Before war was declared between England and the colonies--and before the colonies declared themselves an independent nation in 1776--there was that first shot in the skirmish of April 19,1775.
Just two months later, there was something bigger: a pitched battle that is now known as The Battle of Bunker Hill. General Washington was not in charge yet, and colonial soldiers were untrained while carrying their own muskets.
But they acquitted themselves well and made their opponents pay a high price for their nominal victory. British General Clinton referred to the battle as:
"A dear bought victory, another such would have ruined us."
Is your favorite fast-food place in trouble? You probably wonder about that, if you see the take-out line of cars dwindling or the dining room looking old and shabby. Some old franchises just don't appeal to new generations.
Losing customers is one reason a business may fail. There are quite a few other reasons, including inflation. No business is untouched by inflation. Fast food may still be fast, but it's not so cheap anymore.
For many college graduates, the cost of their education wasn't justified by the results: 85% last year said, "I wish my college had better prepared me for the workplace." They paid the high price but didn't get the result they hoped for.
One wealthy individual is willing to try to change that dynamic by investing $100 million to make University of Austin tuition-free, with a vision as to how keep it free in the future:
"UATX will prepare students to become the next generation's leading entrepreneurs, innovators, scientists, and philanthropists. In turn, these successful graduates will financially support future generations of students . . ."
"UATX will live [or] die by the excellence of their graduates and the success they achieve in the world . . . If UATX doesn't deliver--in the eyes of its graduates and society--it will cease to exist. And it should."
What if college were free to its students? How could that possibly happen?
Universities and colleges are very expensive (image), usually requiring big loans that parents fervently hope will be worth it in terms of future income for their child. Often, it doesn't turn out that way. Many who borrow huge sums discover an ugly truth: the education they went into big debt for does not result in their having the ability to pay it back.
Higher education ought to build the character, skills, knowledge, judgment a student will need in order to flourish and contribute to society. But all that tuition must be paid to the school up front.
Billionaires have been fleeing California. Co-founder of Oracle, Larry Ellison, moved his company headquarters to Austin TX in 2020 and Elon Musk did that with Tesla about the same time.
Moving out is getting urgent for more of the state's billionaires now. A new state tax may be imposed on their assets (not their income, which is already taxed). That would include the collective worth of their businesses, art, stocks, collectibles, even intellectual property. Texas does not tax assets.
But Ellison (photo) is investing billions in yet another move for Oracle: to Nashville TN. (Tennessee doesn't tax assets either--of course it doesn't.) It's been coming for a while, and Tennessee is willing to invest millions into the move because they see it as a big economic benefit for the state.
The deal included Oracle providing over a billion dollars' worth of development alongside the river downtown, and 8,500 new jobs by 2031 with an average annual salary of $110,000. That's a lot of new money coming into the city.
Yet Oracle employees are not flocking to Nashville despite big incentives and a fancy new headquarters. They seem reluctant. I have to wonder if there's just a significant miss match between wealthy tech workers or executives . . and the culture & politics of the area. What, if anything, will happen politically to the state when all this change finally happens?
Social media is compelling, sometimes addicting. Among the youngest generation to reach adulthood today, it's been much more influential than it's been for older generations. Negative results have been noted.
A few people have leveraged social media (photo) for big incomes. Gen Z'ers do watch a lot of it and some have done what yesterday's post talks about: they dove into social media and used it to monetize their own lives.
In fact, a few of them make a whole lot of money doing it. They're open about the money and their audience is impressed: "Watching influencers has changed my perception of what a good job is!"
As one 23-year-old put it, "Influencers are so open and honest about making four times as much as their old nine-to-fives, and having such flexible lifestyles, has opened my generation's eyes into what's possible. It makes you feel completely disillusioned, and it's made Gen Z completely nihilistic about working."
Market researchers are trying to understand what Generation Z (born 1997 to 2012) people want in retail products, in entertainment, in jobs, etc. -- of course they are. And they're not the only ones. Even members of Gen Z themselves are trying to do that.
