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Here is an excerpt from a book I recently read, "The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns," by John Bogle.

Successful investing is about owning businesses and reaping the huge rewards provided by the dividends and earnings growth of our nation’s—and, for that matter, the world’s—corporations. The higher the level of their investment activity, the greater the cost of financial intermediation and taxes, the less the net return that shareholders—as a group, the owners of our businesses—receive. The lower the costs that investors as a group incur, the higher the rewards that they reap. So to enjoy the winning returns generated by businesses over the long term, the intelligent investor will reduce to the bare-bones minimum the costs of financial intermediation. That’s what common sense tells us. That’s what indexing is all about. And that’s the central message of this book.

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Here are a couple of excerpts from a book I recently read, "Talking Back, Talking Black: Truths About America's Lingua Franca," by John McWhorter 

There is a term for people whose casual and formal speech differs to this degree: diglossia, from the Greek for “two tongues.” However, I have held off on introducing that term, because giving this bidialectal linguistic existence a label implies that it is exotic, when in fact it is extremely common and even a norm. Around the world, if a language has a strong written tradition and is also spoken widely, then often its spoken versions have drifted from the conservative written standard to varying degrees. As often as not, this means that there is a gulf between the way people chat and the way they speak. They speak the written version; they talk the other version. As such, there is ample diglossia in many languages of South Asia, across Indonesia, and in Tibetan, Swahili, German, and Italian itself, as well as in Greece, China, parts of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, and elsewhere. If anything, what merits a special term is monoglossia—speaking always basically one thing. 

Black Americans are disglossic—perfectly normally diglossic. Whether they would be allowed to use Black English in a job interview is as loopy an issue to focus on as whether a Moroccan would defend his master’s thesis in Moroccan Arabic—almost as different from Standard Arabic as French is from Latin—or whether a Finn who gets a job as a newscaster would talk on the air the same way as she does to her mom.

I want you to be truly comfortable with the idea that there is indeed a black way of speaking, that there isn’t anything wrong with it, that it would be bizarre if such speech did not exist, and that it is spoken alongside Standard English, not in opposition to it. However, Black English (and there is a such thing!) is spoken in a society in which racism still exists, and the issue of what we do about racism is decidedly complex.

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Here is an excerpt from a book I recently read, "The Metamorphosis and Other Stories," by Franz Kafka.

"It must go away," cried the sister, "that is the only way, father. All you have to do is try to get rid of the thought that it is Gregor. That we believed it for so long is our real misfortune. But how can it be Gregor? If it were Gregor, he would have long since realized that people cannot live with such an animal and would have left voluntarily. We would then not have a brother, but we could go on living and cherish his memory. But as it is, this animal persecutes us, drives away the lodgers, obviously wants to take over the whole apartment, and leave us to sleep in the alley.

"Just look, Father," she shrieked suddenly, "he's starting again!" And in a panic that Gregor found completely incomprehensible, she even left her mother, literally pushed herself away from her chair, as if she would rather sacrifice her mother than stay near Gregor, and rushed behind her father who, entirely unhinged by her behavior, also stood up and half-raised his arms as if to protect her.

As The World Turns

 

For a work-related golf outing, I was recently paired up with an older gentleman who was 10 years retired from working in city government but still civically active and relationally connected. Having journeyed with other colleagues his age, as they wind down their formal careers and explore various levels of staying engaged, I asked him if it was his preference to stay in the loop, and if it was harder to do so now that he wasn't going into the office every day. 

His answer was a funny and insightful one. He asked me if I'd ever watched soap operas as a kid, and I told him that my mom and her sister would watch "As the World Turns," so there were probably some points in my childhood where I followed along and got to know the characters and plot lines. He responded that my answer proved his point. In his mind, Philly is a like a soap opera. There are main characters and central plot lines that carry over multiple seasons. And, even when new characters and plot lines are introduced, it doesn't take look for you to figure them out, if you've been watching for long enough. 

Sure enough, I remember returning to "As the World Turns" many years after my childhood, perhaps when I was home from college one summer and my mom or my aunt had it on the TV. And it is correct that within a single episode, even if you don't recognize characters or follow what's going on at first, by the end of the episode you've made the appropriate connections to follow along. Because people, even if new, play a certain role, and plot lines, even if new, are birthed out of older and more long-standing plot lines.

And so it is that this older gentleman has been able, 10 years out from quitting his day job, to either know what's going on in town or quickly figure it out. I don't know that I'm as savvy as he is, but I suspect many of us could also follow along reasonably well even if we were officially out of the loop for a bit. I guess that's how soap operas, and big cities, work. 

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Here is an excerpt from an article I recently read on ESPN.com, "Koivun Wins 3M Open in Third Pro Start, Holding Off Scheffler."

