Mid-week

The passing of urban community activist, Jane Jacobs, most famous for the book, “The Death and Life of Great American Cities.” NY Times has a lengthy and fascinating obituary of Jacobs. Jacobs is notable for articulating – if not changing – the way we think about urban development.
The passing of Newsday columnist Dennis Duggan: the NY Times obituary and, more importantly, the Newsday one. There’s the AP one that Newsday posted too.

Great read: “On Bullshit” by Harry G. Frankfurt. A Princeton professor of philosophy (emeritus), he explains insight on what is b.s., and what is the intention (if any) behind it. Very well written b.s., if I may say so, about b.s. Very slim read (bit over-priced for something so small; they ought to release like a collection of Prof. Frankfurt’s writings in one book – far more a bargain), and lots of stuff that flew over my head (Big Words and Philosophical Mumbo Jumbo; then again, I was a liberal arts undergrad, so not impossible to grasp anyway). May require another couple of re-reads (plus a dictionary) to truly appreciate. For some reason, I imagined the voice of Donald Sutherland as the narrator. Although, I doubt that Prof. Frankfurt actually sounds like Donald Sutherland. Or Keifer for that matter.