New View Askew

  AI-Free Every year I say I am going to give up my affection – some might say obsession – for the winter solstice. It appears, however, I just can’t abandon this minor personality disorder. That tiny pinprick of hope at this dark time of the year always draws me back.   For me,  s hortly before June 21st,  i t starts  simply  as low spirits.  Then hour by hour, as the night begins to eat into the days, I  descend into a type of melancholy. Not a wholesale breakdown, mind you, just a Nordic glumness. Somehow, it seems to really hit home in earnest right after the day light saving time change. Is it the earlier sunset that dims my mood? Anyway, the encroaching  darkness throws its ugly shadow over the northland and the cold dreary gloom seems endless.   Yet oddly, like a person clinging to a life raft waiting for a ship on the horizon, I  strangely  look forward to this moment each year.  As they say, it is darkest before t...

If a Picture is Worth a Thousand Words . . . . . . How Many for 14 Charts? AI Free  T his was going to be my post  last month but I thought it was important  to  i nstead  swap in that  rather dark, gloomy view of America today  (Although a little less gloomy after the recent election?)  I'm sure you found it  either  frightening, unbelievable or irritating.  Perhaps all three.  In any event, h opefully you will find this one light, entertaining yet informative. Or at least one of the three. Don't be like Rat, read View Askew If you can’t decide how things are going in the world . . . you’re not the only one. To help with that  I chose these  14 charts (all but one) from a  series  curated and shared by a  journalist and podcaster named Derek Thompson. Hopefully you will find some of this information helpful, some surprising and some will confirm your suspicions. Perhaps some are all the above. First up...