One Gen Z writer sees something she doesn't want to be a part of:
"They say my generation are wasting our lives watching mindless entertainment. But I think things are worse than that. We are now turning our lives into mindless entertainment. Not just consuming slop but becoming it."
"Influencers" make their lives into a tv series on social media (photo) complete with trailers, cliffhangers, finales--with wedding episodes, new house episodes, baby episodes, etc. ("I have this horrible feeling now that some of us are having children for views! Babies for clicks!")
For her own life, she wants no camera rolling at important personal moments and no one posting it on Instagram.
Investor and entrepreneur, Peter Thiel (photo), has credentials. When it comes to knowing his way around money, people listen to him because he has real-world results, being a billionaire.
He notices things about our economy. Housing in America has gone way up in price over the past 5-6 years and you probably noticed it too. Part of the reason is that home building hasn't kept pace with our growing need for it and there are other reasons. But it is certainly true.
Is that good or bad news for all of us? It depends. If you owned property before this rise in prices, it could make you wealthier. But not in terms of income. You wouldn't be able to turn the new and higher value of your home into cash unless you sold it and moved into a much cheaper place. Other properties have risen in value too and you have to live somewhere.
But for everyone who has yet to purchase a property and wants to, it's bad news. Salaries and incomes have risen, but not as much as real estate. You'll pay more, in effect, for your first home than your parents did . . if you're even financially able to do it.
If real estate continues to rise, some segment of our population will be forever priced out. No one actually knows if real estate will keep rising in the future. But if you want to own a property and can do it, maybe you should get on the "real estate ladder" before it's out of reach.
After Charlie Kirk was murdered last September on a college campus, attention and controversy swirled around his work. He was loved by thousands (millions?) and hated by many on the other side.
Opinions abound. If you have no experience in hearing him speak, you could be confused. But there's a simple way to find out what he actually stood for because there are lots and lots of videos of him talking with individuals on his campus tours: authentic and unscripted conversations.
"This is about the end of a place. In the future, the fires will be a demarcation. There will be the times before and after the disaster, and the one will be remembered as this happy, gauzy surreality that never was" . . . When this is over, the politics of this place will be upended."
Today it's exactly one year since many Californians lost every material thing they had when their homes burned to the ground. That happened to a renter, Meghan (photo), and this is her account.
What she grabbed in her hasty evacuation by car was her: dog, laptop, change of clothes, dinner, handbag, shoes. She didn't really think the fires would reach her home. But on the 8th, ~nine hours later, her home was destroyed along with about 16,000 other homes in the Los Angeles area.
What she regrets not taking: family pictures, artwork, book manuscripts, etc.: "What haunts me is how much time I would have had to take more things, had I known what was about to happen."
Last summer in Venezuela, the presidential election was stolen by dictator Nicolas Maduro. Nelson Merino had worked the campaign for the opposition party and then worked to prevent Maduro from "illegally seizing power." He writes here about the subsequent suffering he endured for his efforts.
Despite the courage of the opposition and its leader Maria Machado, the dictator retained his power and declared his victory. Merino was soon arrested and charged with resisting authority, obstruction of public roads, incitement to hatred, and terrorism.
"We were tortured. We had no access to clean drinking water and no proper food . . . We had no rights--only what they called privileges." One of those privileges was the paqueteria: every 15 days, family members of prisoners were allowed to bring a 5-liter bottle of drinking water, five packs of crackers, and one chocolate bar. That was all." More details are given in his article below.
Like so many other (photo) Venezuelan patriots, he says "I celebrate and applaud the actions taken by the United States government against the narco-trafficker Nicolas Maduro . . ."
"Today I am a refugee in Spain with an overwhelming need to return to Venezuela, out of love and commitment to freedom and democracy."
Charles Dickens, the 19th century author of this iconic story, was this sort of person: "joyful and loves humanity and is full of life and entertainment and humor." His characters are "larger than life." Sounds like an author you'd enjoy reading, doesn't it?
Apparently the "intellectual class" doesn't care for Dickens, Klavan says, because they think darkness is "deeper" than light (which is not true).
In some ways, reading a book rather than watching a movie based on it is a far richer experience. If you like fiction, consider reading a novel by Charles Dickens.
