“Love and Madness in the Jungle”

Posted on May 15, 2013 by James Ament

A brilliant American financier and his exotic wife build a lavish mansion in the jungles of Costa Rica, set up a wildlife preserve, and appear to slowly, steadily lose their minds. A spiral of handguns, angry locals, armed guards, uncut diamonds, abduction plots, and a bedroom blazing with 550 Tiffany lamps ends with a body and a compelling mystery: Did John Felix Bender die by his own hand? Or did Ann Bender kill him to escape their crumbling dream?

The comments are also worth reading….

How Geography Explains the United States

Posted on May 2, 2013 by James Ament

From Foreign Policy, by Aaron David Miller:

Do Americans have a worldview? And is there a central organizing principle that explains it? To frame the question in Tolkienesque terms: Might there be one explanation that rules them all?
…Sigmund Freud argued that in the human enterprise, anatomy is destiny. In the affairs of nations, geography — what it wills, demands, and bestows — is destiny too.

Read the whole thing at the link.

The damnation of Christopher Hitchens

Posted on April 26, 2013 by James Ament

From GQ, Michael Wolff beats up on the dead Christopher Hitchens:

Writer, orator and highbrow barfly Christopher Hitchens transformed, in his final years, from searing socialist showman into untouchable, saintly sage. But, asks his former media cohort, was this beatification deserved… at all?

For all his faults, I’ve always enjoyed the brilliant snarky writing of Christopher Hitchens.

Colorado’s Future—Pot Central?

Posted on April 23, 2013 by James Ament

From GQ, a 2010 article about pot-smoking in Amsterdam.

With pot laws changing, we thought it’d be a good idea to send our weed-averse correspondent to see what life is really like in Amsterdam, the world’s cannabis capital. He took a job at a marijuana coffee shop, inhaled the best stuff on earth, and saw the totally righteous future of legalized ganja

And a related, more current article from Business Week, Q&A: Is Colorado the Napa Valley of Weed?

The news media end times

Posted on April 19, 2013 by James Ament

From The Guardian, another article about how the dinosaurs are dying: This is no ‘golden age’ of journalism. These are the news media end times.

How We’re Turning Digital Natives Into Etiquette Sociopaths

Posted on April 14, 2013 by James Ament

From Wired:

We’re turning maintaining important relationships into mere to-do-list items.

And this comment resonated with me, although I had to look up Borg:

This may be less about etiquette than it is about interfacing with old people.

Kids today are pretty much the Borg. They’re constantly linked with their friends, and will have developed their own rules based on this very different way of coexisting with peers.

It’s going to be interesting to see how many of them can function at all as individuals when cut off from the collective.

Sinatra, The Rat Pack, and Paul Anka

Posted on April 7, 2013 by James Ament

From The Daily Mail, a piece by Paul Anka:

Sinatra, his molls and me: Brutally honest memoir by the man who wrote My Way and became an honorary member of the Rat Pack will make your hair stand on end.

Well, maybe not, but it’s interesting nonetheless if you are of a certain age.

How Headphones Changed the World

Posted on April 4, 2013 by James Ament

From The Atlantic:

If you are reading this on a computer, there is an excellent chance that you are wearing, or within arm’s reach of, a pair of headphones or earbuds.

To visit a modern office place is to walk into a room with a dozen songs playing simultaneously but to hear none of them. Up to half of younger workers listen to music on their headphones, and the vast majority thinks it makes us better at our jobs. In survey after survey, we report with confidence that music makes us happier, better at concentrating, and more productive.

Science says we’re full of it. Listening to music hurts our ability to recall other stimuli, and any pop song — loud or soft — reduces overall performance for both extraverts and introverts.

Then there is this:

It’s not just that headphones carve privacy out of public spaces. It is also that music causes us to relax and reflect and pause.

See No Evil: The Case of Alfred Anaya

Posted on April 3, 2013 by James Ament

From Wired, a fascinating story of a gross injustice.:

Alfred Anaya was a genius at installing secret compartments in cars. If they were used to smuggle drugs without his knowledge, he figured that wasn’t his problem. He was wrong.

10 Laws of Productivity

Posted on March 29, 2013 by James Ament

Found at 99U:

You might think that creatives as diverse as Internet entrepreneur Jack Dorsey, industrial design firm Studio 7.5, and bestselling Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami would have little in common. In fact, the tenets that guide how they – and exceptionally productive creatives across the board – make ideas happen are incredibly similar.

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
« Apr
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31

James Russell Ament

Essays, Journals, Book Reviews, Commentary on Literature & Culture

Category Archives: Articles