News Buffet

After taking a 20-minute scan of the weekend’s NY Times, I found a few things share-worthy:

1.  Obama is speaking at Notre Dame. And Arizona State, and the U.S. Naval Academy. I’m sort of surprised that Harvard didn’t snag him, but it did get Steven Chu! That should be really fascinating. I hope I’ll have the chance to catch Dr. Chu’s speech in person (and watch my former roommates graduate). Will he continue the “Do Good” streak to which Bill Gates and JK Rowling contributed?

2. Everyone is atwitter about Twitter. While I am still somewhat skeptical of its overall social value, this article about Twittering for traveling advice made a lot of sense. You blast a request for advice and instantaneously get recommendations. Who needs Yelp? One guy actually traveled from England to New Zealand solely on the advice of his fellow twitterers. Now that’s trust.

3. Short-selling, as I understand it, is betting against a stock and making a lot of money off of it. One of the major short-selling hedge fund founders quoted here, Jim Chanos, came to speak to our class tonight about that and Enron. He was one of the first people who suspected Enron’s shadiness and catalyzed events that led to its demise. I’m not sure how much I can quote of what he said, but he basically outlined what industries he thought were cresting and his reasoning as such. His primary advice to us: take accounting classes, because then you won’t be punk’d when you try to figure out businesses.  He challenged my idea of what a hedge fund founder who spends his life betting on others’ failures might look like. Actually personable, not stuffy or arrogant, and “interested” in transparent companies who do honest business. Or maybe I just drank his PR kool-aid.

Seriously, though, as is evident from several of my posts, encountering all different sorts of people this year really does a great job of dismantling the categories and stereotypes I’ve so carefully constructed, consciously or not, from consumption of biased media or being raised in a certain class stratum. Over the weekend, I organized my browser bookmark folder (yeah, it’s fun, ok??) and reflected that people, like websites, just can’t be put into just one or two folders/categories sometimes. Obvious, yet not.

4.  A NYTimes blog, melodramatically titled “The Choice” details college admissions. I found this post about applying to college by a senior who got into every single one of his 12 schools particularly instructive, not only for high school kids, but for everyone- in terms of how to view our lives and balance expectations and our own passions. His insights are simultaneously wise yet simple. The future is safe if it will be run by youth such as these. The gist: Take ownership over your work, learn constantly, and take responsibility for your life. He’s only 18!