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Sunday, May 13, 2018

The Writer's Life 5/13 - Numbers

Today's NY Post is chock full of interesting articles. Peggy Noonan devotes her op-ed piece to Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone and his new book, I Love Capitalism. A child of the lower middle class, he grew up on Long Island and started working at eleven, and eventually made his fortune on Wall Street.


Mary Kay Linge re-introduces Lyudmila Pavlichenko, a Soviet WWII sniper who took out 309 Nazis. She toured America in 1942 and became friends with Eleanor Roosevelt. So valuable to his propaganda machine, Stalin wouldn't allow her to return to combat, despite her pleas. For the first time her memoir, Lady Death, is available in English.


Reed Tucker covers the effort involved to reach Pluto, which is the subject of Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto by Alan Stern and David Grinspoon. Despite a speed of 31,000 MPH, it took the craft almost ten years to arrive at its original destination. The info it transmitted took a year to reach Earth. It discovered surprisingly diverse terrain - canyons and mountains described as geologically active. It even found a hint of water beneath the surface. It has now traveled a billion miles beyond Pluto. At the start of 2019 it is expected to photograph the Kuiper Belt, a collection of orbiting rocky bodies, then continue further and further into space, boldly going where no man has gone before.   


Oliver Libby profiles several young entrepreneurs in a two-page spread. Kudos to the Post for its defense of the system that has done far more for mankind than any other - capitalism.

In his business column, Jonathon Trugman points out a stat that was buried under the avalanche of this week's big stories: there are currently 6.6 million job openings in the USA, the highest ever recorded, more than the number of people unemployed.

As for this unabashed capitalist, for the seventh straight day I did business under the scaffold, and will do so for at least the next four, barring the unforeseen, as I secured the second best parking spot. My thanks to the young woman carrying a pizza, who bought John Grisham's The King of Torts, and to the gentleman carrying flowers, who purchased three thrillers in Russian.


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