 

"I feel like I've gotten a lot better over the past couple years of being able to beat guys with my mentality," said Koivun, who broke the NCAA career record for per-round stroke average (68.89) and helped lead Auburn to the national championship last month. "Sometimes I watch guys hit on the range and I don't feel like I'm the most talented out there, but if I can go out there and believe and use my brain to my advantage, then that's definitely kind of like a superpower."

It's Long Overdue But Now Philly's Slamming

 

 

The announcement of LeBron James choosing to play for the Philadelphia 76ers for the next two years hit our fair city like a lightning bolt into an otherwise sleepy Friday summer day. But shock soon gave way to giddy excitement. James has a lot left in the tank and immediately makes the home team championship contenders. If he can do what he did in Cleveland, Miami, and Los Angeles and bring home that Larry O'Brien trophy, boy will that parade slap.

Beyond just elevating the 76ers on the court, James' arrival in Philadelphia portends many more positives for our city. Media coverage, jersey sales, and social media eyeballs follow James literally everywhere he goes. The extended James clan will soon learn how to navigate our transportation, schools, and social scene, and his global fan base will learn all about Philly in the process. As for the games themselves, national telecasts disproportionately feature whatever team LeBron is playing for, meaning a lot of shots of our arena and city will be broadcast around the world.

I'm brought back 35+ years ago to the second half of my senior year in high school, when I was deciding to go to Penn and then getting ready to enroll. Being a nerd of that area and serious about my career aspirations, the opportunity to go to the best undergrad business program in the land in the Wharton School of Business was too hard to pass up, and honestly if campus was on Mars I would've built a rocket ship to get me there.

Nowadays, youth are much more aware of the location in which they'll be spending four formative years of their lives, and they think about how that setting is part of the educational process they are buying into. But back then, I picked Wharton first and foremost, and the fact that it was in an old East Coast city that I knew very little about was truly an afterthought.

That said, by the second half of my senior year in high school, I was beginning to imagine myself living in Philly for the next four years (not knowing, of course, that I would fall in love with the city AND meet a girl, and consequently spend the rest of my life to date there). And, into that moment, a new group called Boyz II Men burst onto the scene with their mega-hit, "Motownphilly."

The song was immediately and insanely popular all over the country, and, while I had other reference points for Philly (Liberty Bell, Dr. J), that song essentially served as a proxy for this new place I would be going to. And so I could not help but equate Philly as a place that was unspeakably cool, somehow brash and refined at the same time, and unmistakably something that everyone couldn't get enough of.

"Motownphilly" was released in April 1991, the very month I submitted my decision to enroll at Penn. It's no exaggeration to say that that song helped cinch my decision to go to school 2,500 miles from home and put forth effort in getting to know the city that school was located in, which in turn has set the course for the entirety of my life since then. I'm not sure there's a song that's had a bigger impact on my life.

Fast forward to the present, and maybe there are shy teenagers all over the world whose decision to come to Philly is influenced in part by the fact that if it is a good enough place for LeBron James to pick for the sunset of his career and to serve as the 2026-2028 home for the extended James family and professional unit, then maybe it holds some promise for them as well. Whatever circumstances came together in the world and in my head in April 1991 to make me decide to come to Penn, I am profoundly grateful for the good life they have led to for me. It's exciting to think that maybe there are others in 2026 who are about to embark on the start of a similar journey.

Trusting the Process for One Last Job

 

 

 

When LeBron James famously announced he was taking his "talents to South Beach," my friend got a kick out of how James' move from Cleveland to Miami coincided perfectly with his own decision to relocate his consulting practice from Ohio to Florida for both personal and business reasons. I teased him, because his decision came first, that he set the trend and LeBron followed.

That was over a decade ago. Yesterday, the story broke that LeBron will play the next two years of his career (I assume his last two years of his career but who knows?) for the 76ers, rocketing our home team to the top of media attention, jersey sales, and championship aspirations. It's a giddy time for a city that is already basking in the glow of having successfully hosted the PGA Tournament, MLB All-Star Game, and FIFA World Cup in this the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence (which of course also happened here). Summer of Philly indeed!

LeBron's words are always dissected to death, and yesterday's announcement was no different. I immediately gravitated to a sentiment that cuts deeply personally, which is that he left one job (having played for the Los Angeles Lakers the past 8 years and informing them he did not wish to return for a 9th season) and had this time to process with those closest to him what would be a good next (last?) job in what is one of the all-time great careers of any sport.

This is exactly where I am, having decided to leave one job (Econsult Solutions, where I was employed from 2006 to 2026), without knowing what my next job is, and doing so with intention so that the job search could be informed by this in-between season rather than pre-determined prior to my departure from my previous job.

