jlilienthal's blog

While reading a political article (actually, more like a screed) the other day, I came across the description of a candidate as an “ectomorph.” Upon quick reflection, I deemed the term descriptively spot on. This in turn led me to consider its variants: endomorph and mesomorph.

Now for those who may not know what these words mean (or are too lazy to look them up), here are their general definitions:

“Success has a thousand fathers; failure is an orphan,” goes the old saying. But failure itself can be positive if lessons learned are applied to future schemes and dreams, turning dismal defeat into incandescent entelechy. No pun intended, but think of the careers of Thomas Edison and the recently deceased Steve Jobs. Both men’s business lives were marked by a spectacular succession of failures. Yet, they endured, and a century apart have become icons of American inventiveness and success.

The older I get, the more people think I know. Or perhaps they hope I can share with them some “keys to successful writing” that will instantly transmogrify their ineluctably leaden sludge into delightful Juvenalian prose… turn their pretentious lucubrations into memorably luculent manuscripts. 

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A recent WSJ article caught my attention. A study revealed that minority children spend about thirteen hours a day and white children about eight-and-one-half hours daily lost in their electronic contraptions. A clinical psychologist at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C, made this remarkably epiphanic observation: “They’re going to miss out on a lot of important things, especially face-to-face contact.”

Once again proving that alternative energy zealots live in an alternative world while simultaneously confirming the immutable laws of physics (and often those of economics) and that engineering truths always triumph over green dreams, I offer the following news items:   

North SeaWind Turbines