Summer Reading
My summer reading stack...yes, it's my addiction. And happily, it's a pretty typical load...
*Charleston Post & Courier-Local News
*New York Times-National and World and New York City News-Liberal Editorial Page
*Wall Street Journal-National and World Business News-Conservative Editorial Page
*South Carolina Advance Sheets-Appellate Cases from SC Supreme Court and Court of Appeals
*North Carolina Lawyers Weekly-Legal News and Case Summaries from the Old North State
*South Carolina Lawyers Weekly-Legal News and Case Summaries from the Palmetto State
*North Carolina Triad Business Journal-Greensboro/Winston-Salem/High Point Business News
*Charleston Metro Business Journal-LowCountry Business News
*University of North Carolina Alumni Review-Got to keep up with Heel World
*Choate Rosemary Hall Bulletin-My old beloved once but no more dammit all-boys prep school
*Article-An Overview of Loving Kindness Meditation-Trying to keep blood pressure down
*Letter-from Montana Academy about piece of ominous, pending Federal Legislation
*Book-The funeral of "Titanic" Thompson-about one of this country's most legendary hustlers
*New England Journal of Medicine-Medical News and Trends
*Parade Magazine-Article-"Do You Need This Surgery?"
*Book-When Religion Becomes Evil-Five Warning Signs-Commentary by Wake Forest's brilliant Charles Kimball
*Magazine-The Week-I find it Far Better than Time, Newsweek, US News but "a chacun son gout"...
*Magazine-The New Yorker-Great Articles and The Best Cartoons
*Book-War of Wars-900 pages of The Brits versus Napoleon's France at turn of the 18th/19th Centuries
Do I read every word? Impossible? But I've gotten very adept at drilling down, going through, plucking out and herding what I really need; setting aside for more intense reading and learning.
I'm big on tearing out from magazines and newspapers; lessens the volume; ditto on case reports.
And let us not neglect the Internet. It's First Stop each day. I'm up almost every day at 5 a.m., Coffee's made by 5:15 and by 5:30, I'm in the den at my desk scanning. My Regular Stops and Peeks include:
*Drudgereport.com
*Washington Post
*Winston-Salem Journal
*Charlotte Observer
*Raleigh News & Observer
*Columbia State
*Atlanta Journal & Constitution
*Los Angeles Times
*Politico.com
*Politiker.com
*Sports Illustrated
*ESPN
*The Weekly Standard
*Washington Times
*Weather.com
And Most Importantly ;)
Three Very Special Members Only Super Secret UNC Athletics List Serves with all the poop, skinny and straight dope from the Southern Part of Heaven aka Chapel Hill J
And too there's Email-hundreds each day. Many useless, Many important and helpful.
Simply put, it's a damn good thing I love to read as in my business, I have to read. But more importantly, in my life, I have to read too.
Were I not able to, I would be intellectually starving and of course, I would hate that.
I'll never forget my Daddy giving me the sports Section each morning and all my first Landmark books and when I was 10, as I was so crazy about war and army and soldiers then, he gave me my first 'grownup' books, THE LONGEST DAY and THE SAND PEBBLES. I devoured them and never looked back.
I owe him a lot.
(Now that I think of it he was always slipping another dime so I could get 'just one more' comic book...Now I get it!)
So today, it being almost Sunday afternoon, I'll plop onto the couch, turn on the Braves and begin to begin again, reading, sorting, eliminating, gathering, learning. I love it so.
In the fashionable salons of Paris in the heady days of just after our having won our independence from Britain, one of the amusement rituals were 'Intellectual Games' where the famous and celebrated asked probing, open-ended questions of one another.
In one of salons, someone (Madame Staehl?) asked our emissary Benjamin Franklin what was the saddest thing he could ever imagine. He replied quickly, "Oh, that would be an old man in a library of wonderful books with broken glasses!"
Damn Close if not downright right.
Read On Brothers and Sisters! Read On!
