, she also has a dad who scours scholarly articles to find the modern consensus on best practices in raising kids.
I hope we’re not treating her like a guinea pig. But I do think we’re careful to make small adjustments in the ways we try to raise her, having pored over some of the most useful and interesting strategies out there.
Egomaniacs are on the rise, especially within the leadership ranks of companies across the world, which is detrimental to good business outcomes.
Leadership and management expert and best-selling author Ken Blanchard warns us:
The ego is one of the biggest barriers to people working together effectively. When people get caught up in their egos, it erodes their effectiveness. That’s because the combination of false pride and self-doubt created by an overactive ego gives people a distorted image of their own importance. When that happens, people see themselves as the center of the universe and they begin to put their own agenda, safety, status, and gratification ahead of those affected by their thoughts and actions.
The challenge is keeping such self-centered leaders and managers from taking their teams or companies down a path toward self-destruction. After all, we speak of personality characteristics–some of which border on personality disorders.
Authorities this weekend announced they had foiled three potential mass shootings after arresting three men in different states who expressed interest in or threatened to carry them out.
All three cases were brought to authorities’ attention thanks to tips from the public.
Thirteen people were arrested and four were injured, as over 1,000 right-wing demonstrators and counter-protesters descended on downtown Portland on Saturday, police said.
There were “at least 13 arrests,” in six hours, Portland Police Lieutenant Tina Jones said in a statement. “We are aware of four individuals who have been evaluated by Portland Fire medics,” the statement said.
Jones also said that one person had been taken to a hospital and that “Portland Fire medics report that all known injuries are considered to be minor.”
On Tuesday, Donald Trump gave a speech to the employees at Royal Dutch Shell’s petrochemical plant in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, the largest construction site in the state. An estimated 5,000 workers attended, and according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, they were free to choose between hear the president’s speech or not getting paid for the day.
Per the Post-Gazette:
“Your attendance is not mandatory,” said the rules that one contractor relayed to employees, summarizing points from a memo that Shell sent to union leaders a day ahead of the visit to the $6 billion construction site. But only those who showed up at 7 a.m., scanned their ID cards, and prepared to stand for hours—through lunch but without lunch—would be paid.”NO SCAN, NO PAY,” a supervisor for that contractor wrote.
According to the Post-Gazette, any employee who chose not to come would receive an “excused but unpaid” absence, and would not qualify for overtime that week. A Shell spokesman explained to the paper that employees have a 56-hour workweek with 16 hours of overtime built in, and missing a day of work would disqualify them from receiving time-and-a-half pay for those 16 hours, effectively costing them even more money than the lost day to skip the Trump speech.
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US President Donald Trump speaks to 5000 contractors at the Shell Chemicals Petrochemical Complex on August 13, 2019 in Monaca, Pennsylvania.Jeff Swensen/Getty
In art, a cloudscape is the depiction of a view of clouds or the sky. Usually, as in the examples seen here, the clouds are depicted as viewed from the earth, often including just enough of a landscape to suggest scale, orientation, weather conditions, and distance (through the application of the technique of aerial perspective). The terms cloudscape and skyscape are sometimes used interchangeably, although a skyscape does not necessarily include a view of clouds.
A highly complex cloudscape—as in some works of J. M. W. Turner, for example—within an otherwise conventional landscape painting, can sometimes seem like an abstract painting-within-a-painting, nearly obliterating the realistic setting with a grand display of gestural force. Some critics have explicitly cited 19th century cloudscapes and seascapes as precursors of the work of abstract-expressionist artists such as Helen Frankenthaler.
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
Image credit: Juhari Muhade | Getty Images
An image of Amazing Cloud Photography