People are working hard to bring The Chosen to a billion people around the world, a huge goal, and it's complicated. An organization outside the actual producing of the show was founded with the mission to accomplish that goal. It's called Come and See.
Hope your Christmas celebration was beautiful and joyous, and that your New Year will be full of good opportunities!
We pause during this holiday week to think about the year to come . . and to pray, either today or tomorrow, about 2026. As you well know, it will present both happy and challenging situations to you and your loved ones.
What are the local gathering spots like where you live?
In my community most shops and cafes are franchises: efficient and predictable, they nevertheless don't lend themselves to neighborliness like "third places" do. We need to connect with our neighbors in casual ways.
"Third places" are independent gathering spots having walls cluttered with notices of lost pets and local sports teams, noisy, full of personality, menus of local favorites, all looking like the neighborhood.
America used to have more of these. "People mixed across generational and economic lines where you could overhear a conversation wildly different from your own, where children learned to behave in public, and where adults remembered the value of showing up and being present. They were unpretentious, inexpensive, and abundant. And because they belonged to their neighborhoods, they carried meaning."
Understanding and trusting neighbors is "social capital." We need it in America, and it's been declining. "Social capital does not regenerate itself—it is produced in spaces where people encounter one another with regularity and low stakes. When those encounters disappear, people stop learning how to share space with those unlike themselves, and difference begins to feel threatening rather than ordinary."
The winter of 1776 held no Christmas joy for the colony's cold, ragged troops. Defeat after defeat left them in terrible circumstances. British generals assumed the Americans were finished and took a winter break from fighting.
General George Washington finally came up with an offensive strike that his advisers and generals could agree to. They crossed the Delaware River on Christmas night, attacked Hessian mercenaries, and won a famous victory that changed the war.
How tough were those troops and officers? They were already in bad shape when they crossed the half-frozen river in the night. Two froze to death. A lot of suffering precedes death.
In yesterday's post, you saw Jewish Dennis Prager enjoying the celebration of Christmas in America. He has a lot of company.
Here is the view of another Jewish (re-post) man who lives in Boston (published years ago in the Boston Globe). He's "far from feeling excluded or oppressed."
A Jewish man in Boston loves to see Christmas celebrated: "I’m an Orthodox Jew for whom Dec. 25 has zero theological significance. My family doesn’t put up a tree, my kids never wrote letters to Santa, and we don’t go to church for midnight Mass. But while I may not celebrate Christmas, I love seeing my Christian friends and neighbors celebrate it. I like living in a society that makes a big deal out of religious holidays. Far from feeling excluded or oppressed when the sights and sounds of Christmas return each December — OK, November — I find them reassuring. To my mind, they reaffirm the importance of the Judeo-Christian culture that has made America so exceptional — and such a safe and tolerant haven for a religious minority like mine.
"Ioffe [Jewish woman] writes that being told “Merry Christmas,” even once, is “ill-fitting and uncomfortable.” Hearing it for weeks on end is almost more than she can bear. “It’s exhausting and isolating,” she writes. “It makes me feel like a stranger in my own land.”
"Is it really the Christmas cheer that makes her feel so alienated? That certainly isn’t the reaction Christmas evoked in other Jewish immigrants and their children. Not only were many of the greatest Christmas songs composed by Jewish songwriters , but several of those songwriters were themselves first-generation Americans. Irving Berlin (“White Christmas”) was born in Russia. So were the parents of Mel Torme (“The Christmas Song”). Edward Pola (“It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”) was the son of immigrants from Hungary . . .
"As an observant Jew, I don’t celebrate Christmas and never have. Do the inescapable reminders at this time of year that hundreds of millions of my fellow Americans do celebrate it make me feel excluded or offended? Not in the least: They make me feel grateful — grateful to live in a land where freedom of religion shields the Chanukah menorah in my window no less than it shields the Christmas tree in my neighbor’s. That freedom is a reflection of America’s Judeo-Christian culture, and a central reason why, in this overwhelmingly Christian country, it isn’t only Christians for whom Christmas is a season of joy. And why it isn’t only Christians who should make a point of saying so."
