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GP16Apr03: Keeping Up with Friends in April Why. We started the Global Province to stay in touch with old friends. Moreover, we wanted to relentlessly push quality in a world that is worshipping quantity. You’ll have to tell us how we are doing on quality, but we’re having lots of luck on the people front. New ballistic flurries from a bevy of friends rain on us weekly, all aptly designed to cut us down to size. Probably the best at this is Les of Boston, a novelist and an academic who wants to remind us that our middle-of-the-road politics are decidedly right of the truth. Undaunted, we drink our Malbec and look for other insights that will please nobody. An Apology. Some of you have written to ask us whether we have bitten the dust. Many have not been receiving our weekly letters. That’s due to a local Internet firm that suddenly could not handle 10,000-plus newsletters going out to the whole of the globe. Our webmaestro Mike has solved this by moving to another supplier as well as adding several other improvements to our site. Mike promises to make us better than we’d be if left to our own devices. Incidentally, you can view any letters you missed on our site at the section entitled Letters from the Global Province. Notice: Nota Bene. We’ve changed the homepage. In addition to discovering what’s new, you can see the full contents just below in a hurry. Investor’s Digest now has some investor tips in addition to featuring companies that Wall Street cannot bother with. Take a look at Best of Class. We’ve carved out some categories there—Best Spices, Best Hotels, Best Restaurants, etc.—that are proving very popular with our friends around the globe. Many of these bests show up in the world press, since more than 200 journalists now read our newsletter and our website. And there are all sorts of other changes, with more to come: we will in time be offering a newsletter dealing with some aspects of cuisine. Sighting Other Friends. Mike Hicks, a brilliant Austin designer, has made us laugh for years. If you’ll look at Scenes from the Global Province, you will find some of his domestic caviar, a repast worth your while. Regularly, Charles Wheat, speechwriter extraordinaire, and Gary Gladstone, renowned New York photographer and recent author of a book on America’s strangely named places, provide us with jokes aplenty, some of which find their way into our Global Wit section. New Friends. Maybe the real purpose of the Internet is to meet good new minds. The map antiquarian in England. The electrical engineer at Yale who has shed light on our lightening problems. The public health guru from the Veterans Administration who is honest enough to say he doesn’t know what will solve health in America. The armchair historian in Kansas who organizes historical discourse across the globe. The astute New York money manager who stridently warns us away from the still too pricey big capitalization stocks. Just this week we heard from Ron Kessler at Harvard who has focused on the grievous losses American business suffers because American workers aren’t as healthy as they might be. Sometime we mean to tell you more about Dr. Kessler, because he’s been unduly prolific, producing papers, thoughts, and sermons galore about the condition of the mind and spirit of modern America. April Is the Cruelest Month. That’s what Tom Eliot said. With taxes and war on our doorstep, maybe we should admit he’s right. That’s why this letter is all about friendship, which is surely the ultimate antidote for cruelty. In our view, even the computer, which has brought so much alienation to society, can be turned into a magnet that draws together people at the ends of the earth. And, by the way, we are off to Washington this week to confront April’s blossoms and a few policymakers, but mostly just to see friends. Can We Talk? That’s what Joan Rivers says, or said anyway. If you have something to say, send us a note. Please look for the best you’ve got and share it with us. Make us better. The Best. Our business here is to bring you the best—the best people, ideas, goods, health thoughts, etc. We will be expanding on this simple idea, hoping to provide discriminating people with easy access to things that matter. That’s the essence of our consulting practice as well: to help good people reach for the very best. |
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