Really brave or really dumb? Probably a little bit of both, but let's focus on the positives. This transition season has been rich in travel and recreation, as well as exploring a wide range of potential next jobs (and the fascinating people, topics, and conversations that come along with that), and a not insignificant amount of time in self-reflection as well, to help guide my searching so that it hopefully yields a process and outcome consistent with my most deeply held beliefs.

I am now 2+ months into my process and still uncertain what's next and when. LeBron similarly kept us all in suspense all summer but has since made his decision. I guess that puts me on the clock to make my call too. Will keep you posted!

Everyday Christianity

 

In my faith journey, I've been fortunate to observe a wide diversity of expressions of worship and truth. Formal preaching as well as sermons laced with vernacular and anecdotes. High worship and contemporary. Intellectually dense and simple-minded. I think this is good, as I think all are acceptable and honorable manifestations of our interaction with the divine.

I do think it is not surprising, since we are fallen humans, that not so righteous thoughts creep into our faith expressions. This includes more sophisticated people of faith looking down on less sophisticated people of faith, exalting their ways as holier and considering less refined ways to be less than.

It is interesting to me that the English versions of the Bible over the years have represented a far more earthy and accessible language use. We think of the King James as stilted and lofty with its "thee's" and "thou's," but that was actually the common people's cadence, with the translation being as faithful as possible to both the original Hebrew and Greek as well as how normal folks spoke in everyday life. 

And of course Jesus Himself was very counter-cultural from the perspective of the respected religious leaders of the day, choosing to pal around with fishermen and women of questionable reputation rather than society's elite. Which of course is not to say that one can't be both upper-class and secularly influential as well as a person of faith. But it is also to say that one definitely needn't be upper-class and secularly influential in order to be important in the taxonomy of the Kingdom of God.

I went to an Ivy League school and have had white-collar jobs all my adult life. But my faith is meant to be accessible to all, if we who are esteemed more highly in our society don't get in the way with our arrogance and haughtiness.

Conversion Theory

 

This story, which I'd been following from behind the scenes for quite some time, finally broke while I was away this summer. The building housing Woodland Presbyterian Church, the congregation I was part of  from the mid-1990s to the mid-2010s, was sold off a few years back and it is now official that it will be converted to luxury apartments.

I cannot overstate how meaningful that location is to me and how special that place was to so many. Church is, unfortunately, so segregated and so sterile, whereas Woodland was so diverse and so real. Amy and I got married there, and I attended many other weddings there, as well as many funerals and worship services and potluck dinners. It is, truly, what I think church should look like, and I haven't been able to attain it before or since.

It's natural to lament the closure of a church and the conversion of its physical facilities. With religious attendance in decline, this is happening all throughout the country. In Philadelphia, this story layers on many other dynamics, namely: the relationship between the community and the main institution in the area, the University of Pennsylvania (which entertained the possibility of buying and using the site before ultimately deciding to decline); and the specter of gentrification as a house of worship welcoming to rich and poor now gives way to housing at a relatively high price point.

Nostalgia has a powerful pull on us, as it should. I personally ache as I think about how important that place was to my life in so many ways, juxtaposed with it being repurposed for something completely different. Nevertheless, change is inevitable, and the marketplace speaks the loudest. Indeed, I know for a fact that those involved in the recent stewardship of the site tried desperately to find a buyer who would retain the site's core function as a place of worship. 

In the end, more housing is a very good thing for our neighborhood, and one shouldn't understate how positive this is. Even more significant is that adaptive reuse is far better than demolition; honestly, it is a huge stretch to retain the structure than to start anew, so I consider this to be a big win for preservationists and for those of us for whom the building means so much to us psychologically. 

I think it's still sad news. But it could've been far sadder. And there's a lot of happiness in there too. 

Lazy Linking, 244th in an Occasional Series

Stuff I liked lately on the Internets:

244.1 Americans are back to starting businesses, boosted in large part by AI ventures and AI lowering barriers to starting all other ventures 

244.2 The early data suggests AVs are safer, and more usage = more data = more efficient insurance markets; but trial lawyers oppose them due to the reduced opportunities for injury/death lawsuits

244.3 2000 years later we are slowly beginning to understand how Roman concrete has been able to last so long

244.4 In our fight for greater housing access, it feels good to oppose high-end development, but evidence of how filtering increases affordability can be found in the Financial Times and in...crab shells?

244.5 Can attest that Singapore's airport deserves the #1 spot in this ranking of where you wouldn't mind spending a long layover

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Here are some excerpts from a book I recently read, "Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy," by Mary Roach.