If you were an American Christian living in, say, Iraq, would youwish your neighbors a Happy Ramadan? I would do that if I lived there - to extend courtesy to my neighbors and to honor the country I live in.
About 92% of Americans celebrate Christmas, some Christian and some not. So you're on very solid ground when you say "Merry Christmas!" to almost everybody.
Don't let this tradition die. Say it to someone today!
Do you feel that special Christmas holiday feeling? "All of life starts going … soft-focus, with glimmering lanterns and crackling fireplaces . . ." It makes you want to order a peppermint latte (photo).
It permeates this season (though not as much as it did years ago because of the secularizing trend). Think of the lovely music, like "White Christmas" and "Silver Bells." A mood of good feeling, of well-being comes over us.
Cynics or atheists enjoy it too, but they have to deny that the power which inspires the good feelings comes from the ancient meaning of our Christian holiday. Check out this post from 2016.
What would be the mood of a holiday inspired by ancient Nordic folklore? By ancient Aztec traditions? "What kind of “winter villages” would modern Aztecs have organized?"
This author says, "The fact is that the good cheer, conviviality and family reunions we feel compelled to organize at this time of year really do flow from a long list of powerful truths that our ancestors only learned about because of a single Jew’s birth in Bethlehem."
Careful guardrails will be essential since decision making and execution of decisions is what agentic AI will do, and there will be consequences. Programmers will have to imagine possible bad consequences in order to protect priorities like privacy, cost, human safety.
Examples of what agentic AI could do in a couple of applications:
You're familiar with the large language models (LLM's) like ChatGPT. They generate pictures and they generate text (by scanning the internet for likely word sequences) according to the command of a human user.
But artificial intelligence has gone way beyond that level to what is called "agentic AI" software systems. They are "proactive entities designed to tackle specific tasks with a remarkable degree of independence."They areprogrammed to make decisions and take action on them according to a human programmer's goal.
That independence is empowered to reach decisions by following this procedure (image):
gather information
analyze and then create a plan
execute the plan using available tools
evaluate results
AI has passed another frontier. It continues accelerating into the future.
How about putting data centers where solar power is free 24 hours/day and weather doesn't interrupt, thus solving the energy problem? How about putting them where cooling is also free 24 hours/day, thus solving the cooling problem?
Yes, there is such a place, a place to put data centers where no community will object or delay, where solar energy and coldness abound. The plan is to put them far, far away--in space.
Always considering the big picture, Elon thinks about how to help human civilization survive the dangers he foresees. When asked last month whether AI in space is possible, he answers that it is inevitable:
Artificial intelligence developers want new data centers asap. But local opposition is slowing everything down.
Energy is a big issue. Additional nuclear power plants of any type would help fill the energy gap, but it takes time to build up new ones. Anyway, our power grid is not as robust as it should be, so how will it handle huge new amounts of power? And since the needed increase of energy will probably come initially from fossil fuels, pollution could be a problem.
Massive amounts of cooling technology will also be required for data centers because so much heat will be generated. Will it come from local water sources like rivers or springs? Communities often don't like that idea.
Will local governments be receptive to enormous energy needs, possible local electricity rate hikes, possible pollution, and the draining of water resources if they allow a data center to be built?
So far, communities are delaying or blocking permits for the proposed building of data centers.
“Opposition is cross-partisan and geographically mixed,” the researchers wrote. “Blue and red states alike are tightening rules or rethinking incentives; legislators in places like Virginia, Minnesota, and South Dakota are scrutinizing subsidies, grid impacts, and local authority, often cutting across traditional party lines.”
Founder of Dell Technologies, Michael Dell, is all in on this idea. An investor all his life, he and his wife seem inspired: they are giving $6.25 billion out of their own charitable fund to give kids --not babies, but 10 and under--their own investment account seeded with $250.
Spending the money will be totally up to the child when he or she has access to it; no requirement dictates what it must be spent on. Meanwhile, "They'll learn about dividends, re-investment, and long-term thinking--not by studying financial theory, but by seeing their money steadily increase."