 

Dentures have been around since the 1700s. Who would rely on a masticator when they could opt for false teeth? In fact, people often had both. They’d masticate in the privacy of their room, then install their dentures and head into the dining room to sit down and not eat. Far from being a functional replacement for molars and incisors, false teeth at the time were largely ornamental, a sort of wig for the mouth. “With uncertain adaptation to the jaws, and primitive fastening arrangements, false teeth were in general almost useless for eating,” wrote the late John Woodforde in The Strange Story of False Teeth, a book I chewed through to here expectorate a few morsels.

“Wait, so why would you use anything other than an autograft?” 

Goverman swivels from his computer to answer. Supply problems, in short. With a major burn, surgeons quickly run out of graftable (unburned) skin. “Sometimes we have to use the soles of the feet, the scalp, even the scrotum,” Goverman says. Areas that have been harvested can be reharvested after they’ve healed, but that can take two or three weeks. In the meantime, an allograft (skin from another human, typically a deceased tissue donor) or a xenograft (skin from another species) protects the wound. It also prevents some of the fluid loss. Deep burns destroy the closed-loop integrity of the circulatory system; leaking capillaries (among other things) send blood pressure dangerously low. Temporary grafts also make changing bandages less painful for patients, and they help keep them warm. Because they’ve literally lost their coat. Burn survivors can develop hypothermia in a 70-degree room. ICUs and ORs for survivors of major burns are often kept at 90 or even 105 degrees, nurses and surgeons sweating under their scrubs and sterile gowns. 

Another question for Goverman: If skin grafts taken from other bodies are just a temporary dressing, why then did the frog and dog and rabbit skin grafters of nineteenth-century medical journals (and of the previous chapter) write that these grafts would “take”? Because they did. “It becomes your skin for a few days,” Goverman says. One of the things that happens with a big burn is that the immune system is suppressed. The lowered vigilance means a piece of foreign tissue is not flagged as dangerous. So the body follows normal skin protocols, extending the welcome handshake of capillary growth. For a matter of days, people were in fact part frog or puppy or rabbit. 

An allograft lingers longer under the radar, because skin from a fellow Homo sapiens is a closer match than skin of another species. It likely buys you weeks, not days. Whatever is used, person or beast, a graft also helps prevent infection. The immune system’s temporary slowdown makes this critical in the early days after a serious burn. When someone dies after a serious burn, it’s often because of sepsis: a localized infection has gone systemic. 

Eventually an allograft for a bad burn will be replaced with a permanent graft of the patient’s own skin. The surgeon can wait for the allograft to be rejected and slough off, or the surgeon can, as I believe I phrased it in a question to Goverman, rip it off. 

“Ripping it off is actually nice because it freshens the wound bed.” Makes it bleed, he means. Blood is good. Blood heals. Blood feeds the new graft. “You want a nice vascular wound bed.”

For Diana, the pain, emotional and physical both, began in burn rehab: the daily lineup of physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy. Worse than all of that: the first time she saw herself in a mirror. At Mass General the staff were careful to cover reflective surfaces, but a physical therapist took her to a gym that had a full-length mirror. “It wasn’t supposed to happen until much later,” she recalls. “It was a major major major major trauma.” She looks over at Jerry. “I’m thinking, he’s going to leave me. I couldn’t understand why he was still there, unless it was out of guilt.” 

Jerry sets down his fork. “I told her, ‘It’s just skin. I don’t love you for your physical appearance. I love you because you’re you.’ And she didn’t say anything. And I said, ‘Are you still you?’ She said, ‘I’m still Diana.’ I said, ‘Then I still love you.’ ”

If all goes well with this line of research, gene-edited pigs will eventually be donating more than just skin. The science is moving from xenografting to xenotransplantation. “The ultimate goal would be, you’d have your own personal pig,” Goverman said. In other words, a pig edited to match your own genetics: skin, kidneys, heart—ready to use, like a car kept for parts.

Until I met one, it never occurred to me to wonder why anesthesiologists put surgery patients on a ventilator in the first place. Why would a machine need to breathe for them? It’s because general anesthesia has slowed their breathing. And because they’ve been paralyzed. General anesthesia may include a drug that relaxes (to the point of nonfunction) the muscles. Paralyzing muscles makes them easier for the surgeon to cut through, and it ensures that the patient holds still. If you were to awaken while someone has your guts on a table or your heart in their hand, things could get chaotic fast. Paralyzing the patient also makes it easier for the anesthesiologist to push the breathing tube past the vocal cords during intubation. However, it has to be done quickly, because one of those paralyzed muscles is the diaphragm, the major muscle that works the lungs. Meaning that the patient is on a fast track to suffocation.

The time pressure is intense. An anesthesiologist has but a few minutes to get the ventilator tube down the windpipe of their poised-to-suffocate patient. The longer it takes, the greater the risks: stroke, heart attack, kidney damage, brain death. All the consequences of oxygen deprivation. Generally speaking, the scariest part of going under the knife is the under, not the knife.